President Trump told reporters on the tarmac in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday that the United States and Canada now have the concept of a trade deal — one he said would be "great for our farmers, great for our country" — after speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney again on Saturday. "We have the concept of a very good deal with Canada," Trump said. "We've been losing money for many years with Canada, many many years. So we have — we are now very close to having a deal." He declined to give details of what the deal would contain.
What is being discussed, as Trump describes it, reaches well beyond tariff rates. He said the negotiations involve building the Keystone XL pipeline, the cross-border oil project cancelled in 2021: "They're going to build the Keystone Pipeline. They're going to pay for it. We're going to give them the route, and it's largely been determined." He also pointed to the prospect of erasing the tariffs American farmers pay on Canadian products: "Part of the agreement is that our farmers will have to pay no tariffs." Those are subjects on the table, not terms agreed — Trump himself made clear the final details have not been established, and Ottawa has not confirmed his account of the pipeline. A spokesperson for Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's minister responsible for trade with the United States, had no comment Sunday evening beyond Carney's remarks.
Carney set out his side of the call earlier on Sunday. In a post on X, he called it a "good conversation" that builds on "recent constructive discussions on the outlines of a mutually beneficial trade deal" — one that would "create jobs for our workers, boost affordability for families, and fully respect Canada's languages, culture, and sovereignty." "Our teams will now be working in the coming weeks to deliver that outcome," he wrote. The prime minister's office confirmed the conversation with Trump took place on Saturday.
For all the warm words, no deal exists yet, and both capitals know the distance still to travel. As recently as Wednesday, Carney said the two sides were not in a position to reach an agreement before Tuesday's midterm elections. The last round of talks collapsed in August, when Canada walked away rejecting American demands Carney said threatened Canadian sovereignty, French-language protections and the auto industry; Trump answered with 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, and Canada retaliated. Discussions since then have also covered possible relief from American tariffs on Canadian steel and automobiles, but no details have been announced on any of it.
In Canada, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre pressed Carney to turn the talk into a finished agreement: "It's time for Mr. Carney to put the big talk in the past and deliver real results."
What a completed deal would mean for ordinary people is exactly what the two leaders spent Sunday describing. On Trump's account, American farmers would sell into Canada without paying the tariffs they face today, and Canadian crude would move south through Keystone XL to American refineries. On Carney's account, a deal would create jobs and bring down costs for families. Those are the stakes as the two sides themselves state them — and none of it takes effect until negotiators convert a concept, agreed in a Saturday phone call and announced on an Iowa tarmac, into signed terms.
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