The U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division was told earlier this week to pause all work with the Canadian government, a sharp break in a long-running cross-border relationship as the trade war between the United States and Canada deepened. The move, if carried out, would have frozen cooperation on cases and policy issues just as the tariff fight was heating up.
That is why the story is landing now: President Donald Trump’s new 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods have already pushed Ottawa toward retaliation, and Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families and businesses. Canada said its retaliatory tariffs will begin on Sept. 8.
Inside the Justice Department, Lynda Marshall ordered officials on Wednesday to halt all cooperation on cases and engagement on policy issues with Canadian authorities, according to the account that emerged from the department. Then, on Friday, section chiefs in the antitrust division were told in another email to provide lists of areas of cooperation with Canada by the end of the day, a sign the department was trying to map the full scope of the relationship.
The department pushed back hard, saying the alleged direction was never given to anyone. It also said the division had merely been asked to temporarily hold off on a scheduled meeting on a specific investigation until the DOJ’s antitrust team had more time to prepare. That leaves one central question unresolved: whether the pause was a broad freeze on all cooperation or a narrower delay in one matter that grew into a larger dispute.
The backdrop is a trade dispute that has already reached tens of billions of dollars in cross-border trade, and it is unfolding between the United States and Canada, two countries that have been close allies for decades. The reported pause also came as Trump expanded the fight beyond tariffs, including his order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America, though that renaming applies only to the U.S. federal government.
For now, the clearest read is that cross-border antitrust work has been pulled into a wider political fight, and Ottawa is preparing to answer in kind. If the department’s internal review was meant to be temporary, the tariff deadline on Sept. 8 gives both sides little room to pretend this is only a paperwork dispute.
