ANALYSIS: Trump Wants to Dump Canadian Aluminum — and Some Canadian CEOs Might Let Him

Dominic LeBlanc and the Negotiation That Never Took Place

Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Canada-U.S. Trade, made a statement on April 23, 2026, at The Globe and Mail’s INTERSECT conference that should be framed and hung in every office in Ottawa: “In October, we were very close to an agreement that would have significantly reduced these sector-specific tariffs.” Very close. An agreement in sight. Months of diplomatic work. Teams of negotiators on both sides. And then? Donald Trump watched an Ontario government ad—an anti-tariff ad airing on U.S. networks—and he walked away. He called his negotiators. He told them to stop. And the talks came to a halt overnight, in October 2025.

A TV commercial. That’s why Canadian aluminum workers are now filling out forms promising to move to the United States. Not because of a trade imbalance. Not because of a documented economic injustice. Because of a TV commercial that bruised one man’s ego. LeBlanc said Canada is ready to resume talks “where we left off in October.” The question is whether Washington still wants to talk, or if the federal registry’s offer is the answer.

Canada is sometimes accused of being naive in its relations with Washington. But we must call what happened by its name: a good-faith negotiation, conducted over months, scuttled by a presidential whim. The naivety isn’t on the Canadian side.

The “entry fee” demanded even before talks begin

Radio-Canada revealed what many had suspected: Washington is demanding a list of concessions from Canada before agreeing to return to the table for formal negotiations on the USMCA—the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is scheduled for review in July 2026. An “entry fee,” according to sources consulted. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer publicly expressed his irritation regarding provincial restrictions on U.S. alcohol on April 22—going so far as to mention “coercive measures.” This was on the very same day that Canadian workers were losing their jobs due to 50% tariffs. Washington’s priorities are clear. They just aren’t Canadian.

Mark Carney said on April 24 that the U.S. sector-specific tariffs constitute a violation of the USMCA. He is right in principle. But legal truth and the reality of the balance of power are two different things. You can be right and still lose. And the federal government’s April 23 proposal isn’t designed for a country that’s right. It’s designed for a country that’s hungry.

What Pellerin Said That Diplomats Don’t Say

William Pellerin is an attorney specializing in international commercial law. He chooses his words carefully. When he says, “We win if you lose,” he isn’t just being rhetorical. He is describing a deliberate political strategy. The Trump administration’s trade strategy is not based on the idea that everyone can win if the rules are fair. It is based on the idea that U.S. economic power is a raw fact that can be used as a weapon—and that trading partners, even historic allies, can be treated as adversaries to be subdued.

This is not a hostile interpretation. It is what Trump himself said in the Oval Office on April 24, speaking of his trade strategy: “Car manufacturers come from Canada. They come from Mexico, Germany, Japan.” The tone was one of satisfaction. Not cooperation. The satisfaction of a predator watching its prey move toward it.

I remember what economics textbooks used to teach about free trade: everyone wins. Trump threw those textbooks away a long time ago. What worries me is that some Canadian leaders still seem to be waiting for someone to pick them up.

The Auto Industry Precedent and What It portends for Aluminum

Trump used exactly the same tactic with automakers. Devastating tariffs. Then an offer of relief contingent on building plants on U.S. soil. And it worked—partially. Some automakers announced investments in the United States. Some production lines were relocated. What Trump learned from the auto industry, he’s now applying to aluminum and steel. And if it works again, he’ll apply it to something else. Pharmaceuticals. Agri-food. Energy. No Canadian sector is immune to this logic, because this logic has no sectoral boundaries—it has a geographical boundary: anything that isn’t American is a potential target.

And yet, no one in Canada’s ruling class seems willing to call this what it is: a deliberate attempt to dismantle Canada’s manufacturing industry over several years, through gradual pressure, using access to the U.S. market as leverage. People talk about “difficult negotiations.” A “tumultuous week.” “Aggressive tactics.” Words always fall short of reality.

The Impossible Calculation Canadian Companies Are Being Asked to Make

Jean Simard is no ideologue. He has been the CEO of the Aluminum Association of Canada for years. He knows the price of aluminum on global markets, the costs of hydroelectric power in Quebec—among the lowest in the world, which is precisely why Canada produces primary aluminum competitively—and the financial structure of major aluminum smelters. When he says “fuzzy math,” he’s pointing to something specific: the U.S. proposal requires companies to commit to investments of several billion dollars over five- to ten-year time frames, in a market where the price of aluminum fluctuates by 30 to 60 percent depending on market cycles. It’s like asking someone to bet their house on the price of a volatile stock where the regulator is also the dealer.

