Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to Washington today ahead of talks with US President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
The CBC reports that 'partial relief' from steel tariffs is the modest expectation of the Canadian delegation, citing three Canadian sources. The hope is that some sort of steel quota/tariff system will be the framework for other industries hit by tariffs, including aluminum.
At the same time, Canadian officials aren't getting their hopes too high. From the CBC:
While the sources all characterize the ongoing trade talks between Canada and the U.S. as positive, there remains a nervousness that comes with Trump-related events, given how unpredictable the president had proven to be.
Typically, a leader-to-leader event of this nature would include the announcement of finalized agreements or plans.
Last week. the Canadian and Ontario governments announced a $500m loan package to Algoma Steel, which is the only large Canadian independent steel producer. At the same time, the company forecast Q3 EBITDA expected to be negative $80-90 million. A chart of the company shows how dire it's performed since the US election.
US-based Cleveland Cliffs owns Stelco's operations and Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal owns Dofasco. Cliff CEO Lourenco Goncalves is close with some in the Trump administration and lobbied heavily to block the US Steel-Nippon Steel takeover. He spoke with BNN last month and sounded like an envoy arguing for Canada to block foreign imports.
He was asked about an open US-Canada border, blocking out other importers:
"That's exactly what we are proposing. I believe that once Canada implements the measures [blocking 80% of foreign imports], Canada will be replicating exactly what we're doing in the United States, then we have a fortress US-Canada. That's a good basis for starting negotiations."
In July, Canada announced import quotas and tariffs. We will see if that's enough.
