Back in 2017, when Canada, Mexico and the United States bid to host the 2026 World Cup, the three countries billed themselves as “United.”
“We call ourselves the United Bid because we are truly approaching this challenge together—UNITED, AS ONE,” the countries’ bid document said.
Even then, that may have been a stretch. But nine years on, diplomatic relations between the three countries seem anything but.
The tournament — and concurrent Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) negotiations — are highlighting just how fractured the partnership between the three countries has become.
This World Cup is “a nice microcosm of world politics with the United States at the centre,” said Aaron Ettinger, a professor of political science at Carleton University.
American centric
This World Cup was the first in history to be co-hosted by three countries.
When Canada, the U.S. and Mexico submitted their bid in 2017, President Donald Trump was in his first term and was already isolationist in outlook. But the countries projected a united front.
The countries’ 530-page bid document makes hundreds of references to connecting the three countries — and the rest of the world — through sport.
In 2018, after winning the bid, Carlos Cordeiro, president of U.S. Soccer and co-chair of the United Bid, said the co-hosts were “strengthened by the unity between our three countries.”
All three countries had their own, separate reasons for wanting to host, says Noah Vanderhoeven, a political science PhD candidate at Western University.
Canada and Mexico were both focused on bolstering their international images. Canada and the U.S. have both prioritized growing soccer domestically. And the U.S.’s numerous world-class stadiums made it a strong contender to host this tournament’s expanded, 48-team format.
Ultimately, the U.S. was chosen to host 78 games, Toronto and Vancouver, 13, and Mexico 13.
Ettinger says that American dominance of this tournament is paralleled by its general dominance in global geopolitics.
“The World Cup was always going to be America centric in the same way that the liberal international order is always America centric,” he said.
“The United States gets the principal benefits of these kinds of arrangements because it can throw its weight around.”
Coming to terms
Since the tournament was awarded to the three countries, “everything has changed and nothing has changed,” Ettinger says.
“[In 2017], Donald Trump was the president of the United States. The Liberal Party was in power in Canada. We were in the midst of this renegotiation of North American free trade … in that sense, very little has changed,” he said.
Those renegotiations led to the signing, in 2020, of CUSMA, a successor to NAFTA. However, one of CUSMA’s key provisions — the addition of an expiration date — has made it a weaker trade agreement.
On July 1, the U.S. declined to renew CUSMA in its current form. The free trade pact will instead be subject to annual reviews, unless a country decides to withdraw entirely.
Julian Karaguesian, an international trade economist and lecturer at McGill University, notes the United States’ retreat from global free trade predated the first Trump administration.
“The fact is that neither [American political] party has had free trade on their platform since 2012,” said Karaguesian, who was a former special advisor to the Canadian ministry of finance.
The Biden administration was also isolationist. However, they preferred massive domestic subsidies — rather than the tariffs favoured by Trump — to shift away from free trade, he says.
“We [had] a tough time under Biden, but nobody [wanted] to say it because everyone’s happy Trump’s gone,” he said. “They’re just as protectionist, but they do it with a smile. And even then, they were not that nice to us.”
This shift, going far beyond Trump, is only now being acknowledged by the Canadian government.
“The difference between 2017 and 2026 is that … our liberal establishment, I think, is starting to come to terms with the fact that this is a longer-term phenomenon,” he said.
“Carney — and others — realize, ‘Whoever comes into the White House, our best approach is to diversify. And we’ll try to get the best [CUSMA] deal we can.’”
Sport and politics collide
Trade negotiations are usually insulated from external noise, such as sporting events.
But Vanderhoeven, of Western University, says that when dealing with Trump, even sporting events can affect diplomatic relations.
He points to both the 2025 Four Nations Face-Off tournament and the 2025 World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers as examples where sporting rivalries became emblematic of political tension.
During the World Series, Ontario Premier Doug Ford ran an ad using the words of former president Ronald Reagan to criticize the Trump administration’s tariffs. Trump responded by abruptly cancelling negotiations on Canadian steel and aluminum tariffs.
“[The World Cup] could potentially be used as a flash point moment,” Vanderhoeven said. “I don’t know if there is necessarily the scope for it to alter any of the [CUSMA] plans at the moment … but I think it’s definitely an area where these discussions may come up and be framed together.”
Gianni Infantino, the president of world soccer’s governing body FIFA, has gone to great lengths to curry favour with Trump both before — and during — the World Cup.
He created a FIFA Peace Prize to award to Trump, who has previously said he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And FIFA recently suspended a one-match ban for American striker Folarin Balogun after Trump requested the ban be overturned.
This kowtowing approach to Trump has also been attempted — with mixed results — by a number of global leaders to maintain or improve bilateral relations with the United States.
But Ettinger says that unlike political leaders, Infantino has no democratic electorate to answer to.
“Infantino’s almost supplicant level approach to dealing with Donald Trump is rather embarrassing to watch from a distance,” he said.
“Starmer, Macron, Carney and Trudeau … [tried] to do the charm thing. But they quickly realized that, one, it has limited effects on Trump.
“And two, it doesn’t help them at all. Domestic audiences have a very limited tolerance for seeing their leaders bend and kiss the ring of Donald Trump.”
Vanderhoeven believes FIFA has pandered to Trump’s requests because the organization realized the United States could become its biggest stumbling block to a successful tournament.
Global political leaders face a trickier challenge.
In Canada, Carney is looking to maintain relations with the United States while also looking elsewhere, says Ettinger.
“He’s trying to have it both ways. Diversification and sticking with the United States, whereas 10 years ago it was, ‘We’re sticking with the United States.”