Quebec’s hydroelectric power, which fuels the primary aluminum electrolysis cells at a cost that no U.S. region can match, is a structural competitive advantage that billions in U.S. investments cannot buy. You can’t transplant the Saguenay River. You can’t move the Churchill Falls. Canada has built its aluminum industry on a specific geography. And that geography is non-negotiable.

This is where the U.S. proposal reveals its true nature: it does not seek to create a viable U.S. industry. It seeks to destroy a viable Canadian industry. The difference is immense. One is industrial policy. The other is economic predation.

Cobden and the Frozen Billion: The Reality of Industrial Assets

Catherine Cobden put it simply on April 24: “A steel mill can represent up to a billion dollars or more in assets. That’s a significant value—you don’t just shut it down, lock the doors, and turn off the lights.” ” Behind this CEO’s statement lies an industrial reality that analysts in Washington either ignore or pretend to ignore. The electric arc furnaces at the Stelco steel mill in Hamilton, Ontario, have a lifespan of thirty to forty years. The rolling mills were designed to last for decades. The teams of operators have developed technical expertise that isn’t found in any manual. You don’t “move” all of that. You abandon it. And you start from scratch somewhere else, at a major competitive disadvantage, in a market controlled by the very entity that forced you to leave.

And yet, companies might sign on. Not because it’s rational. Because 50% tariffs for long enough can make any irrational decision seem sensible. That’s the perverse genius of Trump’s strategy: making the choice impossible for long enough that capitulation becomes the only option left.

USMCA in July 2026: A Review Under Pressure

Mark Carney used the word “violation” on April 24 when referring to U.S. sector-specific tariffs. This is legally defensible—the USMCA contains provisions on bilateral tariffs that are difficult to reconcile with 50% tariffs justified under Section 232 of the U.S. Trade Expansion Act. But the USMCA is an agreement among three sovereign parties. Its dispute settlement mechanism takes years, not weeks, to work through. And in July 2026, when the mandatory review begins, it will be Washington that sets the tone for the negotiations.

Carney said that Canada is prepared to enter into detailed negotiations—or to wait, if necessary. This is a sound diplomatic stance. It is also a stance that assumes time is on Canada’s side. But time is working against the workers in Bécancour, who are not receiving wages, and against the technical teams that are disbanding as the plants shut down. Patience is a luxury that diplomats can afford. Tank operators cannot.

I respect Carney. His resolve in this trade crisis is genuine. But “waiting if necessary” is a phrase that sounds good at a press conference but rings very hollow in a factory break room in Arvida this November.

LeBlanc and the Promise to Pick Up “Where We Left Off in October”

On April 23, Dominic LeBlanc reiterated that Canada is ready to resume discussions where they left off in October 2025. It’s a reasonable position. It’s also a position that ignores the fact that the context has fundamentally changed since October. In October, Washington was negotiating. Today, Washington is publishing unilateral notices in the Federal Register urging Canadian companies to relocate. These are not the same negotiating partners. These are not the same rules of the game. Picking up “where we left off” assumes a continuity that no longer exists.

LeBlanc acknowledged that sector-specific tariffs might not disappear entirely—“Trump hasn’t done that for other countries,” he said. It’s a significant concession to voice openly. It means that the best realistic outcome isn’t a return to free trade but a negotiated reduction in pressure. And even that, Washington makes conditional on a prior “entry fee.”

What “immediate” Means in the U.S. Federal Context

The word “immediate” in the title of the April 23 notice is a rhetorical construction of remarkable precision. The tariff relief is immediate—that is, applicable as soon as the application is approved. The investment on U.S. soil, however, is future-oriented, conditional, phased, and subject to discretionary review. This temporal imbalance is at the heart of the trap. A Canadian company that signs on makes a binding commitment in exchange for a revocable tariff relief. It stakes its industrial future in the United States on a temporary reduction in pressure that can be reinstated at any time—by executive order, by tweet, or on a presidential whim.

