As Mark Carney heads to Washington there is clear and obvious pressure on the prime minister to secure some kind of deal. But pressure is growing on the Trump administration as well.
American farmers are clamouring for bailouts, bourbon producers are pushing for tariff relief and automakers are asking for a break of their own.
Meanwhile, new polling shows an increasing share of the American public believes the economy is on the wrong track.
The Trump administration knows the costs of the trade war will become more apparent as it drags on. So, some experts have suggested the president cut a deal now before things get worse.
“My hypothesis has been that a USMCA truce would be politically shrewd ahead of the November 2026 midterms,” said Chris Sands, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, referring to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA.
“It would end the trade war with the two biggest U.S. trade partners and stabilize prices and create conditions for business investment.”
WATCH | Carney’s Washington trip hopes to see steel, aluminum breakthrough:
There is optimism around Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington about movement on steel and aluminum tariffs. But even if there is a breakthrough, tariffs on Canadian lumber have become a new concern.
But Sands says he’s not convinced Republicans are ready for that. So, industries hit hardest by the tariffs will be left lobbying for more.
At the top of that list is the auto industry, which has been clobbered by tariffs on parts.
Ford’s quarterly earnings indicated it will pay $2 billion US in tariff-related costs through the first half of this year.
“It’s frustrating because we’re the most American auto company, and we export the most, and yet, we have this $2 billion headwind, which prevents me from investing even more in the U.S.,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told Yahoo Finance at a conference in Detroit last week.
Not long after, Reuters reported that a key Trump ally was promising “significant” tariff relief for automakers.
Companies that have “final assembly” in the U.S. will be rewarded, said Sen. Bernie Moreno.
“For Ford, for Toyota, for Honda, for Tesla, for GM, those are the — almost in order of the top five domestic content vehicle producers — they’ll be immune to tariffs.”
It remains unclear what that tariff relief would look like and whether it would include exemptions for Canadian auto parts or Canadian steel. CBC News reported that partial relief from steel tariffs is the modest expectation of Canada’s delegation.
Meanwhile, the cost of bailouts for sectors hit hardest by the trade war is growing quickly.
American soybean farmers have been targeted by China as that trade war drags on. Beijing imposed a 20 per cent tariff on soybean exports from the U.S. which effectively locks American farmers out of the lucrative Chinese market.
Trump said last week on Truth Social that tariff revenue would be used to help soybean farmers.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later told CNBC that “substantial relief for our farmers, especially the soybean farmers” should come as soon as this week.
CNN has said such a package would be worth at least $10 billion US. Politico has reported it could climb as high as $50 billion US.
That kind of government spending attracts lobbyists in droves. A Bloomberg investigation found lobbying on tariffs and other trade-related issues hit an all-time high in the first half of 2025. Total spending of more than $900 million US has been recorded this year.
And that, in turn, has drawn the ire of traditional conservative allies. Perhaps most pointedly, from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.
“The farm fiasco underscores another truth about tariffs, which is that they expand what Mr. Trump used to call ‘the swamp.’ Industries and individual companies hit by tariffs are flocking to Washington to lobby for relief. The Beltway bandits on K Street have never had it so good,” the board wrote last week, referring to the Washington thoroughfare often associated with lobbyists.
Meanwhile, trade experts say there’s more trouble in the road ahead. The longer the trade war drags on, the more the actual costs of tariffs are going to show up.
Until now, many businesses have been wary of passing along the increased costs. Companies ranging from Ford to Apple have reported billions of dollars in tariff-related costs, but have so far held back from increasing prices for American consumers.
Experts say that won’t last.
“If you think this is going to be ingrained in the cost structure of your business, then you can’t eat those additional costs for very long, you’ve got to pass those along to your customers,” said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
He says there’s a growing consensus that there’s going to be “greater pass through in the coming months and into next year.” In other words, costs will soon rise for consumers buying products imported into the U.S.
So, yes, of course, the pressure is on Mark Carney to make a deal. But this confluence of factors, ranging from increased costs, to significant bailouts, highlights how trade peace is in the U.S. interest as well.
And while that’s precisely the kind of argument that may have won the day in previous administrations (or even during the first Trump presidency) experts warn, it may not be enough in the current climate.
“There are some signs of mounting pressure on the American side. It’s clear that the U.S. economy is softening under the weight of the administration’s tariffs,” said Clark packard, a research fellow at the Cato institute, a Washington-based think-tank.
“The Trump administration is clearly looking for ways to mitigate damage done by retaliatory tariffs targeting American farm exports, for example. Likewise, I think the auto industry’s struggles are becoming clearer and the administration seems open to accommodating some auto part imports.”
These and other points, he predicts, will be topics of discussion when both leaders meet on Tuesday.
