Good morning. While the European Union delays retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. in hopes of further negotiations, President Donald Trump also further delayed negotiations with Canada. And maybe we should be prepared for another delay after that. Or just take note from the EU: keep talking and prepare retaliatory measures at the same time. More on the Canadian picture below.

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Good morning, I’m Matt Lundy, economics editor at The Globe.

This was supposed to be the week when Canada entered the home stretch in negotiations with the United States to reach some sort of economic and security agreement.

But as we’ve come to expect from the Trump administration, that deadline – July 21 – has been delayed, and Canadians are left to ponder a new date: Aug. 1.

Last Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 35-per-cent tariff on Canadian imports at the start of next month. (There would still be broad exceptions to this higher duty, a White House official told The Globe and Mail.) Prime Minister Mark Carney referred to Aug. 1 as a “revised deadline.”

Of course, this timeline could be revised again.

The Trump administration’s goal of “90 deals in 90 days,” set in April as the trade war went global, has come and gone with scant progress. Delays are to be expected when the President is trying to remake the global trading order in his image.

This is a complication for Canada. We are not the only country eyeing an Aug. 1 deadline, however hazy that looks.

Since last week, Trump has sent around two dozen “letters” – which are, effectively, posts on Trump’s Truth Social account formatted as letters – informing various countries of higher tariffs.

The recipients include Japan, South Korea, Mexico and the European Union, all of which are looking for clarity on trade that may not materialize by August.

“To be frank, the future of U.S. trade policy is as clear as mud,” Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets, said in a Friday note to clients. “That’s inevitable when White House decisions seem to be based on the whims, and mood, of one particular man, and when it’s hard to ascribe changes to a well-articulated American objective.”

With so much in flux, it’s easy to scoff at the delays and climb downs. But as this process drags out, Canada is getting hit by a mounting series of blows.

Trump recently doubled steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 per cent – substantially higher than during his first term, and applied to a broader range of goods. Despite a carefully negotiated trade pact, automobiles shipped from Canada to the U.S. are subject to duties. And Trump recently threatened 50-per-cent tariffs on copper, a multibillion-dollar Canadian export industry, starting Aug. 1.

Keep in mind, Canada is also facing 25-per-cent tariffs on goods that aren’t compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. (Economists think that a sliver of Canadian exports – maybe 10 per cent to 20 per cent – are subject to those duties.)

So yes, deadlines keep getting pushed back, and this is widely interpreted as a sign of the Trump administration’s incompetence on the trade file. But the longer this plays out, the more damage is being felt in the Canadian economy.

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