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Technology was the only S&P 500 (SP500) sector to gain more than 3% on Thursday while all other sectors closed lower, marking just the second such session since 2000, according to Bluekurtic Market Insights.
The previous instance occurred on March
New U.S. sanctions target Iran’s tech, gold, and shipping sectors, pressing global intermediaries.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury invoked the memory of approximately 160,000 Allied soldiers storming a 50-mile stretch of Normandy’s coast when it published its latest round of secondary sanctions against Iran on Aug. 24. However, rather than capturing Gold, Juno, Omaha, Sword, and Utah beaches, the sanctions seek to hobble Iran’s digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping sectors.
“In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran’s financial connections around the globe. Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.”
The Treasury, Department of State, and the rebranded Department of War personnel have worked with their counterparts to convey expectations for immediate action on the sanctions.
“Every country will be given a defined timeline to shut down the Iran-related activity we have identified,” the Treasury said in a prepared statement. “If they fail to act, the Treasury will act. Any entity that facilitates money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system.”
The new sanctions may deter international companies from doing business in Iran, but their immediate effect may be over-compliance due to the Treasury’s new designations, Kari Heerman, Brookings senior fellow and Director of Trade and Economic Statecraft, told Global Finance.
The harder question is how much additional pressure the latest sanctions have on Iran’s economy.
“Years of sanctions have pushed Iran’s remaining trade toward firms and financial channels more willing or able to tolerate U.S. sanctions,” she added. “That makes evasion more expensive for Iran, but it also makes each successive round of enforcement more difficult for the United States.”
Besides blocking transactions involving property and property interests owned directly or indirectly by designated individuals located in the U.S. or in the possession or control of a U.S. person, they prohibit financial institutions from making any contribution, provision, or receipt of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated individual no matter their location.
At the time of the announcement, the Treasury had already sanctioned more than 60 entities, individuals, and vessels located in China, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and other regions that have worked with Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics and its Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
As the newly minted sanctions target entities further up Iran’s supply chains, they stop short of reaching major Chinese financial institutions that have been Iran’s lifelines.
“Targeting a major Chinese bank could have a much larger deterrent effect than sanctioning smaller intermediaries, but it could also provoke Chinese retaliation and affect other U.S. objectives, including the economic issues Washington, D.C., hopes to address at next month’s Trump-Xi summit,” said Heerman. “Bessent’s comment that he does not want to ‘blow up the global financial system’ acknowledges the most powerful sanctions tools can also be the most costly to use.”
Hours after the announcement, the Iranian rial plummeted on the open market, trading at roughly 2 million rials to a single U.S. dollar.
How key international trade partners respond to this new round of U.S. sanctions will ultimately reveal if Washington has gone a bridge too far.
Rob Daly covers fintech and the economy. Contact him at rdaly@gfmag.com.
Earnings Call Insights: SentinelOne (S) Q2 FY 2027
“Q2 was an outstanding quarter for SentinelOne” with the company stating it “exceeded our top and bottom line guidance, delivered record second quarter net new ARR, and record operating margin” and “raising our revenue operating income
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday that if negotiations to reduce the record-high trade deficit with China did not produce a breakthrough, the EU should make use of all its trade defence mechanisms.
Tensions have remained high between Brussels and Beijing since the talks were launched last June. Over the summer, China moved to ban Chinese firms from participating in EU antitrust probes, while the Commission has continued opening trade defence investigations into the suspected dumping of Chinese products into the European market.
“Dialogue with China remains necessary. But it must produce results. And when dialogue is not enough, we must be ready to make full use of our instruments,” von der Leyen said in remarks to Medef, the French business organisation.
The EU is facing a wave of cheap imports coming from China, which have increased by 45% in five years, the Commission’s President added, pointing out that 30 trade defence investigations have been opened over the last year – “almost three times more than the historical average”.
“We are stepping up investigations significantly,” she said.
Von der Leyen’s remarks come as the EU’s trade deficit with China reaches €1 billion a day. The Commission has set October as a deadline to reach a deal with Beijing to rebalance the trade relationship.
