Lutnick: Carney Abandoned US-Canada Trade Deal Out of Political Self-Interest

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick accused Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of using failed trade negotiations with the United States for his own political purposes, as tensions between Washington and Ottawa continued to escalate Thursday.

Lutnick said the two sides had been close to a trade agreement before Canada walked away from the negotiations, arguing that the decision was driven by Canadian political considerations rather than the substance of the proposed deal.

"I met with their trade minister, [Dominic] LeBlanc, at least 10 times in the last month," Lutnick said during a Thursday exchange with reporters, according to Mediaite. "I spoke to Mark Carney twice in the 24 hours before this ended. Twice."

Lutnick said he has known Carney since the Canadian leader's time at Goldman Sachs and said the two had communicated directly during the negotiations.

"We negotiated and Canada was going to have the best trade deal in the world," Lutnick said. "And what happened was that Canada walked away — we had a deal, we shook hands, the president announced it, right? And everybody was positive."

Lutnick said he believed Carney made the decision for political reasons, pointing specifically to political dynamics in Quebec and Alberta.

"Canada made the decision for political purposes," Lutnick said. "They wanted to walk away. This is politics only."

Lutnick suggested Carney was trying to strengthen his political position amid challenges in Canada, including a sovereignty movement in Quebec and an independence resolution in Alberta.

"So there's the sovereignty party trying to run, and they're in the lead in Quebec," Lutnick said. "And so this was Mark Carney manufacturing something that would try to keep them from winning."

He predicted that Canadian negotiators would eventually return to Washington after the political pressure eases.

"My guess will be, as soon as his elections are over, you're going to see a plane full of Canadian negotiators flying down," Lutnick said.

Carney has offered a sharply different explanation for the collapse of the negotiations, saying last-minute changes in the U.S. proposal were "unfair" and "uneconomic" and raised concerns about the reliability of any eventual agreement.

Carney has also said the U.S. proposals raised issues involving Canadian sovereignty and French-language protections, while Lutnick rejected the suggestion that Quebec's language and cultural policies played a role in the negotiations.

"Do I care about how the Québécois speak? I mean, what could matter less to America? We don't care!" Lutnick said, according to Mediaite. "So the fact is, we never brought those words up."

The trade dispute has since spilled into a broader political confrontation between President Donald Trump and Carney.

After Trump signed an executive order Thursday officially renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America" for U.S. federal purposes, Carney pushed back in a post on X.

"The name of Lake Ontario derives from the Wendat word ‘Ontari'io,' which means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is great,'" Carney wrote.

"This name dates back more than 400 years, well before the Canadian Confederation and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America," he added.

Carney concluded that "this lake is called Lake Ontario – today and forever."

Reuters reported that Trump's order makes "Lake America" the official federal name used by the U.S. government, while the lake itself remains a shared body of water along the U.S.-Canadian border.

Trump had first floated the name change earlier this week as the trade dispute with Canada intensified.

The move follows the collapse of U.S.-Canada trade negotiations late last week, after which Trump announced 50% tariffs on certain Canadian goods, including cars, trucks, automotive parts and steel.

Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, with new measures scheduled to take effect Sept. 8, according to Reuters.

The two governments remain at odds over who is responsible for the breakdown in negotiations, with Lutnick maintaining that Canada walked away from what Washington viewed as a favorable agreement and Carney arguing that the United States introduced unacceptable changes to the proposed terms.

Lutnick said he expects Canada eventually to return to the negotiating table.

"It didn't happen for math," Lutnick said. "The math was sensational. It was a great deal that we shook hands on."

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