4 minPolitics
Wilbur Ross says Canada trade talks harder now because Canadians dislike the U.S.
Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the current U.S.-Canada trade negotiations are more difficult than his first-term NAFTA talks because of a fundamental shift in Canadian sentiment toward the U.S., with political incentives now favoring opposition to any American proposal.
The trade dispute between Washington and Ottawa has entered a more difficult phase than anything Wilbur Ross faced during his first-term renegotiation of NAFTA, the former U.S. Commerce Secretary said, pointing to a fundamental shift in how Canadians view their southern neighbor.
Ross, who led the original NAFTA talks with Canada under President Trump, said the current negotiations are complicated by a widespread negative attitude among Canadians toward the U.S. that creates political advantages for anyone who opposes an American proposal, regardless of its merits.
“The Canadians have adopted a very negative attitude toward the U.S. in general, and we can argue, is that justified? Is it not? It doesn’t matter. There’s been a real sea change [and] that’s gonna be a complication because—almost independently of whatever proposal the U.S. might make—there’s probably a political advantage to people in Canada who oppose it,” Ross told Fortune in an interview.
The usually cordial relationship between the two nations has soured considerably in recent weeks. Trade talks collapsed over the weekend, and both countries are now levying multi-billion-dollar tariffs against one another. The stakes are substantial: some $872.3 billion in goods and services traded between the nations in 2025.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the U.S. “asked for too much and offered too little” after negotiations broke down, while Trump has called Canada “foolish” for engaging in a trade war.
Evidence of the strained sentiment is not hard to find. The Canadian press recently reported a leaked audio recording of Vice President JD Vance at a private function in which he ridiculed Carney as both “sweet” and “hilarious,” saying the prime minister “comes in and puffs his chest out and says, ‘I’m going to, like, out-tough Donald Trump.’”
Trump has also repeatedly referred to Canada as the “51st state” and recently suggested renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, a tactic he previously used with Mexico. Ross suggested the sovereignty jabs are a deliberate provocation that Trump knows will draw a reaction.
“[Trump] sometimes speaks metaphorically, and I think what was at the core of the 51st state was another way of articulating Canada’s dependence on the U.S.,” Ross said. “Just mechanically, how would we ever do that? If you put it up for a plebiscite, at least at present, I don’t think there’s any chance the Canadian public would vote for it. Would you invade them? I don’t see it.”
The underlying issues in the dispute are familiar, Ross said: defense spending, dairy levies, and transshipments, whereby imports from countries like China bypass U.S. duties by routing through a neighboring nation. Trump wants new agreements on these matters, but Ross believes the White House will not go much further out of its way to secure them.
The former cabinet secretary said the deal offered by the U.S. was surprisingly favorable to Canada. If further negotiations occur, he said, the impetus would need to come from the Canadian side.
“I don’t see the U.S. taking the initiative,” Ross said.
Carney, a former Bank of England governor, maintains his team was “pragmatic, patient, and persistent,” adding: “We have pursued every opportunity to reach an agreement.”
A return to the negotiating table may be prompted by consumer price increases. Both Canada and the U.S. face elevated inflation, in part due to the conflict in the Middle East, which is choking oil supply. Ross suggested Canada may be the first to buckle because “their economy is so much smaller than ours.”