“China is a key economic partner. And our approach is clear and consistent: derisking without breaking ties. But being a partner does not mean accepting permanent imbalances,” von der Leyen said.
Beijing and Brussels have been on the verge of a trade war in recent months, with China threatening several times to retaliate against proposed EU regulations that could reduce market access to Chinese firms.
On Thursday, von der Leyen recalled that all EU member states now record a trade deficit with China.
In June, EU leaders gave her a mandate to act to rebalance the relationship through dialogue as well as the use and review of defence mechanisms. Among these is the EU’s so-called anti-coercion instrument, which can be triggered in case of pressure from a foreign country on the EU to change its policies.
This tool, sometimes referred to as the “trade bazooka”, allows the EU to adopt strong measures such as restrictions on access to public procurement or the removal of intellectual property rights.
However, it requires the support of a majority of the bloc’s member states. It is unclear whether this could be achieved while EU countries continue trading with China on a bilateral basis, seeking access to its market or investments from Beijing.
The idea of one bourse for the whole Nordic region has resurfaced.
Reports on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the discussions, said industry alliance Nordic Compass is studying options including the consolidation of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland’s national exchanges, as well as the harmonisation of their regulatory frameworks.
Nordic Compass told Euronews it is analysing a range of possibilities but that the work remains preliminary.
“Nordic Compass’ Capital Markets Track is working to improve opportunities to raise capital to support competitiveness across all stages, from start-up, venture, growth and scale-up to IPOs, as well as the ecosystem for Nordic listings,” said Christian Clausen, chair of the alliance’s Capital Markets Track and chairman for the Nordics at BlackRock.
“This includes analyses of a range of potential initiatives, including issues related to liquidity. The work is still at an exploratory stage, and no agreement has yet been reached on specific initiatives or conclusions,” Clausen explained to Euronews.
Nordic Compass was launched in May as a pan-Nordic industry alliance gathering more than 25 companies, foundations and organisations, among them Wallenberg Investments, EQT, Nordea, SEB, Nasdaq Nordic, Ericsson, Nokia, Saab, Ørsted and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Chaired by former Finnish prime minister Jyrki Katainen, it works across four tracks covering capital markets, deep tech, defence and energy.
The alliance’s first initiatives are due at a summit in Gothenburg on 4 and 5 November, where the capital markets proposal is rumoured to be presented.
The prize is considerable.
Nordic pension funds and sovereign investors manage close to $4 trillion (€3.43tn) and take in more than $175 billion (€3.43tn) a year, but that capital is spread across four separate markets rather than being pooled into one.
Any merger would need the cooperation of three parties that do not answer to the alliance directly.
Nasdaq operates most of the region’s national bourses, Euronext owns Oslo’s stock exchange, and Euroclear plays a central role in settling Nordic securities trades.
Nasdaq did not respond to a request for comment.
Euronext signalled openness telling Euronews that through Oslo Børs, its securities depositories in Norway and Denmark, Nord Pool and Admincontrol, it has an established Nordic franchise and is “in dialogue with Nordic Compass about potentially contributing to practical measures.”
“Euronext welcomes initiatives aimed at making the Nordic capital markets even more competitive globally,” the exchange operator added.
“The region already benefits from strong market traditions, sophisticated investors and successful local ecosystems. The opportunity is to build on these strengths by making it easier for capital to flow across borders,” a spokesperson for the group told Euronews.
Euronext also pointed to its own multi-country structure as a template.
“Our experience demonstrates how deeper liquidity, shared technology and harmonised rules can benefit issuers and investors, while our federal model keeps local exchanges close to the markets they serve,” the exchange operator concluded.
What potentially emerges in Gothenburg in November will show whether the exploratory work has produced anything firmer than analysis.
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The U.S. has cracked down on a Chinese state-sponsored hacking operation that targeted the Department of Justice, Federal Reserve, NASA, Senate and other government agencies.
