Making concessions to get a trade deal when the public’s in a fighting mood

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Mark Carney has always faced a conundrum when it comes to making a trade deal with Donald Trump. There’s pressure to get a deal, but it would require concessions that come at a political cost.

Now that squeeze is even tighter. At a critical time.

Canada and the United States are talking about a deal again, after a long period when there weren’t really any serious negotiations going on.

Mr, Carney’s government now wants to talk about a broad deal that would address a wide range of topics, including defence and critical minerals, in stages. But the first order of business is alleviating tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos – and, of course, the cancellation of a new tranche of steep tariffs that Mr. Trump has threatened to impose on Aug. 19 in a bid to push Canada back to the table.

Closing that deal means concessions, starting with putting U.S. booze back on liquor-store shelves but continuing on to many other things.

But among Canadians, distaste for the idea of making concessions isn’t fading. It’s getting stronger.

Last week, the Prime Minister faced questions from reporters asking if it was time to take a tougher tone. The week before, the Angus Reid Institute released a poll that found only 7 per cent of Canadians want Ottawa to make the concessions the U.S. is demanding – and 62 per cent want to levy countertariffs. It’s a fighting mood.

Partisan politics have shifted, too. The Conservatives, who had looked weak on dealing with Mr. Trump’s trade war, found a foothold on the issue after Mr. Carney misled the public about the concessions made to get the U.S. to open the new Gordie Howe International Bridge between Windsor and Detroit. They now say Mr. Carney caves too easily.

“I don’t understand the strategy of making concession after concession after concession before even getting to the negotiating table,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said at a news conference last week.

The opposition won’t scare Mr. Carney yet. He sits atop a big lead in polls, with political capital to spare.

But he might have trouble with provincial leaders who know that capitulation is unpopular. British Columbia Premier David Eby won’t be keen to put California wine back on the shelves if lumber doesn’t get relief from tariffs.

Opinion: Concession Carney faces his Neville Chamberlain moment

The bigger issue, for politics and for Canada’s economy, is that Mr. Carney can’t expect concessions to buy lasting trade peace even if he does get a deal.

Mr. Trump signed the USMCA trade agreement in 2018 and has reneged on it. He demanded a new deal to open the Gordie Howe bridge. Any deal with Mr. Trump can only buy time.

Canadians would surely accept some concessions to make a good deal on tariffs. But they won’t be as acceptable if Mr. Trump comes back in three months or a year threatening new tariffs and demanding that Canada give in on something else.

That’s one reason Mr. Carney’s government spent much of the past year waiting, rather than pushing hard to get back to the table after Mr. Trump kiboshed talks last October in a fit of pique over anti-tariff TV commercials from Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government.

It wasn’t till the spring that Mr. Carney signalled a real desire to kickstart negotiations, making concessions for U.S. streaming giants such as Netflix and telling a New York business audience that Canada could help make America great again.

Carney ‘not interested’ in narrow U.S. trade deal

Now, Canadian negotiators are back at the table to stave off the Aug. 19 tariffs and get some tariff relief, proposing that such a deal would serve as a path for a broader negotiation to come.

Visible concessions, including the elbows-down symbolism of dropping the booze ban, followed by talks on more concessions to come, will be jarring. Mr. Carney hasn’t talked a lot about what Canada might have to give. And Canadians don’t seem to be in the mood to hear it now.

So far, Canadians seem to have placed a lot of trust in Mr. Carney, even deference, to handle Mr. Trump’s chaos. That probably won’t evaporate overnight. And if he has to spend political capital to get a good deal, that’s what he was elected to do.

But making concessions – even for a good deal − would change Mr. Carney’s political identity. And the danger is that a deal with Mr. Trump doesn’t last.