Canada Welcomes US Shift on French Language and Culture in Trade Talks

Dominic LeBlanc, the Canadian minister responsible for Canada-US relations, arrived for a meeting with United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington, D.C., US, on August 20, 2026.

Canada’s top trade negotiator with the United States, Dominic LeBlanc, stated that he "welcomes" a shift in the US position regarding "discoverability", "labelling" and "measures to promote French language and Canadian culture" not being subject to US tariffs. LeBlanc praised the move in a post on Thursday on X, adding that Canada is looking "forward to further constructive U.S. clarifications on their other positions, which would create the possibility of a mutually beneficial trade agreement".

Al Jazeera reached out to the White House for comment, but officials pointed to an interview with US Trade Representative Jamison Greer on the Canadian broadcaster CBC, where Greer stated that French language discoverability on streaming services "is not something where we push hard or condition or red-line". Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick echoed those remarks at a news conference on Thursday outside the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

"Do I care about how the Quebecois speak? I mean, what could matter less to America? We don’t care. So the fact is we never brought those words up. This is manufactured, and that’s why the president put out a post on Truth Social saying it was a complete lie, right? It was manufactured," Lutnick told reporters.

The comments follow a series of tit-for-tat tariffs between Washington and Ottawa. Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on roughly $20bn of US goods ranging from 15 to 50 percent that are scheduled to go into effect on September 8. Those levies were introduced in response to 50 percent tariffs announced by Washington on Canadian goods as negotiations collapsed over the weekend.

US President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric against Canada in recent days, which included signing an executive order on Thursday to rename Lake Ontario, the easternmost of the five Great Lakes bordering Ontario, to Lake America. On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stated that US officials made "threats to the French language" as well as threats to the culture of Canada and Quebec specifically.

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs are set to hit hundreds of consumer products, including ice skates, dishwashers, and construction materials. However, on Wednesday, Ottawa scaled back some tariffs, including those on fish and other seafood products.

"Based on feedback, we have made select adjustments to protect against economic harms, including removing seafood and fish products from our list of counter-tariffs," Canada’s Department of Finance stated in a post on X. "We are continually working with Canadian industries to assess the effectiveness of these measures, with a primary focus on industries that have been targeted by US tariffs.",