The usually cordial relationship between Washington and Ottawa has soured considerably in recent weeks, with trade talks derailed and the neighbors now levying multi-billion-dollar tariffs against one another.
The Trump administration’s most recent trade war comes with a hefty cost, with some $872.3 billion traded between the nations in 2025. After negotiations collapsed this weekend, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the U.S. “asked for too much and offered too little,” while Trump says Canada is “foolish” to engage in a trade war.
Wilbur Ross has a unique perspective on the challenges being faced on both sides: He was U.S. Commerce Secretary in Trump’s first term, and led renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada during a similarly tense period.
The current negotiations are all the more difficult because of the fundamental shift in sentiment–and as a result, political will—of Canadians toward their American neighbors, Ross said.
“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 exclusive interview.
Evidence isn’t scarce as to why Canadians have a newfound distaste for the White House. Last week, the Canadian press reported a leaked audio of Vice President JD Vance at a private function in which he ridiculed Carney as both “sweet” and “hilarious.” Vance reportedly said that Carney “comes in and puffs his chest out and says, ‘I’m going to, like, out-tough Donald Trump.”‘
Trump has also volleyed insults in the direction of the Prime Minister’s office and his people. The president has continually referred to Canada as the “51st state” of the U.S. and recently suggested renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America—a tactic he also deployed when negotiating with his southern neighbors in Mexico.
Needles over sovereignty are guaranteed to get a reaction out of Canada, something Trump knows, Ross suggests.
“[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 suggests. “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.”
A standoff
The issues that the U.S. and Canada are debating are nothing new, Ross said: Defense spending, dairy levies, and transshipments—whereby imports from places like China bypass U.S. duties by coming through a neighboring nation.
Trump wants new agreements on these issues, Ross said, but he believes the White House won’t go much further out of its way to secure them. The former cabinet secretary believes the deal offered by the U.S. was surprisingly favorable to Canada.
If there were to be further negotiations, Ross added, he believes the impetus would need to come from the Canadian side. “I don’t see the U.S. taking the initiative,” Ross said.
Carney would clearly disagree; the 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. are facing elevated inflation, in part due to the conflict in the Middle East, which is choking the oil supply. Ross, perhaps unsurprisingly, suggests Canada may be the first to buckle because “their economy is so much smaller than ours.”