OTTAWA: Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Saturday that starting September 8 Canada would impose tariffs on imports from the United States across a raft of sectors in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s new 50% tariffs that came into effect from midnight.
After days of intense negotiations, the two countries failed to reach a trade deal late Friday, worsening an already delicate relationship between the two long-term trade partners and allies and complicating the future of a highly successful continental free trade pact called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement.
Trump’s new tariffs hit a slew of sectors including wine, furniture, dairy products, cement, clothing, fishing rods, hockey equipment and cover some $20 billion of Canadian exports south of the border. These duties do not give exemption to Canadian products under the USMCA, which have shielded most of Canadian exports to the U.S in the last 18 months.
“Canada will match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses,” Carney said at a news conference.
These retaliatory tariffs will hit sectors such as steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics and will also include products currently subject to the unjustified Section 232 and 338 tariffs, Carney said in a spirited speech from the Parliament building in Ottawa.
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“We cannot accept what they have offered, and we will not give what they have asked,” Carney said.