The DOJ and FBI seized domains used by hacking platforms known as “QScan” and “QTRouter” that were part of
JPMorgan Chase dominates other banks when it comes to AI banking citations, but regional banks are invisible.
Whenever someone poses banking-related inquiries to AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity, the biggest banks are getting upstaged by third-party comparison hubs and media outlets.
Three websites in particular — Bankrate, Investopedia and Wikipedia — supply 68% of all banking-related AI citations, according to an “AI Visibility” report from communications firm 5WPR. Bank-owned domains, meanwhile, account for less than 7%.
Even within the narrow slice of visibility banks do capture, one name dominates. In response to real consumer questions, such as “best bank near me” or “top bank in [state],” JPMorgan Chase & Co. holds 28.4% of consumer banking AI citation share in the U.S. That’s more than Bank of America (7.1%), Wells Fargo (5.9%), Citi (4.8%), and Capital One (4.2%) combined.
The findings underscore a new reality in the AI era: brand prestige matters less if a chatbot leaves a bank out of the conversation entirely.
“It isn’t accidental,” Ronn Torossian, founder and chairman of 5WPR, told Global Finance in an email. JPMorgan Chase operates more than 4,800 branches across the U.S., but “branch count has almost nothing to do with it,” he added.
Whenever someone consults an AI platform about where to bank, the New York-based firm wins the AI answer outright in only three states: New York, Illinois, and Arizona. Still, Chase owes its AI presence to machine-readable content on its own site, combined with a press footprint that keeps it landing in outlets AI engines already trust, Torossian explained.
But the bank hasn’t locked in the lead just yet. “This is a snapshot, and AI citation patterns shift as engines update retrieval and as competitors invest in the same levers,” he added. “Any bank willing to match that content and structural investment can close the gap.”
Until then, AI assistants will likely continue citing media coverage of banks rather than the banks themselves, he added.
“What these publishers [Bankrate, Investopedia, Wikipedia and also NerdWallet] are doing right is straightforward: comprehensive, frequently updated comparison content, clear schema markup, strong domain authority, and a format built to directly answer the exact questions people and now AI are asking,” Torossian said.
These sites present direct ‘best’ and ‘worst’ rankings of banks, credit cards, and other financial products, giving AI engines structured data to pull from.
Bankrate, for example, feeds answers to specific inquiries about borrowing and connects them with competing lenders. This forces banks to up their game to win over potential customers.
“When banks compete, users get better [interest] rates that help them save money more easily and more effectively,” Bankrate editor-in-chief John Puterbaugh said in an email. “Our commitment to consumer advocacy and helping people get better deals runs across our whole business, and we believe this approach will win even as AI platforms and LLMs continue to evolve.”
Bank websites, by contrast, typically heighten the marketing language to tout their products and offerings. The problem? AI engines ignore that type of content and, instead, identify content that answers specific questions with clarity.
As Andy Mollison, head of search and Innovation at Varn Search Marketing, puts it: AI systems are built around language.
“Vague claims such as ‘we go above and beyond’ provide little useful information,” Mollison said in an email. “A statement such as ‘customers can access support 24 hours a day, seven days a week’ is concrete, verifiable and far more likely to match a user’s query.”
Regulatory and compliance constraints also limit how banks communicate in ways that don’t affect financial-information publishers, Mollison explained. “That often leaves them with less educational content, and more content that is cautious, technical or heavily qualified,” he added.
As a result, publishers have the AI advantage over banks, because they write in language that matches how people actually ask questions.
Perhaps the starkest finding from the 5WPR report is this: 22 of the 75 largest U.S. banks registered less than 0.3% citation share. Top bank names — Fifth Third, KeyBank, M&T, Huntington and Regions — barely show up despite their branch networks. Meanwhile, fintech challengers are eating their lunch.
Chime, SoFi, Ally and Discover now out-cite regional banks like PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank and Citizens in AI answers, despite operating with a fraction of the deposit base.
