U.S. Push Extends Beyond Tariffs as Former Trade Official Points to Canadian F-35s, Golden Dome and Critical Minerals

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Canada’s latest confrontation with Washington is becoming about far more than the tariff rate attached to goods crossing the border. With a new U.S. tariff deadline approaching on August 19, former U.S. trade official Ryan Majerus says Washington is also seeking Canadian movement on defence procurement, continental missile defence and access to strategically important minerals.

That changes the nature of the negotiations. F-35 fighter jets, participation in President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile-defence project and critical-mineral supply chains all reach deep into questions of sovereignty, national security and industrial policy. For Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government, the challenge is therefore not simply finding a tariff compromise. Ottawa must weigh what it might gain immediately at the border against commitments that could shape Canada’s economic and defence relationship with the United States for decades.

The Tariff Deadline Is Only the Most Visible Pressure Point

The immediate confrontation centres on new U.S. tariffs scheduled to take effect August 19. The Trump administration announced a 50% tariff on nearly US$20 billion worth of Canadian imports under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Washington says the measure responds to Canadian treatment of American autos, alcohol and dairy products. Unlike many earlier Trump-era measures that left CUSMA-compliant Canadian products protected, the threatened duties reach goods that would normally receive preferential treatment under the continental trade agreement.

That creates a powerful negotiating deadline, but the emerging picture suggests tariffs are functioning partly as leverage for a much broader settlement. The Associated Press reported that Majerus, now a partner at King & Spalding, believes both governments want an “off ramp.” Ottawa wants relief from U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and the long-running pressure on softwood lumber. Washington, however, appears interested in extracting commitments that extend well beyond conventional market-access disputes and into Canada’s defence and resource policies.

Canada’s F-35 Review Has Become Part of the Trade Equation

Canada announced in 2023 that it intended to acquire 88 F-35A fighters to replace the aging CF-18 fleet, making the program one of the largest military procurement projects in Canadian history. The plan subsequently became politically sensitive as relations with Washington deteriorated. Ottawa ordered a review in March 2025 to determine whether the F-35 remained the best option when capability, cost, economic benefits, strategic partnerships and possible alternatives were considered. Canadian defence officials were still describing that review as ongoing in 2026.

Majerus’ comments therefore place an unresolved Canadian procurement decision directly inside the wider U.S.-Canada bargaining environment. Washington would have strong industrial and strategic reasons to favour completion of the purchase. The F-35 is a U.S.-led multinational program, while Canadian companies participate in its international supply chain. For Ottawa, however, an aircraft decision presented domestically as a defence and industrial-policy choice could become considerably more difficult if Canadians perceive it as a concession made in exchange for tariff relief.

Billions Already Committed Make the Fighter Decision Complicated

Walking away from the F-35 is not comparable to cancelling an ordinary commercial order. Canada has been part of the Joint Strike Fighter program since the 1990s, and preparations for the aircraft have been underway for years. The Auditor General reported that, as of March 31, 2025, National Defence had committed C$935 million to the U.S. government for production of the first four fighters and long-lead items supporting another eight. Canadian officials have also been preparing bases, training arrangements, weapons and support infrastructure for the transition.

Costs have nevertheless become a major concern. The Auditor General found that the project estimate rose from C$19 billion in 2022 to C$27.7 billion in 2024, an increase of roughly 46%. At least another C$5.5 billion in infrastructure upgrades and advanced weapons needed for full operational capability was outside that estimate. The first Canadian aircraft are scheduled to support training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona before jets begin arriving in Canada. Those commitments give Washington leverage, but they also make any Canadian decision financially and operationally consequential.

Golden Dome Pulls Continental Defence Into the Negotiations

The second defence issue identified by Majerus is Golden Dome, the Trump administration’s proposed next-generation homeland missile-defence architecture. The U.S. initiative is intended to counter a broad range of ballistic, hypersonic, cruise-missile and other aerial threats through a combination of sensors, interceptors, command systems and space-based technology. For Canada, the question is especially significant because North American aerospace defence is already deeply integrated through NORAD.

Ottawa has moved closer to considering broader missile-defence cooperation without committing publicly to the specific terms of Golden Dome. Canadian defence briefing material released in 2026 says Canada recognizes integrated air and missile defence as increasingly important and wants to work closely with the United States on continental defence. At the same time, officials have repeatedly said that discussing detailed Golden Dome arrangements would be premature. Canada is already spending C$38.6 billion over 20 years on NORAD modernization, including new sensors and Arctic radar. Joining another major U.S.-led system could therefore involve difficult questions about cost, technology, command authority and Canadian control.

Geography Gives Washington a Reason to Want Canada Inside Golden Dome

Canada occupies strategic territory that cannot easily be separated from any serious effort to defend the continental United States from northern aerospace threats. Canadian and American forces already share warning information and command responsibilities through NORAD, while hundreds of Canadian Armed Forces personnel serve in positions in the United States. Canada is also developing Arctic over-the-horizon radar and other surveillance systems designed to detect threats approaching North America through northern airspace.

That helps explain why Golden Dome can become relevant even in negotiations that began with tariffs. A missile-defence system designed around early detection, tracking and interception gains value from continental geography and integrated sensors. Washington therefore has an incentive to align Canadian infrastructure and procurement with its architecture. Ottawa has reasons to cooperate as well, particularly as hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles and increasingly sophisticated aerospace threats complicate continental defence. The politically difficult part is determining whether participation is structured as a genuine bilateral security partnership or becomes another concession associated with relief from American economic pressure.

Critical Minerals May Be the Most Strategically Valuable Demand

Critical minerals connect defence policy, advanced manufacturing, energy security and geopolitical competition in a way few traditional trade products can. Majerus said the United States wants increased access to Canadian supplies partly to reduce its exposure to China. That concern is measurable. The U.S. Geological Survey’s 2025 critical-minerals list contains 60 minerals considered important to economic or national security, and USGS reported that the United States imported about 80% of the rare-earth elements it consumed in 2024.

Canada has many of the resources Washington wants. Its federal critical-minerals strategy prioritizes materials such as lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements, while other Canadian deposits and processing facilities produce strategically significant metals including germanium, gallium and antimony. The United States was already Canada’s largest critical-minerals trading partner in 2025, with bilateral critical-minerals trade valued at roughly C$37 billion. The negotiations are therefore not about creating a relationship from scratch. They are potentially about determining how much deeper and more preferential that relationship becomes.

Canada Is Trying to Keep More Mineral Value at Home

Greater American access to Canadian minerals could produce investment, customers and faster project development, but Ottawa has increasingly emphasized that Canada should capture more of the economic value between the mine and the finished product. The federal Critical Minerals Strategy was designed not only to increase extraction but also to encourage processing, refining, manufacturing and recycling inside Canada. That distinction matters because countries rich in raw resources do not automatically capture the highest-paying jobs or most valuable industrial activity associated with them.

Recent Canadian policy illustrates that ambition. In July 2026, Ottawa launched the Canada Critical Minerals Accelerator and announced an agreement involving Teck Resources’ Trail Operations in British Columbia. Teck has outlined potential investments of up to C$850 million that could expand production of germanium and antimony and potentially introduce additional gallium capacity. The federal framework also contemplates Canadian offtake rights for some future production. Against that backdrop, any U.S. request for privileged mineral access would have to be balanced against Canada’s own strategy of building domestic supply chains and maintaining relationships with multiple allied markets.

Trade and National Security Are Increasingly Becoming One Negotiation

For decades, Canada-U.S. commercial disputes were often treated separately from military cooperation. Softwood lumber could be fought through trade litigation while NORAD continued operating largely unaffected. The latest negotiations suggest those boundaries are becoming much less distinct. Tariffs, fighter aircraft, missile defence, energy and mineral supply chains now fit into a larger U.S. economic-security strategy in which commercial dependence is treated as a national-security concern.

The scale of bilateral integration makes that shift especially important. U.S. government figures put two-way goods trade with Canada at approximately US$719.5 billion in 2025. Canada remains a major market for American vehicles, machinery, agricultural goods and energy products, while the United States buys Canadian energy, automobiles, food and industrial inputs. Canadian defence industries are similarly intertwined with American procurement; National Defence says more than 60% of Canadian defence-industry exports go to the United States. When supply chains are that interconnected, Washington can use market access as strategic leverage—but disrupting Canadian commerce can also impose costs on American companies that depend on those same networks.

Ottawa Has Leverage, but Its Exposure to the U.S. Remains Enormous

Canada is not negotiating without bargaining power. American manufacturers rely heavily on Canadian energy, metals, automotive components and other inputs, while the U.S. government itself describes the bilateral economy as deeply integrated. Canada can also increasingly point to potential customers and strategic partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific when arguing that Canadian resources should not automatically be reserved for one market. Canadian merchandise exports to regions outside the United States grew strongly in several areas during 2025.

Yet diversification cannot quickly erase geography. Roughly 72% of Canadian goods exports went to the United States in 2025, according to figures cited by the Associated Press. Global Affairs Canada also estimates that the U.S. market accounted for 42.4% of Canadian manufacturing output in 2024 and supported 41% of manufacturing employment. Those numbers help explain Ottawa’s urgency. A prolonged tariff conflict can hit particular factories and communities long before national export strategies find alternative buyers. Canada’s challenge is therefore to use the leverage it has without overestimating how quickly its U.S. dependence can be reduced.

The Bigger Question Is What Canada Would Receive in Return

A workable compromise could involve far more than simply Washington withdrawing one tariff announcement. Canada is seeking relief from U.S. tariffs affecting steel and aluminum and continues to face the persistent softwood-lumber dispute. Reuters reported that officials have been discussing an interim arrangement capable of addressing both existing tariffs and the new duties scheduled for August 19. Those negotiations are unfolding while the future of CUSMA is also uncertain after the United States declined to renew the agreement in its current form during the July 2026 joint review.

That makes the value of any Canadian concession crucial. An F-35 commitment lasts decades. Participation in Golden Dome could shape Canada’s continental-defence architecture for a generation. Preferential U.S. access to critical minerals could affect investment decisions and Canada’s ability to cultivate alternative export markets. If Ottawa offers movement in those areas, it will face pressure to demonstrate that what Canada receives is similarly durable. Temporary tariff relief would carry a very different value from a stable long-term framework covering trade, defence and strategic resources.

The August 19 Deadline Could Be the Beginning, Not the End

The immediate test is whether negotiators can prevent the 50% Section 338 tariffs from taking effect. Talks have intensified in Washington, with Canadian Minister Dominic LeBlanc and chief trade negotiator Janice Charette engaged with U.S. officials. Reuters reported on August 14 that the two sides remained far apart on a draft agreement, although both governments had continued frequent technical and political discussions. AP reported days later that the search for a last-minute truce was still underway.

Even a breakthrough would probably leave substantial work unfinished. The United States declined to renew CUSMA in its current form at the July 1 joint review, meaning the agreement remains in force but faces continuing annual reviews unless the countries ultimately agree to extend it. Defence procurement, missile defence and critical-mineral security could consequently remain part of Canada-U.S. bargaining long after the immediate tariff deadline passes. What began as another fight over import duties is increasingly looking like a negotiation over the architecture of the bilateral relationship itself.

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