On 18 September the President signed a bill putting sanctions on Russia into statute. The same day, the Treasury bureau that runs those sanctions replaced the licence that lets buyers negotiate for Lukoil’s refineries and filling stations outside Russia. Set the new licence beside the old one and the paragraphs match. The date is what changed.
Canada and the European Union have traded under an agreement since 2017. When the European Commission proposed deepening it and said the arrangement was not against anyone else, Washington answered that it might be a hostile act, and that Europe could face very heavy tariffs. Two allies moving closer is the ordinary business of trade. The response to it is the news.
On 16 September the President of the European Commission told the European Parliament, with Prime Minister Mark Carney sitting in front of her, that she wanted to work on opening the door for Canada to become the first associate member of the European Union. No country has ever held the status and no text defines it. The next step is already in the diary: Canada hosts an EU summit in Montreal on 29 and 30 October.
On September 8 Canada’s counter-tariffs took effect on $27.6 billion of American goods, matching Washington’s rates product by product. The same day the President signed five proclamations that go past taxing Canadian goods to barring some of them from entering the United States at all. Those import bans start on September 29.
In Youngstown, Ohio, a homebuilder reports three or four planned houses that have not gone ahead this year, and an aluminum fabricator has shelved its expansion into Ontario and Quebec. Across the border, most Canadians back standing firm against U.S. tariffs even if it costs them, but that resolve is not evenly held: it is strongest among older, financially secure Canadians and weakest among the young. Canada’s own counter-tariffs land at one minute past midnight on September 8, the point where that resolve first meets a bill of its own making.
Canada suspended trade talks with the United States late on Friday, August 21, after Prime Minister Mark Carney said Washington’s last-hour demands touched Canadian sovereignty, the French language and the auto sector. A 50 percent U.S. tariff on a defined list of Canadian goods took effect hours later. Carney has set September 8 for dollar-for-dollar retaliation. The product list and rates are not yet published.
Two licenses issued the same day let U.S. companies sell equipment and negotiate investment with Venezuela’s state telecom system, eight months after Maduro’s removal and eight weeks after an earthquake that cost the sector an estimated five billion dollars. The sourced chain stops at the wholesale authorization; no source connects it yet to a household phone or internet bill.
A licence to negotiate Lukoil’s foreign refineries and filling stations has been renewed on a rolling basis since November, as Bulgaria and Romania post the EU’s steepest June fuel-price increases.
Ten people named for moving cash to Hizballah between Lebanon, Turkiye, the UAE and Iran, as Treasury ties the group’s re-designation directly to Iran’s Qods Force.
Six days before a 50 percent tariff is due to take effect, Canada’s chief trade negotiator has warned Washington that more pressure will not buy concessions and could end the talks meant to prevent it instead, according to sources briefed on the exchange. Washington has not said it will change course.