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Canada Trade Deal Collapse and Carney’s China MOU: Jim Pfaff on Washington Report | Aug 24, 2026

Published: August 24, 2026
Network: Worldview Tube
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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The Canada trade deal was hours from being finalized when the Canadians came back asking for more. On the August 24 edition of Worldview Tube’s Washington Report, Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff worked through US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s account of how the talks fell apart, and then made the case that trade is the smaller half of this story. In January, Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a memorandum of understanding with Xi Jinping covering cooperation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and China’s Ministry of Public Security, and he has refused calls from Conservatives in the Canadian Parliament to reveal what is in it. President Trump answered the collapse with a Truth Social post raising tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, automotive parts and steel to 50% on January 1, 2027.

Topics Covered

• How the Canada Trade Deal Fell Apart in the Last Hours
• The MOU Mark Carney Will Not Show Parliament
• One China, Taiwan, and Chinese Police Work in the West
• The Monroe Doctrine and China’s Path Into This Hemisphere
• 50% Tariffs, the Libertarian Objection, and Alberta
• Key Takeaways

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How the Canada Trade Deal Fell Apart in the Last Hours

The show played Greer’s account first. Over a year ago Canada prohibited the sale of American wine and spirits in its stores, put limits on how many autos could go into Canada, and before that restricted the sale of US dairy. After about a year of asking Canada to eliminate those measures, the answer was no, so the administration proposed tailored tariffs covering roughly 5% of what Canada sends the United States. Canada asked to negotiate about a month ago, and by Tuesday night there was enough agreement among the parties to announce that they had found the way to a deal. Then, Greer said, the deal was set to be finalized, and in the last hours the Canadians wanted more.

The concessions Greer listed were not small: the United States offered Canada what he called the best access to the United States of any country in the world, cutting tariffs in half on steel and on aluminum, extensively reducing them on autos, and accommodating some element even of softwood lumber — the items Greer called sensitive for the Canadians.

“Simply, they wanted more. I don’t know if it was political for them. It certainly doesn’t make economic sense, but perhaps for political reasons.”
— Jamieson Greer, US Trade Representative

Greer also placed Canada in specific company. As President Trump introduced a trade policy to reshore American production and protect American jobs, two countries retaliated against the United States: the People’s Republic of China and Canada.

Asked what the United States owes Canada, Pfaff did not qualify the answer.

“We don’t owe them anything.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Carney’s public explanation was that Washington made last-minute changes, including threats to the French language and to Quebec and Canadian culture. Pfaff’s read on that was blunt: Carney says the United States threw things on Canada at the last minute, and Pfaff thinks he is lying, or at least mostly lying. There might have been a few things, because Trump is making a deal — but the collapse of the Canada trade deal traces to Ottawa, not to Washington.

The MOU Mark Carney Will Not Show Parliament

Pfaff asked the audience to stop reading the Canada trade deal as a bilateral squabble. Canada keeps pushing hard to expand trade with China. It is a sovereign nation with the right to do what it wants — and that choice carries weight precisely because of Canada’s relationship with the United States and its geographical location next to it.

“China is working its way into what’s going on in Canada at the behest, by the way, of the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Then he named the document.

“They have a memorandum of understanding with China that Mark Carney back in January signed with Xi Jinping.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

What the MOU apparently does, Pfaff said, is have the Royal Canadian Mounted Police act as Chinese police bureaus for Chinese people in Canada, including those who are Canadian citizens. Americans have seen the pattern already: Chinese police officers have operated all over the United States, tracking and monitoring Chinese people here and undertaking retaliation that many major American cities are doing nothing to stop. They are literally acting as a police force in the West.

One China, Taiwan, and Chinese Police Work in the West

The second commitment Pfaff flagged is diplomatic rather than operational, and it is not a small one.

“They also strongly endorse the One China policy. In other words, in effect, what Canada says is Taiwan actually belongs to China.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The United States does not endorse the One China policy as China demands it, and stopped making a direct alliance with China as a nation state during the Carter administration. Canada has gone the other way, and Conservatives in the Canadian Parliament have been calling on Carney to reveal the details of the MOU. He refuses. Pfaff’s objection is procedural: Carney is bypassing Parliament’s right, under Canada’s constitution, to agree to any treaties made with other nations. An MOU technically does not bind Canada to anything — and yet Carney is operating under it while keeping its terms from the body that would have to approve a treaty.

Pfaff has seen the maneuver before. Obama’s JCPOA with Iran worked the same way: he went ahead and did it and started operating on it, with no so-called requirement to take it to Congress for the Senate to approve the treaty, which is the American constitutional provision. The difference, Pfaff noted, is that the details of the Iran deal were known; Carney will not reveal what he signed. Iran remains a live file for this administration on very different terms, as we covered in Trump’s economic sanctions campaign against Iran.

The Monroe Doctrine and China’s Path Into This Hemisphere

Pfaff put the MOU inside a larger frame, and it starts with a Trump statement most commentary treated as a punchline. Bombastic as it was, Trump was right to say Canada is essentially a state of the United States. Canada has a military, but on a relative basis by population it does not build that military up to American standards. The United States provides Canada’s military security; Canada is entirely incapable of defending itself, much less projecting power elsewhere. Canada has markets in other parts of the world, but the United States provides a massive amount of its economy every year and is its key trade partner.

