President Trump is considering whether Canada should be granted an exemption to the administration's steel and aluminum tariffs and Canadian officials are hopeful that the issue will be resolved soon, representatives for both said at an Ontario event Friday.

“The president is reviewing the steel and aluminum tariffs,” said Kelly Craft, U.S. ambassador to Canada, at a forum hosted by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, noting that Trump had recently spoken with her counterpart, Canadian Ambassador David MacNaughton, on the subject.

"They had a nice, frank discussion," Bloomberg reported her as saying, adding that it was, "Nice that we could agree to disagree."

MacNaughton, who was also present at the forum, said he hoped that the matter would resolved “sooner rather than later,” because now that the talks on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade are complete, “there is no need for those tariffs to be in place."

The Trump administration's 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and 10 percent aluminum tariffs are mainly intended to protect U.S. industries from cheap Chinese-produced metal. The White House initially carved out exceptions for Canada and Mexico, then revoked them in June as a way to pressure both countries during the talks to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. Since the completion of the USMCA deal those countries have been lobbying to restore the exemptions.

Trump conceded in an an interview with the Wall Street Journal Tuesday that the tariffs are mainly a tool to wring concessions out of trade partners. "I’m using tariffs to negotiate," he said, pointing to the USMCA deal as proof. “I could never have done it without tariffs."

The White House has nevertheless been reluctant to restore the exemptions to the tariffs, Craft arguing that doing so would undermine point of the tariffs. "That is not something that is against Canada ... It’s just protecting North America from other countries that will be passing raw materials through, and also to protect our steel industry at home," she said.