First posted on Instagram
Speaking to reporters in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday, President Donald Trump said he and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney now have the outline of a new trade agreement between the United States and Canada, and that the Keystone pipeline would be part of it. Trump said he had spoken with Carney again the day before, and described the emerging deal as one that would be good for American farmers and for the country.
On the pipeline itself, Trump was blunt about who he said would foot the bill. "They're going to build the Keystone Pipeline. They're going to pay for it," he said. "We're going to give them the route, and it's largely been determined." He did not give further details of how the pipeline would be revived, or of the wider agreement.
Carney, for his part, described the exchange in a post on X earlier on Sunday as a "good conversation" that builds on recent constructive discussions about the outlines of a mutually beneficial trade deal. He said such a deal would create jobs for workers, boost affordability for families, and fully respect Canada's languages, culture and sovereignty, and that negotiating teams from both countries would work closely in the coming weeks to deliver it. His post did not mention the pipeline or any payment for it, and a spokesperson for Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's minister responsible for trade with the United States, had no further comment on Sunday evening beyond Carney's remarks.
For now, what Trump described remains a concept, not a finished agreement. A source familiar with the matter told The Globe and Mail that Trump had ordered his team to resume formal talks and that negotiations were expected to begin within days, while a source quoted by Radio-Canada said key elements remained unresolved and the two sides were not yet on the verge of an agreement. Carney himself had said on Wednesday that Canada was not yet in a position to agree to a deal and would only accept one that served Canadians' interests.
The pipeline at the centre of the claim is Keystone XL, the long-stalled project to carry 830,000 barrels a day of oil from the oil sands of northern Alberta to the storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, and on to Gulf Coast refineries. Former President Joe Biden revoked a key permit for the project in 2021, a decision Trump has repeatedly criticised; in August, Trump said the pipeline "may be awoken from the grave." The company behind Keystone XL, Canada's TC Energy, later spun off its crude pipelines business into South Bow, which has proposed a separate 550,000-barrel-a-day project called Prairie Connector, running from Alberta to Wyoming and using some pipe installed on the Canadian side of the border before Keystone XL was cancelled. South Bow has said it will decide whether to go ahead with Prairie Connector in 2027.
The talks come after months of strain between the two neighbours, which have imposed billions of dollars in tariffs on each other's goods, and after earlier negotiations stalled despite efforts to ease American tariffs on Canadian steel and autos. Trump said last week that a trade deal with Canada was coming soon, while Ottawa had previously reported only limited progress. The latest exchange also comes days before the United States midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3.
Trump presented the proposal as an American energy and economic victory, and supporters argue a revived pipeline could create jobs and strengthen energy security. Critics, meanwhile, raise concerns about environmental impacts, cross-border negotiations, and whether Canada has actually agreed to the terms Trump described.