Lynda Marshall ordered the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division on Wednesday to halt cooperation on cases and policy issues with the Canadian government. The reported directive came as cross-border trade tensions deepened and set off a fast internal review of where the division had been working with Canada.
The Justice Department disputed the report and said the alleged direction was never given to anyone. In the same statement, the department said the division was asked to temporarily hold off on a scheduled meeting on a specific investigation until the DOJ's antitrust team had more time to prepare.
Marshall's Wednesday order
Marshall, who leads the antitrust division's international section, is the named official tied to the pause. According to emails obtained by The, she told officials to stop cooperation on both case work and policy engagement with Canadian authorities. That instruction reaches beyond one file and would touch the routine exchange that can sit behind cross-border antitrust enforcement.
Section chiefs in the antitrust division were then told in another email on Friday to provide lists outlining areas of cooperation with Canada by the end of the day. That request points to a quick internal accounting of where the division had been working with Canadian counterparts and where the pause would bite first.
Canada tariff response
The reported directive landed while the U.S. and Canada were still sparring over President Donald Trump's trade war against Ottawa. Trump also issued an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, though the renaming applies only to the U.S. federal government.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will match Washington's new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses. Canada said it would impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. beginning Sept. 8, after the Trump administration's new 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods took effect last month.
Justice Department dispute
The department's response creates the main break in the story: the reported order to pause work with Canada was broad, but the department said the alleged direction was never given to anyone. It also narrowed the practical scope by saying the antitrust team was only asked to delay one scheduled meeting on a specific investigation while it prepared.
For antitrust staff working across the border, the immediate question is not the tariff fight itself but which files and policy discussions were actually slowed, and which were not. The Friday request for lists suggests the division was already trying to map that line before the end of the week.
That leaves one concrete point in view: cooperation with Canada was placed under review this week, and the next visible step inside the division was the Friday accounting of cooperation areas. Whether the pause changed any actual case work beyond the delayed meeting is not addressed in the facts at hand.
