INSIGHT: While Canadian and U.S. Business Leaders Meet to Collaborate on Pacific North West Trade and Projects, Trump Spoils the Well – Maureen McCall

While U.S. and Canadian business leaders and U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra were in morning meetings at the 2026 Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) Annual Summit in Edmonton, Alberta, discussing greater U.S./Canadian business collaboration yesterday, the White House was preparing an afternoon pivot.

By 3 pm MDT, U.S President Donald Trump announced yet another round of punishing 50 percent tariffs on various Canadian goods in response to what is deemed to be discriminatory trade policies that affect U.S exports, including U.S. motor vehicles, dairy and alcohol. The tariffs come under the Section 338 -The Trade Act of 1930 – which White House Senior Trade Advisor Kelly Ann Shaw says has never been used by any American president before.

While stipulating that the tariffs will not apply to energy, potash, fish, critical minerals or products subject to tariffs under Section 232, the statement from the White House declared the new tariffs are “ designed to offset the burden and disadvantage on U.S. commerce from Canada’s discrimination”.

There was no mention of discriminating Canadian tariffs that disadvantaged U.S. commerce at the 2026 PNWER Annual Summit held in Edmonton, Alberta earlier the same day.

The conference was opened with a fireside chat featuring United States Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, with many other U.S. government officials speaking at the event that day including Lt. Gov Denny Heck, Lieutenant Governor for the State of Washington, Van Burtenshaw – Senator, Idaho State Senate, Rep. Mary Dye, State Representative – Washington Legislature, well as representatives from the Canadian Provincial and Federal governments and executives and senior leaders from U.S. and Canadian industry.

Gary Mar, President & CEO of the Canada West Foundation, who previously served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, holding Cabinet portfolios in Health, Education, Environment, Community Development, and International & Intergovernmental Relations, moderated the conversation with Ambassador Hoekstra.

They discussed the strong economic ties between Canada and the U.S., emphasizing the importance of trade and infrastructure. They highlighted the $2.5 billion daily trade between the two countries and the potential for increased oil exports from Alberta to the U.S. The conversation also covered the strategic importance of several industries, and Hoekstra was very optimistic about Canada/U.S. collaborations.

“We’re bringing back industries that maybe 5 to 10 years ago Canada and the U.S. had written off. You’d go to the mining conference in Toronto, and people tell me that a few years ago it wasn’t a very exciting place to be. You could have shot a cannon down the halls because… who’s investing in mining? You go there this year, and you’ve got seven organizations from the U.S. government who are there. It’s really important to get into critical minerals now with money to invest to start up mines. Another growth industry is shipbuilding. Finland, Canada, and the U.S. reached an agreement to do shipbuilding and build icebreakers in all three countries because the Arctic is becoming a more important area. And then you have emerging industries- Space, AI, Data, Uranium. Some say “Uranium?…that’s an old industry”. But now you’re talking about SMRs: small modular reactors. That’s a big investment area. So, you’ve got a whole new list of industries that you can go into. It really should be a very exciting time for Canada and America to partner on those kinds of industries if we decide that directionally, that’s where Canada wants to go, and if that’s where America wants to go.”

Hoekstra identified critical minerals as an area where the two countries can form a business relationship. He described “a national security relationship of partners and equals”, addressing the need for critical minerals for both national security and economic security for both countries. He did mention that at a U.S conference a few months ago, in Washington, D.C., the U.S. invited countries from around the world, including Canada. At the conclusion of the sessions, countries were invited to sign up and to be partners with the U.S. in addressing the need for critical minerals. He noted, “I think from our standpoint, one of the disappointing things is (that) Canada didn’t sign up.”

Mar and Hoekstra also addressed the ongoing USMCA negotiations, and Hoekstra felt that the two countries are going to end up with a deal between what he described as “two large trading partners”. But the challenge seems to be deciding on the framework of the agreement.

“The President will decide whether it’s going to be 10 one-year reviews or whatever. But the 10 one-year reviews I don’t think is an optimal solution. We’ve seen uncertainty in investments for the last 13 to 15 months already, and you know it’s about where the investments are going to be made. Are they going to be made on the north side of the border or on the south side of the border? Indications are that with this level of uncertainty, more of those investments ( I believe in the numbers that I’ve seen) are finding their way south of the border. And so I think to get rid of that uncertainty.”

Hoekstra also said the U.S. is at the third round of in-depth negotiations with Mexico, with additional meetings coming up in August which may have an impact on negotiations with Canada. The potential for joint infrastructure projects was a challenging subject, with both speakers acknowledging the high costs of Infrastructure.

“In just about everywhere I go in Canada, you don’t have enough of it (infrastructure),” Hoekstra said. “Just to move vehicles and trucks and buses – which is no different than in the U.S. So, it’s really expensive, and once you build it, it’s expensive to maintain. But you really need it. So, in those areas where we can coordinate on infrastructure to get our critical needs from one country to the next, obviously it would be a huge advantage to coordinate where and what infrastructure we’re going to build. You’ve got lots of talk about pipelines. Let’s make sure that we do those things as much as we can jointly.” He noted that cooperative actions between the two countries go on every day.

The meeting concluded with a toast to the U.S.-Canada friendship, with Hoekstra saying that he thinks it would be helpful if 300 to 400 attendees at the conference from both Canada and the U.S. left the conference and talked about how important our trade relationship is to national security, economic security, and personal security. He said this relationship is so critical that we need to grow it and we need to stabilize it, and the future would then be “very, very bright for all of us”.

Author’s note: PNWER submitted comments to both the United States Trade Representative and Global Affairs Canada encouraging that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA/CUSMA) be extended during the joint review beginning July 1, 2026. Recommendations were informed by input from business and the public sector in the Pacific Northwest.

Maureen McCall is an energy professional who writes on issues affecting the energy industry.