The U.S. and Canada pointed fingers at each other after trade talks collapsed, triggering 50 percent tariffs and mutual accusations.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced late Friday that he had suspended trade negotiations with the United States and pulled his team home minutes before a midnight deadline. It set in motion steep new tariffs on Canadian exports.
"As a result, this evening I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the U.S. and have directed Canada's negotiators to return to Ottawa," Carney said in a statement posted on X. He blamed a reversal by the Trump administration in the final hours, saying, "Last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal."
Carney vowed retaliation and framed the walkout as a matter of principle. The goal had always been "the best deal for Canadians, never a deal at any price or on any deadline," Carney wrote.
"At midnight tonight, the U.S. intends to impose a 50 percent tariff on roughly $28 billion of Canadian goods," he wrote. "Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses."
The Trump administration told the opposite story in a statement of its own that was posted after midnight. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canada was the party that balked.
"Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week," Greer wrote in a statement posted on X. Greer pinned the collapse on "new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada" that he wrote "upended the careful balance reached in the past days."
Greer wrote that the U.S. offered "significant tariff reductions on steel, aluminum, autos, and lumber," along with a "historic economic and national security partnership" and formal renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He also needled Canada's retaliation, which has included provincial bans pulling American alcohol from store shelves.
Greer called the breakdown "a missed opportunity for Canada to partner with the United States, which is the fastest growing economy in the G7."
Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week.
Despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful…
— United States Trade Representative (@USTradeRep) August 22, 2026
