Canada and the US have discussed critical minerals and defence in their continuing trade talks, and progress on those areas is expected to influence a trade deal the two sides are aiming to close next week, Globe and Mail reports, citing sources

Canada and the US have discussed critical minerals and defence in their continuing trade talks, and progress on those areas is expected to influence a trade deal the two sides are aiming to close next week, Globe and Mail reports, citing sources.

Sourced reports of this kind from national outlets have been a recurring feature of the bilateral trade file, and the pattern is familiar: anonymous progress claims ahead of a self-imposed deadline, with the substance of any deal often thinner than the framing. What distinguishes this readout is the content rather than the currency of it; critical minerals and defence are strategic carve-outs that in past North American negotiations have been traded against tariff relief elsewhere, so their inclusion signals the talks are operating at the level of sectoral exemptions rather than a comprehensive reset. The distinction that matters for the FX leg is between a deal that removes existing tariff overhang, which has historically supported the Canadian currency through the terms-of-trade channel, and one that merely freezes escalation, which has tended to produce only a brief relief move. The named deadline next week is itself a tell: deadlines in these talks have been moved before, and slippage has typically been the default outcome. Worth noting is the source chain, a single national paper citing unnamed sources, which in prior episodes has sometimes reflected one side negotiating through the press. The follow-ons are official confirmation or denial from either government and whether the minerals and defence language survives into any signed text.