The notice specifies that requests will be evaluated on a “discretionary” basis—that is Cobden’s word, taken from the analysis of the document. Discretionary means that the U.S. administration retains the right to refuse, modify, or withdraw the relief without formal recourse. It is a contract in which only one party has the right to change the terms. In any other context, this would be called an unfair agreement. In the context of Trump’s trade policy, it’s called an offer.

I wonder if Canadian lawyers who read this form will feel the same nausea as I do. Not nausea at its legality—it’s probably legal. Nausea at its audacity. It was drafted by someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.

The Precedent: What Happens to Companies That Said Yes

In the automotive sector, companies have accepted similar arrangements under pressure from U.S. tariffs. Some have announced investments. Some of those investments were carried out. Others remained mere announcements. But what no one properly accounts for is what happened in Canada during that time: the production lines that weren’t upgraded, the jobs that weren’t created, the subcontractors that went out of business because their main client had redirected its investments south. Deindustrialization by contagion doesn’t make the headlines. It happens slowly, in cities whose names don’t appear in press releases.

And yet—that is exactly what this notice is designed to bring about in the aluminum and steel industries. Not a dramatic, overnight industrial migration. A gradual, legally regulated migration, with properly filled-out forms and voluntary signatures, which in ten years’ time will leave entire regions wondering what they’re even supposed to do next.

François Legault and Doug Ford Face an Existential Threat

Ninety percent of Canada’s primary aluminum is produced in Quebec. The major aluminum smelters—Rio Tinto Alcan in Arvida, Alma, Bécancour, and Baie-Comeau—directly employ approximately 8,500 workers and support a regional supply chain that multiplies that number by five or six. The Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region has built its economic identity on aluminum for a century. A notice published in the U.S. Federal Register on April 23, 2026, poses a direct, concrete, and well-documented threat to this foundation.

Yet Premier François Legault has not made any specific public statement regarding this notice in the days following its publication. Doug Ford, whose province is home to a significant portion of Canada’s steel production, has been more vocal—but mainly on general trade negotiations, not on this specific proposal. The absence of a strong provincial voice in the face of a mechanism that specifically targets their industries is a silence that has consequences. Companies evaluating this offer will do so in the absence of a clear political signal.

Where is the anger? Not the rhetorical anger of press conferences. The anger that says: if a single Quebec aluminum smelter signs this form, there will be consequences. That kind of anger—I haven’t heard it yet.

Hydropower as Industrial Sovereignty

There is one argument that Canada does not make forcefully enough: Canadian primary aluminum is the lowest-carbon aluminum in the Western world, because it is produced using renewable hydroelectric power. Its carbon footprint per metric ton is about four times lower than that of aluminum produced in China, and significantly lower than what natural gas-fired U.S. aluminum smelters could produce. In a world that claims to want to decarbonize industry, Quebec aluminum is not just a Canadian trade issue. It is a strategic resource for the Western energy transition.

The Carney government should make this case in Washington with a level of intensity I have not yet seen. Destroying the Canadian aluminum industry to rebuild a more carbon-intensive U.S. industry is not a victory for the West—it is a victory for Beijing, which produces more than 60% of the world’s aluminum under environmental conditions that no one wants to speak of openly. If Trump wants to reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese aluminum, he should protect Arvida, not gut it.

The Logic of Short-Term Survival Versus Industrial Sovereignty

Let’s be honest. Some Canadian companies will seriously consider this offer. Not out of naivety. Not out of betrayal. Because 50% tariffs over a long enough period turn any untenable decision into an understandable one. A CEO who sees his margins vanish, his American customers turning to domestic suppliers, and his bankers starting to ask tough questions doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for the geopolitical situation to stabilize. He has employees to pay on the 15th and 30th of the month. He has creditors. He has a board of directors.

This reality does not justify the U.S. offer. It explains it. And that is precisely why the Canadian government must make the cost of signing the deal higher than the cost of resisting it—through direct financial support to sectors under pressure, through preferential government contracts, and through clear signals that the Canadian government will guarantee the survival of these industries for the duration of the tariff storm. Without these tools, Ottawa is asking Canadian companies to be patriotic at the cost of their own bankruptcy. That is an unfair demand.

And yet, if a major aluminum smelter signs on, no one can really blame it. It will be the result of a U.S. policy designed to make resistance unsustainable. The fault does not lie in capitulation—it lies in the conditions that make it inevitable.

