Currently, the United States imposes a 50% tariff on goods imported from Canada worth 27.6 billion dollars, in force since August 22, 2026. Along the same lines, the European Union has accepted a 15% tariff on most of its exports to the United States, while at the same time approving the reduction to 0% of import tariffs on certain U.S. agricultural products and a wide range of seafood products.
In Canada’s case, the sanctions are concentrated in sectors such as steel, the aluminum industry, dairy products, household appliances, agricultural machinery, pulp and paper, plastics, and electronics. In other words, Canada’s economic, industrial, and labor complex has been living through months of uncertainty, even despite the mirror response of the government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, which has matched, dollar for dollar, the unilateral decision of the White House.
Donald Trump’s government’s commitment to an aggressive foreign policy of an authoritarian and speculative nature has forced its former partners to seek options that, in the short term, enjoy considerable media attention, but lack solid foundations that would allow them to consolidate an immediate, effective response capable of impacting the market and the global power structure.
Canada and the European Union are flirting with, and dreaming of, consolidating an unprecedented agreement that would unite the two shores of the North Atlantic within the framework of a new alliance which, for now, still has no name, but which could take shape thanks to the Strategic Partnership Agreement — SPA — of 2016 and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement — CETA — of 2017, two instruments that expanded the scope of cooperation between Brussels and Ottawa and that form the basis of the celebrated initiative presented on September 17 in Strasbourg by Ursula von der Leyen in her annual State of the Union address.
Although the enthusiasm shown by both leaders has infected the media and even the European Parliament with a reasonable dose of courage, the lines established by the aforementioned agreements appear to be broad enough to be expanded. The new agreement would seek to establish a genuine free trade area with all EU countries, create a transatlantic payment system, develop a common cloud computing tool, boost labor mobility between both markets, strengthen e-commerce, and establish an immediate system of equivalence for university degrees.
In the same vein, and in von der Leyen’s words, under the new format of interaction, the EU and Canada will develop cooperation in the fields of high technology, the defense industry, the Arctic, critical minerals, battery production, artificial intelligence, and quantum cybersecurity. This is a project ambitious enough to be perceived by Trump as a challenge to his doctrine of making America great again. For now, it remains uncertain how this agreement could influence the Republican president’s plans, since reality forces both Europe and Canada to proceed with caution.
Together with the United States and the United Kingdom, these four forces continue to constitute the backbone of the Western world, and their interaction remains mandatory in such sensitive areas as energy, technology, and defense — the arms industry.
Canada has built a solid export policy based mainly on its economic relations with the United States, in addition to sharing the largest land border between two countries — almost 9,000 kilometers — and a relationship of mutual, almost joint, development.
That is why it will not be easy for Canada to adjust to a new “best ally,” one that is also conditioned by 27 different sovereignties, while at the same time sacrificing its relationship with its closest neighbor. This is not simply a matter of diversification: the scale of the U.S. economy conditions Canada’s response, and in this case Canada is at a clear disadvantage.
The European Union — or rather, the Brussels elite — does not have it easy either. The idea of an ally with full rights is not well received and faces serious technical and legal questions. First, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement — CETA — of 2017 has not been ratified by 10 European parliaments, and this situation appears as a serious obstacle, since it is an initial condition on Canada’s part. Second, there is no consensus among the members of the Union, and it seems that the speech by the president of the European Commission was drafted without the participation of the European states, which means that those statements carried a considerable degree of improvisation.
In the immediate future, it will be difficult to see the consolidation of a fully functioning and fully recognized Euro-Canadian bloc. It will be even more complex for that hypothetical new player to position itself at a table that already has a long list of powerful contenders.
