Statement by Prime Minister Carney on Canada-U.S. trade negotiations
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August 21, 2026
Ottawa, Ontario
“Over the past 18 months, Canada’s new government has focused on building our strength at home, diversifying our partnerships abroad, and striking a fair deal with the United States.
Our objectives in our trade negotiations have been to:
Preserve tariff-free access to the U.S. for the vast majority of Canadian business;
Provide greater stability to our trade relationship;
Significantly reduce U.S. tariffs on our key strategic industries, so that Canadian businesses in these sectors would have the best access of any in the world;
Protect our small and medium-sized businesses – the lifeblood of our economy – including by removing the imminent threat of new tariffs; and
Maintain our flexibility, independence, and sovereignty so we can keep building the Canada we want.
We have recognised from the beginning that America has changed, and that we will not return to our old relationship. Our government understood, before many, that America is altering all its trade relationships. Putting tariffs on its closest allies and charging for access to its vast market.
We have worked in that context. To strike a fair deal that would provide the best access to the U.S. market and greater certainty to Canadian businesses and workers. Throughout, our goal has been to secure the best deal for Canadians, never a deal at any price or on any deadline.
In recent weeks, we made important progress toward improving Canada’s position as having the best deal in the world with the U.S.
However, that progress has not been enough to meet our objectives for Canadians. 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. They have worked hard, in good faith, to defend the interests of Canadians throughout these negotiations up until the very last minute. However, last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.
At midnight tonight, the U.S. intends to impose a 50% tariff on roughly $28 billion of Canadian goods. Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses.
In the coming days, the government will introduce additional measures to support Canadian workers and businesses, building on the nearly $25 billion in support provided over the past 18 months.
These actions complement Canada’s core economic strategy. From day one, we have been focused on building our strength at home and diversifying our partnerships abroad.
That strategy is working. We are advancing nearly $500 billion in major infrastructure projects. In parallel, we are unlocking new export markets for Canadian businesses. Our existing free trade deals already provide Canada with preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers, and we are on track to double that market access by the end of this year.
Canadian economic growth is accelerating, and we are on course to have the second-fastest growth in the G7 over the next two years. Our economy is creating jobs at four times the rate of the United States. Our exports to non-U.S. markets are on track to double over the next decade. Foreign direct investment in Canada is at its highest level in two decades, running at twice the rate of our nearest G7 competitor. Canada now ranks as the most attractive country in the world for infrastructure investment.
Canada has what the world wants. And we will not allow any nation to determine our future. We will set our own course to keep building Canada strong for all.”
On October 19, Albertans will answer an official, non-binding referendum question: should Alberta remain a province of Canada, or pursue a future binding referendum on separation?
The idea of Wexit is that Alberta and other Western provinces would secede from Canada to gain independence. And that would serve the interests of Russia, by weakening Canada and depriving it of Alberta’s vast natural gas reserves and other national resource riches. That’s why the Kremlin has escalated its influence operations. From late 2025 onward, the Pravda News Network, Sputnik, RT, and a vast network of paid North American collaborators have stoked grievances about Alberta’s exploitation and brought extremist views into the mainstream
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.the US wants what Alberta has got: exceedingly valuable natural gas. Putin understands that reasoning.
Source: Ruth Ben-Ghiat Substack
Australian similarities:
Push in Alberta to break away from Canada and form a new country
Posted Sat at 8:09pmSaturday at 8:09pm, updated Sat at 8:54pmSaturday at 8:54pm
Christopher Scott sees Albertan independence as a way to “rewrite the rules from the people’s perspective”. (ABC News: Bradley McLennan)
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As he walks around his cafe refilling coffee and delivering baskets of gravy-laden poutine, Christopher Scott wears his politics on his T-shirt.
“Free Alberta!” the shirt declares.
The Whistle Stop Cafe’s signature dish is the “heart attack burger”, which boasts eight beef patties and various other meats. A MAGA baseball cap rests on the cafe’s jukebox, but on this side of the US-Canada border, the acronym stands for Make Alberta Great Again.
The cafe has become a meeting point for Alberta’s separatists, who are pushing for the province to break away from Canada and form a new country.
The movement is exposing deep fractures inside one of the world’s most stable federations and shares striking similarities with Western Australia’s historical secession attempts.
This map presents the locations of First Nations reserves and Metis settlements located in Alberta, and displays the areas of the province covered by five treaty territories. The eight Metis settlements in the province are primarily located in east-central and northern Alberta.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
borderslynn 