“These five banks registering under 0.3% citation share despite significant size and branch networks isn’t a vanity-metric problem; it’s a discovery problem,” Torossian said. “As more consumers use AI assistants as a first stop for financial research, a bank that’s missing from those answers is missing from consideration at the exact moment decisions are being formed.”
5WPR is careful to frame the index not as a hard count pulled from platform query logs. “Nobody outside those companies has access to that, and any firm claiming otherwise is overselling,” Torossian said. He also acknowledged the report can’t yet tie citation share to account openings or traffic. AI platforms, after all, don’t publish that data. “We’re measuring the front door. We’re not measuring the sale,” he said.
Still, Torossian argued that waiting for proof before investing in AI visibility carries its own risk.
Recall the early days of search engine optimization when Google’s search algorithms transformed how businesses competed online. Companies began investing heavily in web presence during the so-called “SEO Gold Rush” in the early 2000s.
“The brands that showed up first captured the customers,” Torossian said. The ones that waited for proof spent the next decade “trying to catch up,” he added.
“That’s the same bet regional banks made about search fifteen years ago,” he added. “And it’s the same bet that let fintechs out-cite them in AI answers today.”
5WPR isn’t the only agency tracking AI usage among bank consumers. Wells Fargo published a survey in April, alongside the American Bankers Association, reporting that 19% of U.S. adults (and 38% of Gen Z) use AI for financial advice. Two-thirds of those respondents acted on the AI financial suggestions and said those recommendations proved profitable or worthwhile.
In other words, facts matter. Tyler Desjardin, the founder of Pivot Creative Media, a firm that focuses on improving business visibility when it comes to SEO and AI-generated results, advises clients to prioritize just that.
“Brands need to ensure that they provide accurate information so that AI does not have to create something that could be misleading to search engines,” Desjardin said. “Visibility should come from structured information that conveys correct facts, rather than trying to game the system, since AI automatically eliminates any thin or misleading content.”
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com
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The owners of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System aim to renew its federal land authorization more than seven years before it expires, seeking to ensure that the Trump administration will make the determination rather than the president’s successor in the White
Nvidia posted quarterly revenue of $96.2 billion (€82.4bn) on Wednesday, comfortably beating the $92.2 billion (€79bn) Wall Street had expected, as chief executive Jensen Huang declared that artificial intelligence had reached “its inflection point” and guided next quarter revenue to $108 billion (€92.5bn) — again, above forecasts.
“AI has reached its inflection point,” Huang said in a statement. “It’s doing useful work. Its tokens are productive and profitable. Now, compute is revenue, and demand is accelerating.”
Shares initially dipped after the release before recovering in after-hours trading.
Days on which Nvidia reports its quarterly results have an outsized importance for the world’s most valuable company.
At a market capitalisation north of $5 trillion (€4.3tn) it is the most valuable company in the world, worth more than the GDP of Japan, the fourth largest economy in the world.
Yet there is a strange rite that plays out each quarter: Nvidia beats expectations, and the stock falls anyway. It happened after the first-quarter beat this year, when shares slid close to 5% in the days that followed.
The pattern has left a dynamic where the company needs to significantly outperform an already-bullish consensus, or provide a stronger-than-expected outlook, to move the share price higher.
The main concern around Nvidia is not whether it can grow; it is more of a question of who it is growing for.
The firm still draws the bulk of its revenue from Amazon, Google and Microsoft, each of which is now designing its own chips to reduce reliance on the company. The new disclosure will show precisely how large that dependence remains.
Chief Executive Jensen Huang’s commentary on demand into 2027 therefore carries more weight than any single figure. The question has grown sharper since July, when markets fell on doubts about whether vast AI investments will ever generate proportionate returns.
Nvidia’s answer has been to help finance the buildout itself. This month alone it assembled a $500bn (€428bn) capital pool with six Wall Street asset managers for data centre projects, and separately committed up to $105bn (€90bn) to back an OpenAI data centre in Pike County, Ohio, with an initial capacity of 4.25 gigawatts and an option for a further 3.75.
