Trade negotiations between Canada and the United States are set to drag on well past the initial hopes of an early resolution, with key players now calling mid-2026 an unlikely target and warning the process could slip into 2027.
In an exclusive joint interview on The Hub’s Alberta Edge podcast, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith both acknowledged momentum around the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) review has slowed.
Hoekstra pointed to the formal comment period now underway, during which businesses and the public in both countries are submitting feedback on how the accord is working. He said this essentially eliminates any chance of a quick, major deal.
Trade departments will then have to sift through the submissions and approach what he called the “painstaking” next stage.
“It’s going to be a long process of negotiation, of going through it… Page by page, product by product, tariff level by tariff level,” Hoekstra said.
The ambassador was blunt about the political realities of formalizing a deal by next summer.
That timeline collides directly with U.S. midterm elections in 2026, making Senate ratification anything but a guarantee.
“If that’s the path we go down, it would not be unrealistic to see that pushed off into 2027,” he said.
Congress must ratify any trade deal, and in an election year, opposition lawmakers are often unwilling to hand the president a political win.
Premier Smith expressed concern that a drawn-out process will add uncertainty for investors.
“It seems to me that we all hope that we’d be able to have an agreement early at the beginning of [this] summer,” Smith said. “I’m now hearing more like nine to 10 months.
“I really am sincerely hopeful that we don’t delay that because the longer we delay it, we have a shorter runway.”
Even as the formal deal drifts further out, both leaders outlined priorities they want to advance before 2026.
“Big, hairy, audacious goals”
Smith said Canada should aim higher in negotiations by putting forward what she refers to as “big, hairy, audacious goals” that would appeal to President Donald Trump’s style.
“What we should be talking about is how do we get big oil pipelines built to the U.S.,” she explained. “How do we shore up their backbone on natural gas? So not only they can use that for export, but also to underpin the AI data centres they want to build.”
Industry watchers still see room to expand pipeline capacity south, with calls to revive a Keystone XL-style route and boost flows on Enbridge’s Mainline through extra compression —moves which Smith said could unlock as much as two million additional barrels of oil a day if there is political will in Washington.
The premier also rattled off a list of other areas for potential early alignment, including defence, critical minerals, supply chains, and nuclear energy.
On nuclear, for example, the U.S. is pushing to quadruple its domestic nuclear generating capacity by 2050, with new executive orders aimed at accelerating reactor licensing and cutting red tape.
“Well, guess where you can get uranium?” Smith said. “From a friendly neighbour in Saskatchewan.”
Saskatchewan is the world’s second-largest uranium producer, possessing the largest high-grade deposits in the Athabasca Basin. The province supplies nearly a quarter of the global uranium used for electricity generation.
On critical minerals, China has shown a willingness to weaponize its control over supplies like gallium. Smith argued Canada should leverage its deposits of rare earths as a secure, democratic source for the U.S.
“These are all the things we need to be talking about in a big way,” Smith concluded. “Instead of talking about orange juice…That’s what I think the big miss is.”
That remark was a nod to the “elbows-up” trade skirmishes of recent months, when Canada retaliated against U.S. tariffs on steel, aluminum, and other goods by slapping its own counter-tariffs on orange juice, peanut butter, bourbon, and other products.
Various provinces piled on by targeting alcohol sales in their own liquor stores, in some cases pulling American wine and spirits off the shelves outright.
Twice in the joint interview, Hoekstra brought up the ban on American booze—an issue he seemed quite bothered by.
Recalling his tour of Banff, he cited the ability to drink American wine at the end of the day as a highlight.
Later in the discussion, he returned to the theme.
“At least in 11 out of 13 of your provinces or territories [have banned U.S. alcohol]. You’re going to have to travel to Alberta to buy American wine,” he said, in praise of the province’s decision to lift its moratorium.
On the bigger picture of trade, Hoekstra urged Canadians to keep their focus on the long game.
Doing business with the U.S., he argued, has brought “jobs and prosperity” north of the border for decades and can do so again if both sides resist the temptation to get bogged down in irritants.
Hoekstra pointed to his recent tour of the oilsands as proof of what cross-border cooperation can deliver: new bilateral technology making extraction cleaner, investment flowing both ways, and prosperity shared.
But he added that Alberta’s story can’t end there.
“Next time I come, you gotta expose me to more of your high-tech sector,” Hoekstra said candidly to Smith. “That’s another future area where there’s immense room for cooperation, development, and investment.”