Posted originally on CTH on October 28, 2025 | Sundance 

For those who have followed along with the U.S-Canada trade positioning, the current status of conflict between the Trump administration and the government of Canada is not surprising.  {GO DEEP} Going all the way back to the replacement of NAFTA, with the USMCA, President Trump always said he did not favor multilateral trade deals with multiple countries; instead, he preferred bilateral free trade agreements.

Some people have construed the bilateral preference of President Trump to be the elimination of globalism in favor of nationalism in trade agreements.

While the outcome of the Trump approach indeed aligns with that theme, it is not specifically the objective of President Trump to eliminate global trade, but rather to focus on specific interests in trade that benefit the unique nature of each party involved.

As a result, the USMCA -or CUSMA as said in Canada- is not in alignment with a bilateral free trade agreement, and the conflicted differences between trade with Mexico and trade with Canada are an outcome of this dynamic.  The solution is simply to eliminate the multilateral in favor of the bilateral approach.  This is the objective of President Trump as expressed.

That said, the USMCA covers approximately 60% of U.S-Canada trade, and the remaining 40% is being debated and argued.  President Trump would prefer to just deal with 100% of the trade sectors in one free trade agreement; hence, his ambivalence until the USMCA is dissolved.

Canada, on the other hand, continues to demand that all trade conflicts be resolved without opening up the entire USMCA. Again, another conflict. Canada is like the dependent spouse in a divorce arguing for child support payments when the “children” are in their twenties.

The current status is President Trump pulling back completely from discussions with Canada, while the various provincial Premiers and Prime Minister Mark Carney antagonize over the issue.

At a certain point, when the entire national economic plan of Canada is based on “Donald Trump bad”, and all political messaging internally is to proclaim they have no alternative policy positions, the Canadians might not realize it, but they are confirming complete and total dependency on the nation Donald Trump represents.

As the Canadian government continues demanding President Trump pay attention to their needs, U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, informs the Carney administration, and various stakeholders, any trade agreement is no longer possible.

CANADA – The U.S. ambassador to Canada doesn’t foresee a new security and economic deal between Canada and the United States — which could see the reduction or full removal of tariffs amid an ongoing trade dispute — before the new year.

“We have stopped negotiations with Canada,” Pete Hoekstra said in a keynote address to the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Business Canada on Monday. “I don’t see any way that there will be an agreement before American Thanksgiving.”

“I’m not sure what it’s going to take to get people back to the table in a constructive and positive mode,” he added.

Hoekstra’s comments come just days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he is terminating trade talks with Canada and increasing levies on Canadian goods by 10 per cent in response to an anti-tariff ad by the government of Ontario which featured the voice of former Republican U.S. president Ronald Reagan. Ontario has since pulled the ads, effective Monday.

Government sources had told CTV News that Canadian officials were hopeful there could be movement on a steel and aluminum deal by this week’s APEC Summit in South Korea.

[…] Asked by event attendees whether he sees any way to get negotiations back on track, such as an apology for the ad, Hoekstra said: “No.”

Speaking more broadly about the state of negotiations, Hoekstra laid the blame at Canada’s feet for the soured relationship.

Hoekstra has previous expressed his distaste for what he’s called “anti-American” sentiment in Canada, and on Monday pointed to some provinces removing U.S. liquor from store shelves and Canadians being discouraged from travelling south of the border as examples.

He also said the ad amounts to foreign interference, with the U.S. Supreme Court set to start hearing arguments on the legality of Trump’s tariffs on Nov. 5, as well as some gubernatorial and state legislative elections happening next week.

“Canada burnt the bridges with America,” he said. “Donald Trump did not slam the door.”

“Donald Trump could do the only thing that a leader of a sovereign nation could do when a neighbour, another sovereign nation, decided to interject itself into American politics,” he added. “Canada slammed that door shut all by itself.” (read more)

Canada is trying to force President Trump to give them preference, in a similar way the EU demanded special trade privileges.

President Trump is trying to end the Canadian one-way benefits toward the U.S. market.

President Trump is currently touring Asia, gathering up bilateral trade deals with various countries all across the ASEAN network.

In the bigger context, Trump is cutting all the tentacles and tools of China, and isolating them from Southeast Asia, as it relates to trade with the USA.

The bigger strategy of President Trump is very clear now, reduce dependency on China by retracting all of the manufacturing dependency.

All of the surrounding nations in Asia stand to benefit from this approach through bilateral free trade agreements with the USA.  Beijing’s influence is being seriously diminished as the lead-up to President Trump sitting down with Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping on Thursday.

Inside China, throughout the Chinese Communist Party, there are indications they are recognizing how successful President Trump has been at working around their influence.  Some outside observers have even started to believe the “moderates” within China feel empowered over the “hardliners” represented by Chairman Xi.  There is a lot going on behind the scenes.

This internal pressure inside Beijing’s politics works to President Trump’s favor, because it makes it even harder for Xi Jinping to be aggressive.  Additionally, with the Chinese economy being uncertain, perhaps significantly weak, Chairman Xi might even face a challenge to his power structure.  Meanwhile President Trump hops around shaking hands and making deals.