Trump and Carney Say They Have the 'Concept' of a Canada Trade Deal - and Keystone XL, Bound for Gulf Coast Refineries, Is Part of It
Two days after Ottawa said it could wait out this administration, both leaders turned upbeat on Sunday. There is no agreement yet - but the pipeline Texas refineries were built to receive is back in the conversation.
The United States and Canada are suddenly talking like a trade deal is close. President Donald Trump told reporters in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday that his administration has 'the concept' of a new trade deal with Canada, Reuters reported: 'I spoke to him again yesterday, and we have the concept of a deal that's going to be great for our farmers, great for our country.' Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, posting earlier Sunday, called it a good conversation that 'builds on recent constructive discussions on the outlines of a mutually beneficial trade deal' and said the two countries' teams 'will now be working in the coming weeks to deliver that outcome.'
The turnaround is sharp. Formal talks collapsed in August when Ottawa rejected demands Carney said threatened Canadian sovereignty, French-language protections and the auto sector, the Associated Press reported; Washington then imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods and Canada retaliated. As recently as Wednesday, Carney said the countries were not yet in a position to reach an agreement before Tuesday's midterms, and on Friday he warned Canada could wait for a new US president rather than accept an unfavorable deal. Possible relief from US tariffs on Canadian steel and automobiles has been discussed, AP reported, but no details of a potential agreement have been announced.
The Texas stake sits in the pipeline portion of the talks. Trump said the scope of an agreement would include the Keystone XL pipeline project he supports, Reuters reported: '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.' The proposed pipeline would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of oil from the oil sands of northern Alberta to the storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, and then on to Gulf Coast refineries - the Texas end of the line. Former President Joe Biden revoked its permit in 2021; the company behind it, TC Energy, later spun off its crude pipelines business into South Bow, which has proposed a different project, Prairie Connector, and has said it will decide whether to proceed in 2027.
Nothing is signed, and both reports read this cycle stress that negotiators still have to convert broad political commitments into terms. A spokesperson for Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's minister responsible for trade with the US, had no further comment beyond Carney's remarks, Reuters reported. For Gulf Coast refiners configured for heavy Canadian crude, though, even the concept matters: a revived cross-border line - Keystone XL or its successor - would redraw the supply map their plants were built around.
