U.S. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday his long-awaited plan to impose what he’s calling “retaliatory” tariffs on imports coming from dozens of countries, including a punishing 25 per cent levy on Canadian-made automobiles as of midnight Wednesday.
Trump singled out Canada for criticism when announcing the latest tariff regime, repeating his oft-cited falsehood that the U.S. somehow “subsidizes” this country by $200 billion a year. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada — which is largely driven by cheap oil imports — is much smaller than that.
Trump said he would apply “a minimum baseline tariff of 10 per cent” on all goods coming into the U.S., with rates higher than that for some countries that the president said have supposedly been more egregious about ripping off the Americans.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much American importers will have to pay to bring in Canadian goods under this new program.
“Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, plundered,” by other nations, Trump said. “They rip us off, it’s so pathetic. Now, we’re going to charge.”
It’s Trump’s latest broadside against Canada, its one-time ally and free-trading partner.
In the roughly 10 weeks he’s been president, Trump has been on a rampage against Canada, levying tariffs to supposedly spur action on drugs and migrants at the border, imposing steep tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, spreading misinformation about the dairy sector, threatening the country’s sovereignty with near-daily “51st state” taunts and repeatedly saying the Americans need nothing from Canada despite trade data that shows that’s patently false.
Those persistent attacks and insults have damaged bilateral relations. Some Canadians are boycotting American goods, pulling travel plans to the U.S. en masse and booing the American national anthem at sporting events, actions that were thought unthinkable only a few months ago.
How to handle Trump, his tariffs and the takeover threats have also become the central issue of the upcoming federal election campaign.