Export policy to China has been one of the most volatile threads in Nvidia’s recent history and is likely to feature heavily on the earnings call.
Washington barred sales of the China-specific H20 chip in April 2025, reversed course, and Nvidia has since received approval to ship the more capable H200 chip to vetted Chinese customers.
Reports have surfaced of large allocations to ByteDance and Tencent, though Beijing has been encouraging domestic firms to limit their purchases and prioritise homegrown alternatives.
Nvidia’s current growth is being driven by its Blackwell chips, the generation of processors powering most AI data centres today. Their successor, known as Vera Rubin, is expected to begin shipping in the second half of the year.
Nvidia has a tradition of naming its chip architectures after scientists and past generations include Ampere, named after physicist André-Marie Ampère; Hopper, named after computer scientist Grace Hopper; and the current Blackwell chip named after mathematician David Blackwell.
Vera Rubin continues that pattern. She was an American astronomer whose observations of how galaxies rotate provided some of the strongest early evidence for the existence of dark matter, the invisible mass thought to make up much of the universe. She died in 2016 and is widely seen as someone who was overlooked for a Nobel Prize during her lifetime,
The company has pointed to an order backlog it says is worth around $1 trillion (€857bn) across 2026 and 2027, though that figure comes from company commentary rather than independently verified financial disclosure.
Wednesday’s data offered no relief on inflation.
The personal consumption expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, rose 0.2% in July against expectations of 0.1%, leaving the annual rate at 3.7% rather than easing to the 3.6% forecast. Core prices held at 3.3% over the year, above the Fed’s 2% target for a 65th consecutive month.
The Federal Open Market Committee held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% in July, with three regional Fed presidents dissenting in favour of a quarter-point increase.
Markets currently put the probability of a September hike at around 40%.
Attention now shifts to Jackson Hole, where Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivers his keynote on Friday morning, his first since taking office in May, 19 days before the next rate decision. The ECB’s Isabel Schnabel joins a panel the same afternoon.
US stock markets drifted through a quiet session on Wednesday after data showed inflation last month was a touch higher than economists had expected.
The S&P 500 edged down less than 0.1% and remains near the all-time high it set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.2% and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1%.
Treasury yields ticked higher after the inflation update, which has traders still largely betting the Federal Reserve will raise the federal funds rate before the end of this year. Oil prices fell after another volatile session.
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Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is starting to consolidate above the $75,000 level after briefly reclaiming $80,000 for the first time since mid-May, underscoring persistent two-way order flow between aggressive buyers and sellers.
The timing of this resilience coincides with a striking historical
On August 21, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a couple of new general licences related to Venezuela’s telecommunications sector. Both General Licenses 61 and 62 will now allow the Venezuelan Government (including but not limited to the telecom authority CONATEL and the State-owned telecom company CANTV) to acquire goods and services from and/or related to the United States and authorize them to negotiate new contracts.
To better understand the implications of this on Venezuelan telecommunications, there’s what specialized local journalist William Peña wrote on Telecommunicaciones360 and his conclusion is that “this opens an opportunity to the country in the issue of technologic updating, now it’s up to companies to have resources in order to accelerate their innovation process”.
The reaction from CONATEL to this announcement was so enthusiastic to the point of bragging that these licences “represent the recognition of the institutional legitimacy of the Venezuelan State” and that “these mechanisms reaffirm the intention of strengthening the infrastructure.”
Its press statement also mentioned the many areas that these couple of licenses will help to improve: from telephone and high-speed Internet to subscription TV services and everything in relation to fiber optic cable networks, satellite transmission systems and submarine cable links.
The purchase of any non-US tech not explicitly banned is still subject to OFAC approval.
“Despite being the regulation authority, CONATEL is the one who disposes and provides the equipment for technical analysis of infrastructure and monitoring of the radioelectric spectrum,” Peña told Caracas Chronicles, later adding that “Many of CONATEL’s current equipment is Chinese (in origin) and the Americans do not want that.”
