LeBlanc says U.S.-Canada trade talks progressing but more work needs to be done

OTTAWA – Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada continues to make progress toward a new trade deal with the United States but said there is no deadline to get a deal within the next week or two.

LeBlanc said he had repeated discussions with his counterparts in the Trump administration, including as recently as Monday.

“We’re making progress,” LeBlanc said. “We’re into a level of detail that we hadn’t seen previously, but we still have work to do, and my objective is to continue to do that work until we get to the deal.”

LeBlanc told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday he was surprised by a news report which said a deal with the Trump administration could be finalized in the next few days.

The Globe and Mail reported that a deal on steel, aluminum and energy could be ready for Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump to sign at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea.

Carney also told reporters Tuesday that there are ongoing discussions with the Trump administration but he “wouldn’t overplay it.”

Carney and Trump are both set to travel to the APEC summit in South Korea later this month. Carney said he looks forward to seeing the president but he will be meeting with many other countries’ leaders to talk about diversifying trade.

LeBlanc was with Carney at the White House for a meeting with Trump earlier this month. Trump at the time said the prime minister would walk away “very happy” from their meetings in Washington but a deal never materialized.

Trump boosted duties on Canada to 35 per cent in August but those tariffs do not apply to goods compliant under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.

Carney has said the CUSMA carveout puts Canada in a better position than most other nations, including those that have signed deals with the Trump administration.

Many Canadian industries, however, are being hammered by Trump’s separate tariffs on specific industries like steel, aluminum, copper, automobiles and lumber.

The president signed a declaration last Friday to hit medium- and heavy-duty trucks with tariffs starting Nov. 1 and Trump has indicated more sector-specific levies are on the way.

LeBlanc remained in Washington for talks following Carney’s meeting with Trump, and was back in the U.S. capital last week for talks on dropping the tariffs.

“We’ll just continue to do the work to get the right deal,” LeBlanc said. “If we set an artificial deadline … it might lead us to a deal that’s not in the best interest of Canadian workers.”

Carney is under increasing pressure to find tariff relief after having presented himself as the best leader to navigate the second Trump administration during the spring election campaign.

Business Council of Canada president and CEO Goldy Hyder said Monday he would be watching for a deal on steel and aluminum to come out of the APEC summit after both the American and Canadian sides indicated that progress had been made.

“Certainly the relationship between the prime minister and the president has never been better and that’s what it takes to get a deal done,” Hyder said.

“And so I think there’s reason to be cautiously optimistic that we are working toward some sectoral agreements on the aluminum and steel and energy, more specifically. There’s still work to do.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2025. 

— By Kelly Geraldine Malone in Washington