US, Canada negotiators race to ink a deal as Trump’s tariff deadline looms

Top trade negotiators from Canada and the United States have met for the third day running in Washington, DC, as they try to finalise a trade deal before new American tariffs start on Saturday.

Friday’s negotiations are designed to head off the 50-percent import taxes US President Donald Trump has threatened against around $20bn worth of Canadian goods.

The tariffs were already paused earlier this week, and many experts say they are optimistic about another last-minute breakthrough.

“All indications point to the fact that a deal is imminent before the expiry of the current extension. Or, at most, there might be another extension with negotiations going into next week,” said Vina Nadjibulla, co-founder and CEO of the Centre for Strategic Statecraft, a nonpartisan policy think tank in Canada.

But while progress has been made, any deal will not mean that the US will remove all tariffs on Canada, Nadjibulla warned in an interview with Al Jazeera.

A deal could instead mark a detente in what has been 18 months of tense relations. In 2025, early in his second term, Trump imposed tariffs on key imports from Canada, prompting Ottawa to retaliate with a suite of countermeasures.

The two countries have gone back and forth ever since, with Trump periodically introducing new tariff threats.

The latest round, introduced in late July, comes as a response to what Trump calls Canada’s “discriminatory treatment of American products”. Trump has warned he will impose the new 50 percent tariff at 12:01am Eastern time (04:01 GMT) on Saturday if a deal is not reached, a deadline pushed back from Wednesday.