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Stephen Vaughn

Stephen Vaughn

Lawyer and former Acting United States Trade Representative

Aug 31, 2026

38:12
Wouldn't the Canadians rather to be cozying up to the United States, a democracy, for God's sakes?
38:18
Well, I think it's important to understand they had a deal, right? In other words, it's pretty clear that the trade minister of Canada and the USTR and President Trump were all on board with a deal.
38:29
It looks as though it was a decision by the prime minister to walk away from the deal.
38:33
And as you said, that seems to have been primarily a political call.
38:38
I think Ambassador Greer has made very clear that we were offering them a deal that was better than has been offered to any other country.
38:46
And they they for now, at least they've decided not to take it.
38:49
We'll see how long they're they're able to maintain that position.
39:11
I mean, we could we could play that both sides.
19:12
Do you know what happened?
19:15
Yeah, I think it's pretty common that when you're having these trade negotiations, you know, you have an agreement at a high level and then you get to the part where people are sort of actually writing up the terms.
19:24
And I think that as they work together on the terms on Friday, you know, it sounds like a lot of people on the Canadian side, particularly some people close to the prime minister, just weren't comfortable with the terms as they were and that they had agreed to.
19:39
And so ultimately, the prime minister, very late on Friday night, decided to recall his ambassadors, bring everybody back to Ottawa and then put out a statement saying that, you know, he was suspending the talks.
19:51
So, you know, I think they just basically made a political choice that they didn't want to do the deal that they had previously agreed to.
22:58
So what's, you know, were they playing with that need that we have for diesel right now in terms of walking out on Friday?
23:06
That's a good question.
23:08
So far, they haven't really talked.
Lindsay DuncombeHOST
6:29
Uh, do you think these tariffs could ha- could be in place?
6:34
Well, I, I mean, look, I, I don't think the president is bluffing.
6:37
I mean, I think it's a very serious effort on his part.
6:40
I, I, I think ...
6:41
Look, I think what people in Canada have to understand are the real options that are on the table.
6:45
You have more access to the US market than any other country in the world.
6:49
Every country in the world today would take w- you know, the d- the deal that's on the table for Canada.
Lindsay DuncombeHOST
10:33
Those impacts are already being felt.
Kellie Meiman HockMODERATOR
2:55
Who'd like to start?
2:58
I'll go first.
3:01
So the 301 tariffs, obviously we've had Section 301 tariffs on China now for eight years, and those tariffs have been upheld by all the courts.
3:11
So those turned out to be very sticky.
3:15
I think that the case for the government on these 301 investigations is much stronger than it was for the IEPA investigations.
3:25
We have a pretty clear outline of what you have to do under the statute in order to justify these tariffs.
3:32
And I think that, as far as I can tell, USTR has been really thoughtful and cautious about making sure that they're checking all the boxes.

28 MINS LATER

32:01
So I think that was a helpful sign for the Canadians.
4:07
tariffs.
4:08
And we know now that those tariffs are going to stay in place because the federal circuit issued a stay yesterday, uh, keeping the tariffs in place, uh, despite, uh, an adverse ruling at the court of international trade.
4:20
So those tariffs by statute can only last for around a hundred for 150 days, I think.
4:25
And they are scheduled to expire around July the 24th.
4:28
So, um, It's always been the view of the administration that they wanted to have other potential measures that could be in place by that time.
4:42
So I think that what we can anticipate is that they are trying.
4:47
So the Vietnam situation, that's launching a new investigation.

6 MINS LATER

11:05
Well, I just want to ask, when you mentioned the word adjustments, do you mean adjustments on product coverage, but also the rates?

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