U.S. President Donald Trump predicted his administration could reach a trade deal with Canada “fairly soon,” after repeating claims his country had been “ripped off” by its northern neighbour. Trump made the comment while taking questions from reporters in Ireland alongside that country’s Taoiseach, or prime minister, Micheál Martin. A journalist had asked if he is considering withdrawing from the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, known as CUSMA. “We’re going to have a great relationship with Mexico. We actually have a good one with Canada, but the United States has been ripped off for 50 years by Canada,” he said. “We don’t need their product, and they need our product. They do all of their business almost with us and we do very little with them.” According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Canada exported US$382 billion in goods to the U.S. in 2025 and imported US$334 billion. A TD report on trade between the two countries found that in 2024, Canada was the United States’ second largest trading partner, behind Mexico. Some 34 states sell more goods to Canada than any other foreign economy, according to the bank. Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are in the midst of several trade negotiations. The CUSMA pact came up for regular review over the summer, and the U.S. opted not to renew it outright. Instead, the Three Amigos will participate in annual surveys, while agreement itself remains in place. Meanwhile, Canadian and U.S. trade negotiators appear to continue behind the scenes, even after formal talks broke down on Aug. 21. That day, Prime Minister Mark Carney called his delegation home from Ottawa after he says the U.S. introduced new and unacceptable requirements at the 11th hour. The Americans blamed Canada for the impasse. Ralphe Goodale, a member of Carney’s insider Canada-U.S. trade advisory group, called the American offer “one sided” and “fundamentally uneconomic” during an interview with CTV News Channel Saturday. Following the rupture, Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs on nearly $28 billion in Canadian goods. Canadian retaliatory tariffs took effect Tuesday; later that day, Trump signed new orders to ban imports of some Canadian products, including most alcohol. He also added new products to the tariff list and took some off it, including toilet paper, cement and road salt. Agriculture tariffs Trump also took aim at Canada’s agricultural imports on Saturday. “They were charging our farmers 400 per cent tariffs,” he claimed, apparently referencing Canada’s supply management system – a system that regulates the amount of agricultural goods entering the country. Eggs, turkey, chicken and dairy products fall within that system, which allows a certain amount of those goods to enter the country with low or no tariffs. Exceed that quota, and importers face high levies. Goodale called Trump’s characterization “factually wrong,” and “part of the PR game.” Canada an ‘enemy?’ “Canada wants to make a deal very badly,” Trump told reporters on Saturday, touching as well on an eventual peace deal in Iran. “Canada wants to make a deal, and Iran wants to make a deal. And at the right time both of those things could happen,” he said, remarking that he hopes “Canada appreciates being in the same sentence with Iran.” CTV News political commentator Scott Reid said Trump’s inclusion of Iran in his answer “really speaks to the destructive nature of Donald Trump’s foreign policy.” “We are now treated expressly as an enemy,” said Reid, who served as a communications director to former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. He added Trump’s comments could “stiffen the spine” of Canadians looking at a prospective trade deal with the U.S. ‘Hard to keep up with the ups and downs’ “It’s hard to keep up with the ups and downs of the Canada-U.S. dynamic right now,” said policy and advocacy strategist Diamond Isinger. Isinger formerly served as a special adviser to former prime minister Justin Trudeau during the renegotiation or the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA). While the trade tension temperature appears to have been turned down even slightly, she still has reservations. “If they (the U.S.) simply would like to resume talks at the same starting point things were severed, those were not realistic expectations for Canada to agree to,” Isinger said. Getting back to the negotiating table would require the U.S. to move off their current position, she suggests. “If talks resume, I expect we would need a high degree of good faith, a willingness to bring new offers to the table on the part of the U.S. because Canadians wouldn’t accept the status quo of what was on the table weeks ago,” Isinger said.