“Mark Carney is an internationalist of the World Economic Forum type that believes that what China does is better than what typical Western freedom is.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

That belief, Pfaff said, is consistent throughout Europe and among power brokers in the West. They do not believe in the political freedom of Americans, and they do not have a firm belief in private property — rights exist to some extent, and then they are taken away. They take your taxes. They censor your speech. It is happening all over Europe and to a degree in Canada, and it was stopped in the United States under Trump. Justin Trudeau said it explicitly while he was still prime minister: he admires what happens in China. Carney is continuing Trudeau’s policies.

The strategic conclusion follows from geography. The only way for China to get a foothold on the United States is to meddle in this hemisphere. That effort was stopped in Cuba and in Venezuela and pushed a little bit underground in Brazil, though Lula da Silva continues to have strong relationships with China. It is under way in Mexico as well.

“The Monroe Doctrine is very, very critical for our security.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Pfaff drew the line between the country and its government carefully. The Canadian people are great, there is a lot to love about Canada, and he has vacationed there in years past. His problem is not with Canada as a country.

“I have a problem with their political governance, which is literally seeking to undermine us.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Not that Canada can do it in any significant way — but it is attempting to undermine the United States in any way it can, in trade negotiations and in other areas, while using the United States as its protection. Beijing has worked the same seam inside American election infrastructure, which TCC covered in our reporting on China’s theft of American voter registration data.

50% Tariffs, the Libertarian Objection, and Alberta

Trump’s response to the failed Canada trade deal came on Truth Social, and the numbers are specific.

Pfaff opened his own answer by conceding the objection before making it. His libertarian friends are apoplectic over this, and he takes a more libertarian approach himself: he wants free trade and limited tariffs, and he believes you need open trade between countries.

“We don’t have free trade with other countries. They have free trade with us. We don’t get reciprocal free trade with them.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

The answer that the United States is strong enough to absorb it, and must operate on principle rather than retaliate, does not survive the record. Not just Canada, but major economies like China and even Europe have treated the United States poorly after being given everything they needed following World War II — the same rebuilding help that went to Japan. Japan is rising up to that occasion now. Many countries are not. Pfaff said he would probably pick at some of the details of Trump’s policy, but the overall effort is absolutely necessary: the international order on trade has to be reset so countries trade fairly with the United States and the United States trades fairly with them. If these countries quit being so arrogant, Canada chief among them, Trump would open trade wide and it would benefit everybody. Pfaff said he endorses the policy.

He also named a consequence inside Canada. The failure of the Canada trade deal lands on a country that has had two Liberal administrations doing everything they can to destroy its economy and its liberties, against its own constitutional provisions. Alberta holds most of Canada’s oil resources and a large agricultural base — cattle for meat, cattle for milk, grains and various things — and it sends its money to Ottawa and does not get it back. That money goes to radical leftist causes being promoted out of that government, and Albertans have had enough.

“I think you may see Alberta precipitate even more strongly its effort to break away from Canada. Canada is a mess.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Alberta and any province in Canada has a right to break away, Pfaff said, and the movement there was already very close; he predicted it might happen very soon. On agriculture he made the reciprocity point one more time: Canada has a very extensive agricultural capability and should not be threatened by competing with the United States, but it has been retaliating against American agricultural business for a long time. Everyone complains about Trump and tariffs; nobody complains about the other countries and what they do. The last point he left the audience with outlasts any single Canada trade deal: China wants to make inroads in this hemisphere, it does not have good intent in doing so, and it intends to overwhelm the United States if it can.

Key Takeaways

1. The Canada trade deal died over Canadian demands, not American ones – Jamieson Greer said the US cut steel and aluminum tariffs in half, extensively reduced auto tariffs, and accommodated softwood lumber. In the last hours Canada wanted more. Pfaff says Carney’s last-minute-changes claim is a lie, or at least mostly a lie.
2. Only two countries retaliated against Trump’s trade policy – Per Greer: the People’s Republic of China and Canada. The tailored US tariffs covered about 5% of what Canada sends the United States.
3. Carney signed an RCMP-China police MOU in January – The Cooperation in Combating Crimes between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China, signed with Xi Jinping, apparently has the RCMP acting as Chinese police bureaus for Chinese people in Canada.
4. He is bypassing Parliament to do it – Canadian Conservatives have demanded the text and Carney refuses, sidestepping Parliament’s constitutional right to approve treaties — the same maneuver Obama used with the JCPOA, except the Iran terms were known.
5. Canada endorses One China; the United States does not – Ottawa’s position means Taiwan belongs to China. Washington stopped direct alliance with China as a nation state during the Carter administration.
6. The Monroe Doctrine is the real stake – China’s only long-term path to threatening the United States runs through allies in this hemisphere. Trump’s 50% tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, parts and steel take effect January 1, 2027, and Pfaff predicts the fight strengthens Alberta’s push to break away from Ottawa.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Aug 24, 2026 on Worldview Tube’s Washington Report.