Why Trump's trade war with Canada is poised to drag past the midtermsThe U.S.-Canada trade standoff is threatening to stretch past the midterm elections. The White House is shrugging off the threat.
With a week to go before Canada imposes its retaliatory tariffs — aimed at key industries in states like Ohio and Texas with competitive Senate elections — tensions between Washington and Ottawa are at a steady simmer, with no sign of de-escalation.
Trump administration officials are united in the posture that the U.S. has the upper hand in the trade war, and risks exponentially less economic fallout than Canada. And they are signaling that the Canadian government, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, will have to be the one to offer concessions to restart talks.
Privately, Trump officials are telling industry groups that the offer Canadian negotiators rejected on Aug. 21 is now moot, and they are no longer willing to make the same concessions on steel and aluminum tariffs, in particular.
The Canadians, meanwhile, have drawn a red line at key U.S. demands, like maintaining a 25 percent tariff on medium and heavy duty trucks. And Carney’s decision to stand up to Trump after months of rhetorical attacks and threats have helped produce a surge of Canadian patriotism and support for his Liberal Party, evidenced by their clean sweep of three special by-elections Monday.
The prime minister has little reason to back down ahead of votes in October in two provinces with strong separatist factions, who could challenge his political coalition.
As a result, both governments are digging in and readying for a longer trade war, all but guaranteeing the standoff bleeds into the fall campaign season.
Asked how Washington and Ottawa can find their way back to the table, a person familiar with the talks said, “You’ve got to get past the local elections in Canada.”
In the U.S., many Republicans fear the trade war will cut the other way, hurting the president’s party in the November congressional elections. House Republicans requested a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later this week to discuss Trump’s new tariffs on Canada, amid rising unease in Congress.
The White House doesn’t believe the tariff tit-for-tat with Canada will really be a factor in the elections, however. Greer argued in an interview Monday with POLITICO Playbook that the duties are too small to move the U.S. economy, adding they are “more [Canada’s] emergency than ours.”
But polls show Trump’s trade policies are increasingly unpopular, and Democrats are determined to make them an issue over the next two months, particularly in border states with economies that are tightly intertwined with their Canadian neighbors’. Michigan Democrats launched new attacks Monday on Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers for refusing to denounce the tariffs, with Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed calling Trump an “asshole” for launching the trade war.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/01/why-trumps-trade-war-with-canada-is-poised-to-drag-past-the-midterms-01059961