Which leads to the main catch that the OFAC’s licences leave clear by explicitly forbidding: “Any transaction involving a person located in the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, or any entity that is owned or controlled by or in a joint venture with such persons.”
The purchase of any non-US tech not explicitly banned is still subject to OFAC approval.
The same day the licenses were published, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Juan Pablo Segura, said on his X account that Chinese tech companies like Huawei, ZTE and several others “cooperate with Beijing’s intelligence services, creating risks of spying, hacking, and network shutdowns” and asked “US partners in the Americas to quickly switch to trusted suppliers to protect their people and their sovereignty”.
This also comes with challenges for CANTV, which despite being the largest company in the sector, found itself behind in comparison to private companies because of several factors, including the US-set sanctions that forced it to go with what other allies were offering.
Most of those countries mentioned were the only viable options that CANTV and other State entities were left with as a consequence of the US sanctions, and Peña notices their negative impact: “This process, with exceptions like some Chinese Huawei technologies, ended up harming the country’s advance in diverse areas, as beside the issue of language, many of the implemented solutions were not compatible with the technologies passed down and most were of very low quality regarding assets and software solutions with plenty of complications.”
This instruction from Washington to avoid China as a telecom provider was not missed by either the PRC’s embassy in DC or by Hong Kong’s major newspaper, the South China Morning Post, indicating that “the China carve-out could prove particularly consequential. Huawei and ZTE became important suppliers to Venezuela as US sanctions and compliance concerns curtailed other international companies’ ability or willingness to work with government-linked entities”.
The relationship between CANTV and Huawei was very close in matters of system infrastructure, to the point that Peña says the State telecom company has a hefty debt of 600 million dollars with Huawei. “If CANTV already paid for that technology, and has it at its disposal either in inventory or storage, then it’ll be deployed, but from now on any new acquisitions must come from the US.” Many of those issues aren’t directly addressed by OFAC’s licenses.
So important is the role of the Chinese company in CANTV operation that in 2019 there was an unfounded rumor on social media that the Maduro government was about to sell it to Huawei.
A decade later, the political ID card was rolled out, and ZTE’s personnel were working within CANTV in handling the related databases: “We don’t support the government… We are just developing our market.”
ZTE, the other company mentioned by the South China Morning Post, has its own long history not only with Cantv but with the Venezuelan government: the company had a central role in the development of what is one of chavismo’s biggest instruments of political control: the “carnet de la patria”.
A 2018 special report by Reuters mentions how it all started with a visit from a delegation from the Venezuelan Justice Ministry to the headquarters of ZTE in Shenzhen back in 2008. Then, the delegation saw a glimpse of what later became known as the “social credit system”, which started its first trials in some regions of mainland China the following year.
A decade later, the political ID card was rolled out, and ZTE’s personnel were working within CANTV in handling the related databases. This was confirmed by ZTE’s head in Venezuela at the time, Su Qingfeng: “We don’t support the government… We are just developing our market.” The deep rapport between Nicolás Maduro and Xi Jinping continued until very recently. In July 2025, the Gran Expo China-Venezuela exposition was held in Caracas, and new agreements between both governments on a diverse range of issues were signed. Six months later, things would change with Operation Absolute Resolve. The person who signed those deals on behalf of Maduro was then VP Delcy Rodríguez.
Now, the Trump administration is taking a growing interest in Latin America (thanks in part to having new allies in the region like Jose Antonio Kast in Chile or Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia), and it’s using it to push out the influence of Beijing. Still a work in progress.
Going back to what these licences could mean for Venezuela’s telecommunications sector, they could bring an expansion of the improvement seen in recent years, like with our Internet service.
Peña mentions the immediate benefit for private companies, domestic and/or foreign: “This will allow them not only to be part of these large purchases, but also for the payments to be made in an easier and more opportune manner. Back in the time of the sanctions, they couldn’t open a bank account in the US, and buying abroad was complicated, causing the costs to go up. Now they can buy again from American companies with no hassle”.
