The federal election returned another Liberal minority to power under the new leadership of former banker Mark Carney. International media is reporting the result as primarily a referendum on Trump. 

It probably was for many voters, who will be relieved that MAGA-tinged Pierre Poilievre lost his seat south of Ottawa. U.S. liberals are spinning Carney’s win as proof that standing up to Trump works.

Still, the Conservative Party significantly increased its popular vote and seat count while the NDP saw its worst result in decades, with workers in stalwart NDP ridings in Southern Ontario going blue. It can only be a matter of time before someone steps down to give Poilievre an easy byelection win.

Though the NDP lost official party status—and with it, the right to call witnesses before parliamentary committees—it still holds the balance of power. This could provide opportunities for the NDP, Bloc Québecois and Green MP Elizabeth May to affect the Liberal government’s policy response to Trump’s tariffs and trade policy more generally, including the eventual CUSMA review.

There will be more to say about these plans as the new government is sworn in and gets to work. For now, let’s simply consider the timing of the CUSMA review and its role within Carney’s plans for remaking the Canada-U.S. relationship. 

During the election campaign, Carney said the days of deep integration on this continent—of ever closer security and military cooperation with the United States in exchange for secure access to U.S. markets for Canadian companies—were over.. So were the days of U.S. leadership in making the rules of international trade, he said in his victory speech on Monday.

It is still much less clear what new kind of relations Carney wants Canada to pursue with the United States, or what his government’s red lines will be in any future tariff negotiation with Trump, or what the Prime Minister thinks about the prospects of salvaging, let alone expanding, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. 

“There is a partnership to be had, an economic and security partnership,” Carney told the BBC in a post-election interview. But it’s “going to be a very different one than we’ve had in the past.” Carney told the BBC that negotiations to determine that new relationship would be “on our terms, not on their terms.”

This is all very vague. It’s also wishful thinking. Canada will negotiate with the Americans when the Americans say they want to. That may not be anytime soon. Trump must get through several current reciprocal trade negotiations first. 

According to the president, in a ridiculed Time magazine interview, there are 200 such negotiations underway now—more than there are countries in the world. The list does not include Canada or Mexico, either, since we were excluded from the reciprocal tariff plan. This is hardly any consolation given tariffs that are in place on Canadian exports to the U.S.

Trump gave automakers a reprieve this week from tariffs on the steel and aluminum built into finished vehicles imported into the U.S. However, with truck, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, lumber and copper trade reviews underway in Washington, Canadian exporters are dealing with more uncertainty than those of most other countries. 

The reality is that China is the big fish for Trump. The president is desperate for a phone call from Xi Jinping—a call the Chinese leader is apparently in no rush to make. In the meantime, Trump is trying to coax neighbouring Asian countries into the U.S. orbit through reciprocal trade talks.

Some of those countries, like Indonesia, India and Vietnam, may bite sooner than later. Trump’s problem (there are many) is he’s losing what little leverage the U.S. ever had to meaningfully weaken China’s economic clout in the region. 

The U.S. is pulling the global economy into recession, with investor and consumer confidence, investment in new productive capacity, and international orders all tanking. Trump’s approval rating after 100 days is the worst of any president in 80 years. America’s market exceptionalism—a factor of high growth rates, high liquidity, and confidence in the U.S. dollar—may have been permanently compromised by the global shock of Trump’s tariff tantrum.

Trump is deluding himself and the world about how much time he will need to negotiate his way out of this mess with reciprocal trade deals. U.S. friends and frenemies alike do not trust him. South Korea’s vice trade minister said this week it “would be very challenging for the talks to bear some fruit within the next 70 days.” 

Furthermore, China contests Trump’s claims the two sides are talking or will be soon. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says it is up to China to lower its retaliatory tariffs first, which is more wishful thinking. Much as in Canada, Chinese public and elite opinion has swung behind Xi’s plan to stand firm. 

All this drama will likely kick the CUSMA review down the road, to about the time we expected it would take place at the end of 2025. A Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre may have petitioned Trump to start these talks early. At the end of the election campaign, Carney said he’s not in a rush to negotiate. Less than two days since the election, he is talking about meeting Trump in the near future.

It’s possible Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will independently or jointly decide enough is enough with tariffs and press Trump for a solution. Working together, they may convince Trump to move the already planned North American trade talks forward. Trump may even jump at the chance to conclude any part of his clumsy second-term agenda. 

In that case, Canada could find it has more leverage to withstand U.S. demands related to dairy market access, North American automotive supply chains or the digital services tax than most had assumed. 

But why stop there?

CUSMA was a bad deal for workers, for non-U.S.-based research and innovation, and importantly for the planet. Letting it languish would not be the end of the world. We should be rapidly decreasing Canada’s trade dependence on the U.S. anyway. 

However, when the time comes to sitting down with Trump and Sheinbaum, Carney could exploit Trump’s political weakness to insist on much deeper reforms to North American trade rules—reforms that enshrine worker, migrant and environmental protections in all three countries.

Nothing in the Liberal election platform suggests this will be Carney’s inclination, let alone Trump’s. Corporate Canada wants a fast deal that includes a big jump in defence spending to appease Trump, and new fossil fuel infrastructure and politically and environmentally fraught critical mineral extraction projects. 

Fair trade and trade justice activists will be challenged to replace this vision with a climate- and worker-centred plan for dealing with Trump and the CUSMA review. We have to try anyway. Public opinion in Canada is decidedly anti-Trump and anti-MAGA. Parties who have, at different points, promoted a less corporate-biased trade agenda hold a balance of power in the House of Commons. If not now, when?