Americans Voted Against the Tariffs. Canada Is Still Paying Them.

Americans voted against the tariffs. Canada still has to pay them. Democrats took both chambers of Congress on November 3 in an election where about nine in 10 voters said the cost of living weighed heavily on their choice, and where voters broadly agreed that tariffs did more harm than good, according to the AP Voter Poll. Premiers cheered the result.

Ottawa is trying hard not to.

"What the new Congress might decide to do when they're seated two months from now is an interesting discussion at a faculty club luncheon at Mount Allison University today," Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said, per CTV News. "That's not going to change the work that we have to do in the next two weeks."

Which US Tariffs Is Canada Paying Right Now?

Several layers of them. Since August 22, about US$20 billion a year of Canadian goods has faced 50% tariffs under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, and goods that comply with CUSMA are not exempt, according to law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. It is the first time the statute has been used since the 1940s, per Global Trade Alert.

Underneath that sit the Section 232 tariffs on specific industries. Global Trade Alert counts US$30.8 billion of steel and aluminum, US$5.7 billion of lumber and US$1.4 billion of copper among the Canadian exports that CUSMA cannot shield. Canadian steel faces a 50% levy and non-US cars and parts face 25%, CBS News reported. Trump has threatened to raise cars, trucks, parts and steel to 50% on January 1, 2027, writing that "Canada will be treated like a State no longer!"

Aluminum shows how long this has dragged on. Canada makes about 3.3 million tonnes a year and exports about 90% of it, and the US tariff has been 50% since June 2025, the Canadian Press reported via BNN Bloomberg. Producers have shipped roughly 800,000 tonnes to Europe since March 2025, against about 100,000 tonnes in normal times.

Can a Democratic Congress Cancel the Tariffs on Canada?

Not on its own.

The Supreme Court already struck down the emergency tariffs Trump imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February, according to law firm Troutman Pepper Locke. What is left rests on trade laws that hand the power to the president.

RBC's analysts put it bluntly. "Congress cannot remove the Section 232 and 338 tariffs, and it cannot block a tariff deal without a two-thirds majority in both chambers," they wrote in a post-election brief. Trump has already floated his answer to any bill that tries. "I guess I'll become Mr. Veto," he told the New York Post, as quoted by Global News. Overriding a veto takes two-thirds of both chambers, a supermajority University of Guelph professor Julie Simmons called "unlikely."

What Can Democrats Actually Do for Canada?

Make tariffs politically expensive.

RBC expects bills drafted to "force recorded votes on tariffs, including on Canada, to identify Republicans willing to vote against the White House." It also points out that "six of the new Democratic senators will replace Republicans who voted against ending the emergency tariffs on Canada."

Oversight matters too. The US Trade Representative must report to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees 70 days before each CUSMA review, RBC notes, and those committees will now be run by Democrats. That matters because the continental trade deal is now reviewed every year. The US declined to renew CUSMA at the first joint review on July 1, which set off annual reviews, according to Davis Wright Tremaine.

Don't expect free trade nostalgia. "Even on the Democratic side, there's a strong 'America First' notion," said Andreas Schotter of Western University's Ivey Business School. Simmons warned that "we can't assume that Democratic representatives would want to remove all tariffs."

Why Is Ottawa Relieved but Quiet?

Because it is still negotiating with the White House, not with Congress. Privately, senior sources told CTV that Prime Minister Mark Carney's team is "hopeful and relieved that they did not strike a trade deal sooner," and two of them said the results "materially improve Canada's position." Carney said the day of the vote that the US has dropped some demands on culture, language and a veto over future trade deals. "They're asking less and they're offering more," he said.

The provinces were less careful. "It is a vindication of our approach when it comes to tariffs," Smith told the Alberta legislature, per the Canadian Press via BNN Bloomberg. "We always have objected to tariffs. We know it hurts us. It hurts the Americans." Alberta also announced a buy-local procurement policy covering about $350 million in contracts, which Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi called "two years too late."

Business groups want a deal more than a victory lap. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says 87% of small businesses want the trade fight resolved quickly. "With the elections behind us, both governments have a real opportunity to make progress on a trade agreement," said Beth Burke of the Canadian American Business Council, per BNN Bloomberg.

What Changes in January, and What Doesn't?

The new Congress sits in January. The tariffs, the threatened January 1 increase and the White House negotiators all stay put until then, and probably after. Markets got the message fast. The TSX jumped 480 points on election day and gave back 736 the next, in a selloff led by tech stocks, the Canadian Press reported via BNN Bloomberg.

Jean Simard, who runs the Aluminum Association of Canada, said he is "far more optimistic than I've ever been." He may be right about the direction.

For a founder with a US invoice due next month, though, the timeline still runs through one office, and it is not on Capitol Hill.