CUSMA internal review process ‘finished in Canada,’ Carney says

The internal review process for the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement is “finished in Canada,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Wednesday.

“We’ve had good conversations, good back and forth,” Carney said about his conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump when asked by reporters if he still had hope for a renewal of CUSMA.

“There’s a lot of work to be done for the review of CUSMA. That work has started with reviews in the United States, internal reviews and consultations. The work has started in Mexico. It’s finished in Canada,” Carney said before the Liberal caucus meeting.

Canada will be “ready to sit down” with both the U.S. and Mexico soon, he added.

The process leading up to this year’s scheduled review of CUSMA officially began in September 2025.

In December, Carney’s office said the federal government would formally start trade discussions with the U.S. on the renewal of CUSMA in January.

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Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc will meet with his counterparts in the U.S. mid-January to advance the talks, Carney said in December.

The U.S. currently has multiple rounds of tariffs on key sectors of the Canadian economy, including steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.

Last week, Trump threatened a 100 per cent tariff against “all Canadian goods and products coming into the U.S.A.,” after Canada announced a trade agreement over canola and electric vehicles with China.

This prompted LeBlanc to clarify that there was “no pursuit of a free trade deal with China.”