US and Canada Still Have No Deal, Days Before 50% Tariffs Hit on August 19

Four days out from a deadline that could blow up North American trade, the U.S. and Canada still don't have a deal.

President Donald Trump's 50% tariffs on Canadian goods are set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on August 19. They'd hit roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian exports, according to figures reported by BigGo Finance and the Yahoo Finance Canada report from Romana King. That's about 5.2% of the $383 billion in goods the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, based on U.S. Census Bureau data cited by BigGo Finance.

The list of targeted goods reads like a Canadian gift shop: wine, hockey sticks, cement, dairy, cars, alcohol. Energy, potash, fish and critical minerals are carved out, according to Crypto Briefing. Unlike past tariff rounds, goods covered under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement won't get an exemption this time, BigGo Finance reported.

Trump is using Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to justify the move, a provision so obscure it's barely been touched in decades. His argument, according to reporting from dnyuz: Canada's retaliation against his 2025 tariffs amounts to unfair discrimination against U.S. exporters. Only Canada and China retaliated against Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs last year, administration officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer have noted, according to dnyuz.

Greer sat down with Canada's Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and chief negotiator Janice Charette in Washington on Tuesday, their third face-to-face meeting in three weeks, according to BigGo Finance and Yenişafak's report citing CBC. LeBlanc called the talks ongoing and said Canada is defending its interests "at the negotiating table."

But sources close to the talks paint a rockier picture. Global News reported that Canada and the U.S. are "not close" to a deal, despite a week of what multiple sources called constructive, line-by-line negotiating in Washington.

The biggest sticking point is softwood lumber. Two sources told Global News the Americans aren't interested in cutting lumber tariffs, which currently sit near 45%. British Columbia Premier David Eby didn't hold back on that one. "We face higher tariffs than Russia," Eby said Friday, according to Global News. "The U.S. for some inexplicable reason is putting forest families out of work here in order to prioritize lumber imports from Europe and Russia."

One source told Global News that Canada has had to fight just to get forestry onto the negotiating table at all.

Any deal will almost certainly leave some tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and lumber in place, according to sources cited by Global News. One proposal reportedly under discussion would drop the tariff on CUSMA-compliant autos and parts from the current 25% down to somewhere between 10% and 15%.

Auto industry insiders aren't happy with that, even as a concession. Lana Payne, president of Unifor, was blunt: "We shouldn't be offering any concessions to the United States right now. The reality is the U.S. has imposed tariffs on Canada," she told Global News.

Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association in Toronto, framed the stakes even more starkly to dnyuz: without a comprehensive deal, Canada may be forced into political retaliation and could be "years away from having trade peace."

On the Canadian side, Ottawa is reportedly weighing an end to provincial bans on American alcohol, lifting its retaliatory tariff on U.S.-made vehicles, and adjusting dairy import quotas, according to CBC reporting relayed by Yahoo Finance Canada. In exchange, Washington would drop the new 50% tariff and ease steel and aluminum duties.

There's a catch. Restocking U.S. alcohol on store shelves is a provincial decision, not a federal one. Eby has already said flatly there's no chance American alcohol returns to B.C. liquor stores no matter what Ottawa agrees to, according to Yahoo Finance Canada. That means any deal on booze would roll out unevenly, if at all, across provinces.

Complicating everything: the CUSMA/USMCA extension lapsed in July 2026, according to Crypto Briefing and BigGo Finance. That's the trilateral framework that was supposed to referee exactly this kind of dispute. Without it, both governments are negotiating without the guardrails that had governed North American trade for years.

Trade attorney Dan Ujczo, who's tracked the talks closely, told dnyuz he remains hopeful. "I'm optimistic that there'll be a resolution in full or in part that will stave off the Section 338 tariffs," Ujczo said. "Both sides want a deal."

That optimism is worth weighing against the on-the-ground reporting from Global News, whose sources describe a real, unresolved gap on lumber, autos and the scope of concessions, not just theatrical last-minute brinkmanship. Both things can be true: negotiators may want a deal and still be nowhere near one with the clock running out.

LeBlanc and Charette briefed Canadian premiers Friday evening on where talks stand, according to Global News, though a statement from LeBlanc's office didn't disclose specifics. Whether a joint proposal reaches Trump's desk before the Aug. 19 deadline, and whether he accepts it, remains an open question with the clock now down to days.