Canadian steel exports have collapsed to a third of pre-Trump levels as talks stall
Ottawa approved more than double its budgeted tariff relief — $5.6bn against a projected $2.2bn — while more than 800 remission requests sit unresolved, Finance Canada documents tabled in Parliament this week show.
The approvals, bulk-weighted toward steel, come as the US formally opened a process allowing Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum producers to apply for immediate tariff relief if they commit to relocating production to the United States.
The offer landed during a bruising week for Canada-US relations, with CBC News reporting that Canadian firms are already laying off workers and closing facilities under the weight of US levies that have escalated to 50 percent on metals.
Industry leaders want no part of the relocation deal.
Jean Simard, CEO of the Aluminum Association of Canada, told CBC's Power and Politics the proposal is economically unworkable — “billions of dollars of investments” made against an unknowable future metals price, what he called “fuzzy mathematics.”
Canadian Steel Producers Association president and CEO Catherine Cobden told CBC the offer's discretionary terms make uptake unlikely.
“You might have up to $1bn or more of assets in your steel plant — that's significant value that you don't just shutter and walk away from,” she said.
The numbers back up her caution.
StatsCan data shows Canadian steel export values have fallen to roughly a third of pre-Trump levels, and Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., has laid off hundreds of workers.
US steel output, according to the World Steel Association, grew by just 3 percent in 2025 despite the tariffs designed to boost it — and the US Tax Foundation estimates the section 232 tariffs have cost the equivalent of 154,000 American jobs stateside.
To keep domestic producers solvent in the interim, industry minister Mélanie Joly announced a $1bn loan program through the Business Development Bank of Canada, plus a separate $500m fund for companies pivoting away from the US market, CBC News reported.
The package responds to Trump's recent extension of metal levies to previously exempt derivatives including steel coils and aluminum sheets.
Conservative industry critic Raquel Dancho called it “a Band-Aid solution” and said the announcement is “an admission that there is no trade deal on the horizon.”
That assessment cuts to the central tension.
Carney told CBC he wants no rushed deal, saying countries that moved quickly signed agreements that “weren't really worth the paper they were written on.”
Other leaders, he added, are “certainly not” happy with what they signed, though he named none of them.
Bloomberg reported that Carney sees a comprehensive deal as achievable quickly if both sides are ready, but acknowledged the US is not there yet.
“It takes two to negotiate it through,” he said.
Formal talks remain stalled.
Trade minister Dominic LeBlanc told the Globe and Mail's INTERSECT conference that Canada is holding only informal conversations with Washington on sectoral tariffs, and that expecting the US to drop them entirely is unrealistic since Trump has offered that to no country.
According to CBC News, the US has scheduled formal bilateral CUSMA talks with Mexico in May but set no date for Canada.
LeBlanc said Canada was close to a limited metals deal last October before Trump ended negotiations, citing anger over an Ontario anti-tariff ad.
“We're absolutely ready to resume the discussion where we were in October,” LeBlanc said.
Carney, asked who ultimately decides, did not hedge.
“He's the decision-maker, full stop, on these issues and all other issues,” he told CBC.