The Existing Model of Resistance

There are precedents for successful resistance to U.S. tariff pressures. During the 2018–2019 trade war, under Trump’s first term, Canada maintained a firm stance on aluminum and steel, coupled with targeted tariff countermeasures on politically sensitive products in key U.S. states—pickles from Pennsylvania, steel from Ohio, orange juice from Florida. This strategy worked. The tariffs were lifted in May 2019—not because Washington had changed its mind on the substance of the issue, but because the pressure had become too politically costly.

The difference in 2026 is that Trump is in his second term with no immediate electoral constraints, and the structure of Canada’s countermeasures must be rethought in this new context. But the principle remains valid: resistance can work if it is consistent, sustained, and painful for key U.S. political interests. Provincial restrictions on American alcohol—which Greer wants to see lifted—are an imperfect but real illustration of this.

The Mirror Washington Holds Up to Us

There is something we must face head-on. This offer is possible because Washington believes—probably with good reason—that economic pressure will ultimately prevail over political resistance. This American calculation is not based on a misreading of the Canadian reality. It is based on an observation: whenever economic pain becomes acute enough, short-term interests tend to prevail over long-term positions. This is true in the United States. It is true in Canada. It is true everywhere.

We consume products manufactured in China under conditions that we officially condemn. We continued to buy Russian oil through intermediaries after 2022, until our outrage gave way to habit. We have signed trade agreements with authoritarian regimes in the name of supply stability. And today, we’re watching Canadian companies weigh whether they should commit to moving to the United States just to survive a few more quarters. We are all, in one way or another, responsible for the state of a national economy that has failed to build enough redundancy, enough diversification, and enough resilience to absorb this shock without faltering.

This is not an accusation against Canadians. It is an observation about twenty years of overly complacent trade policy. We built our prosperity on the assumption that the rules would hold. They no longer do. And we are discovering this now, in real time, at the worst possible moment.

The Complicity of Ordinary Silence

While the CEOs of industry associations speak to the cameras, while ministers repeat that Canada is “ready to negotiate,” while trade lawyers describe “mass layoffs” to their clients—most of us are doing something else. We’re looking at our phones. We’re consuming news about tariffs. We say it’s serious. And we wait for someone else to fix it. This isn’t a moral failure. It’s the normal structure of collective attention in liberal societies. But it creates a space in which a seven-page notice in a U.S. federal registry can cause considerable damage without anyone raising a fuss.

And yet, if these factories close—not all of them, but a few, gradually, amid organized indifference—the question isn’t who signed the form. The question is why no one made enough noise to make signing the form unthinkable.

What Will Happen If Nothing Changes by July 2026

The USMCA review will begin in July 2026. Until then, the 50% tariffs remain in place. The industrial migration form remains open. And the pressure is mounting, week after week, in the boardrooms of major aluminum and steel mills. If Canada reaches July without having secured significant sector-specific relief—and if companies have begun signing agreements—the USMCA review will no longer be a negotiation between equals. It will be a negotiation between a country that has held its ground and a country that has begun to give in. Washington knows this. That is why this offer was released now, not after July.

The timing is no coincidence. It’s an added layer of pressure at the negotiating table even before the table officially exists. That’s the true sophistication of this strategy—it doesn’t destroy Canada head-on. It weakens it enough so that Canadians themselves do the work, in their own boardrooms, with their own pens, on seven-page forms in English.

I don’t know how this story ends. But I know what I read in this memo: the American conviction that Canada will eventually give in. What haunts me is that this conviction isn’t entirely unfounded. And that’s the real wound—not the form, not the tariffs, not Trump. The wound is that we’re not yet sure we’re wrong.

The sentence Carney should say—but hasn’t yet

There’s a sentence missing from Canada’s current rhetoric. Not “we’re ready to negotiate.” Not “this is a violation of the USMCA.” Not “we’ll wait if necessary.” The sentence that’s missing is this: No Canadian aluminum or steel company will move to the United States without us having exhausted every tool at our disposal to make that move unnecessary. It’s a political statement. It’s a commitment. It’s a threat. It could backfire on whoever says it if the tools aren’t there to back it up. That may be why it hasn’t been said yet.

But without it, the April 23 notice remains within the U.S. federal framework. The door remains open. And somewhere in a boardroom, a CEO is looking at his third-quarter figures and starting to do the math.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist