President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed North American trade during a call on Thursday. Their conversation came exactly 50 days after the U.S. government announced it hadn’t agreed to renew the USMCA free trade pact “in its current form.”
A statement released by Carney’s office said that the “Prime Minister and the President discussed ongoing developments affecting North American trade” during Thursday’s call.
“They underscored the importance of renewing the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) as soon as possible to provide greater certainty for North American businesses and workers,” the statement said.
The USMCA, which superseded NAFTA in 2020 and reached a trilateral review deadline this year, is known as CUSMA in Canada and T-MEC (Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá) in Mexico.
The statement issued by the Canadian prime minister’s office said that Carney and Sheinbaum also discussed “the progress between Canada and Mexico on cross-border trade.”
“They emphasized that strong bilateral cooperation is essential to shared continental security and prosperity,” it said. “Prime Minister Carney and President Sheinbaum agreed to remain in close contact.”
Today, I spoke with President Sheinbaum. We discussed ongoing developments affecting North American trade.
More on our call:https://t.co/AIvsggyndW
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) August 20, 2026
As of 3 p.m. Thursday, neither Sheinbaum nor her office had commented on the call with Carney.
Sheinbaum has stressed that Mexico, the United States and Canada could reach an agreement to extend the USMCA for an additional 16 years “at any time,” although the Trump administration has various concerns about the pact and its trade relationships with its neighbors, including ones related to trade deficits, energy policy and China.
The USMCA — which took effect when Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau were in office — governs trade worth around US $2 trillion annually. Even with the free-trade pact in place, Trump last year imposed tariffs on various Mexican and Canadian goods, including vehicles, steel and aluminum. In trade talks with U.S. officials, Mexico is seeking the reduction, or ideally the elimination, of the tariffs.
On Tuesday, Trump agreed to delay planned 50% tariffs on Canadian goods worth about $20 billion annually. However, the duties could take effect on Saturday if Canada doesn’t reach a deal with the U.S. before then.
Carney thanks Sheinbaum for Mexico’s support in combating wildfires in Canada
According to the Canadian government’s readout of Thursday’s call, Carney thanked Sheinbaum for “Mexico’s support in combating wildfires in Canada this summer, including through the deployment of more than 400 firefighters and support personnel.”
Mexican firefighters and technical personnel specializing in forest fires traveled to British Columbia earlier this month to support emergency efforts during intense wildfires in the western Canadian province.
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