Besides, this can also help with fixing the faults and limitations found because of the June 24 quakes, like the damaged submarine cable which affected overall access for weeks. And even before OFAC’s announcement, CANTC and Liberty Networks launched a joint investment in a new Fenix underwater cable that will connect Venezuela and Curaçao, reinforcing our connectivity.
With the trade war with the US heating back up, Canada’s Prime minister Mark Carney has delivered another pledge to deepen his country’s economic and security partnership with the EU.
His statement came after trade talks between Ottawa and Washington collapsed last week, with Canada accusing the US of interfering in its sovereignty by demanding French-language concessions.
In retaliation, US President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that on 1 January 2027, tariffs on cars and trucks will be increased to 50%.
“WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” he wrote. “They do 95% of their business with the US, with us, the exact opposite!”
Canada announced later that, as of 8 September, it would enact tariffs ranging from 15% to 50% on over 700 American imports, worth about $20 billion (€17.2 billion).
Since Trump’s return to power in 2025 and his repeated attacks on US-Canada trade relations, Ottawa has been turning several times towards the EU, seeking a stable relationship with a “like-minded” partner.
“This fall we will begin intense discussions with the European Union, the world’s second-largest economy, to build a much stronger and deeper economic and security partnership,” Carney said on Monday.
The Canadian Prime minister has confirmed, according to Politico, that he will attend the State of the EU speech in Strasbourg on 16 September after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited him before the trade war with the US broke out.
Since the start of the second Trump administration, Brussels and Ottawa have shared a common objective: diversifying their trade relations away from Washington. But since the EU and Canada are already bound by a trade agreement, how far could a deeper relationship go?
The truth is that both sides have their limits.
From critical raw materials to energy and defence, the last months have seen multiple areas of interest come to the fore, and they will likely set the agenda at the Canada-EU summit this fall.
Canada is planning to offer the EU better access to its critical raw materials. Brussels is desperate to move away from China, which holds the monopoly on the production and processing of rare earths. With strong domestic supplies of lithium, graphite and nickel, Ottawa has a lot to offer to integrate the EU into its metal value chain.
Canada might also make offers on energy, which it currently supplies principally to the US.
“We should be talking about a more viable Canada-EU corridor for energy, and not just in respect of oil and gas, but also of nuclear,” Mark Camilleri, President of the Canada-EU Trade and Investment Association, told Euronews. “The EU’s energy needs are increasing, and its energy supply is still very dependent on imports.”
On defence, Canada is already part of SAFE, the €150 billion defence instrument that supports EU member states that wish to invest in defence industrial production through common procurement. But defence cooperation is already set to go further, with Canada selecting German-Norwegian TKMS to build a new fleet of 12 submarines. Deepening the relationship on Arctic security could be another area of collaboration.
Canadian business, meanwhile, is increasingly interested in the European market, but the diversification will not come overnight. Geography, after all, matters.
“The Canadian economy is very much oriented and integrated to the US and North American economy,” Camilleri added. “We are not looking to untangle the relationship, despite the very distressing political issues taking place.”
The Europeans will also put limits on integration with Canada. The trade agreement struck in 2016 is proof enough that the EU market is not easy to access: the deal has not yet been ratified by all EU member states, and has only been provisionally applied since 2017.
Geography matters not only for the Canadians, but also for the EU.
Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union opens membership to “any European State”. Morocco was not considered European enough in the past to become a member, so how could Canada, located much further away, be considered a “European state”?
Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, points out that there is a new openness in Brussels, and that a strategic alignment “could go far”, even if probably it has to fall short of full membership.
Liberalising trade further than what the current agreement involves could be an option. But how far could the integration of the Canadian market into the EU go?
“One can go to the point where Norway is, which is a single market membership,” Wolff told Euronews. “Whether that is where Canada wants to go and whether that’s where all the European countries want to go, we will see in the coming weeks.”
Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are members with EU member states of what is called the “European Economic Area”, membership of which involves the implementation of the EU’s four freedoms – free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. These freedoms form the basis of the single market.
But an EU official told Euronews that this option was not on the table yet, and remains a theoretical debate for now.
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