Dubuque, Iowa / Montreal: US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that his administration has the “concept” of a new trade deal with Canada, and that the scope of an agreement would include the Keystone XL oil pipeline project — the cross-border line cancelled in 2021 — according to a Reuters report carried by multiple outlets.
Source: Reuters via KTWB
“I spoke to him again yesterday, and we have the concept of a deal that's going to be great for our farmers, great for our country, and we'll be fine for that,” Trump told reporters in Dubuque, referring to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. On the pipeline, he said: “They're going to build the Keystone Pipeline. They're going to pay for it. … We're going to give them the route, and it's largely been determined.” Reuters noted it was not immediately clear how the project would be revived; former President Joe Biden revoked a key permit for Keystone XL in 2021.
This is a new element in the talks story Awaaz Punjab reported earlier on Sunday, when Carney posted that he had had a “good conversation” with Trump and that the exchange built on constructive discussions on the outlines of a mutually beneficial trade deal that would create jobs, improve affordability, and fully respect Canada's languages, culture and sovereignty. “Our teams will now be working in the coming weeks to deliver that outcome,” Carney wrote. A White House spokesperson said the administration “welcomes continued engagement with Canada as we work toward finalizing the details of a deal,” CBC News reported.
The pipeline element has not been confirmed by Ottawa. A spokesperson for Dominic LeBlanc, Canada's minister responsible for trade with the US, had no further comment on Sunday evening beyond Carney's remarks, and a source quoted by Radio-Canada said “key elements” remained unresolved: “We are not on the verge of an agreement just yet.” A source familiar with the matter told The Globe and Mail the leaders spoke on Saturday, Trump ordered his team to resume formal talks, and negotiations were expected to begin within days.
Source: Life News Agency (Reuters, CBC News, The Globe and Mail reporting)
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would have carried 830,000 barrels per day of oil from Alberta's oil sands to the US storage hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, and on to Gulf Coast refineries. Its builder, Canada's TC Energy, lost billions when the project was cancelled and later spun off its crude pipelines business into South Bow, which has proposed a separate 550,000-barrel-per-day Prairie Connector project and said it will decide on it in 2027. The Trump remarks come two days before the US midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, in a trade dispute in which both countries have imposed steep duties on each other after talks broke down in August, mainly over car trade.