According to people familiar with the matter, trade negotiations between the US and Canada broke down after US Secretary of Commerce Lutnick applied pressure at the last minute. This led US President Trump to announce new tariffs on Canadian goods, while Canadian Prime Minister Carney vowed to take retaliatory measures. Sources said that Lutnick believes the framework agreement is too loose for Canada and has become a spokesperson for American metal producers who want to take back their concessions. Some Canadians accuse him of changing the goals of the negotiations, while some business leaders believe that Lutnick successfully thwarted what they saw as a threat to the US metal industry — an industry that Trump had vowed to protect. Lutnick's last-minute intervention enabled him to participate more deeply in the negotiations, which once again showed that he played a “spoiler” role within the Trump administration, often seizing trade issues where he thought the US could extract more chips from it. However, a White House official denied Lutnik's claim that the negotiations broke down, but instead insisted that the reason the negotiations were interrupted was because Canada made a temporary request outside the scope of the agreement.

According to people familiar with the matter, trade negotiations between the US and Canada broke down after US Secretary of Commerce Lutnick applied pressure at the last minute. This led US President Trump to announce new tariffs on Canadian goods, while Canadian Prime Minister Carney vowed to take retaliatory measures. Sources said that Lutnick believes the framework agreement is too loose for Canada and has become a spokesperson for American metal producers who want to take back their concessions. Some Canadians accuse him of changing the goals of the negotiations, while some business leaders believe that Lutnick successfully thwarted what they saw as a threat to the US metal industry — an industry that Trump had vowed to protect. Lutnick's last-minute intervention enabled him to participate more deeply in the negotiations, which once again showed that he played a “spoiler” role within the Trump administration, often seizing trade issues where he thought the US could extract more chips from it. However, a White House official denied Lutnik's claim that the negotiations broke down, but instead insisted that the reason the negotiations were interrupted was because Canada made a temporary request outside the scope of the agreement.