OTTAWA/CMEDIA: Reportedly 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S. including those coming from Canada and Mexico were formally announced Monday by The U.S. president, Donald Trump .
“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25 per cent tariff,” he told reporters Sunday on Air Force One as he flew from Florida to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. When asked about aluminum, he responded, “aluminum, too” will be subject to the trade penalties.
Announcement of imposition of reciprocal tariffs by the US with import duties on products in cases where another country has levied duties on U.S. goods would be done “probably Tuesday or Wednesday” Trump reaffirmed.
“If they are charging us 130 per cent and we’re charging them nothing, it’s not going to stay that way,” he told reporters.
This is the latest threat that follows a decision last week by Trump to delay tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico after both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum talked to Trump about their respective border plans.
When Trump implemented tariffs on Canadian steel in 2018, there were massive disruptions that hurt both Canada and the U.S., said Catherine Cobden, CEO of Canadian Steel Producers Association.
“They don’t pay very much for the military, and the reason they don’t pay much is they assume that we’re going to protect them,” Trump said. “That’s not an assumption they can make, because why are we protecting another country?”
Trump said again Sunday that he wants to see Canada become a U.S. state, after being asked about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent comments saying that Trump is not joking.
Trudeau, who is currently in Paris ahead of a high-profile artificial intelligence summit, did not respond to reporters’ questions about Trump’s tariff announcement as he walked into his hotel following a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a social media post on Sunday night that Canadian steel and aluminum support key industries in the U.S. from defence, shipbuilding and auto and added,
“We will continue to stand up for Canada, our workers, and our industries,” Champagne said.
The announcement of Trump’s tariff was criticized for creating economic uncertainty by some provincial leaders including Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Quebec Premier François Legault.
“This is the next four years. Shifting goalposts and constant chaos, putting our economy at risk,” Ford said in a social media post Sunday evening,
Later in the day, Legault posted in French on social media that Trump’s announcement “shows that we must begin to renegotiate our free trade agreement with the United States as soon as possible and not wait for the revision planned for 2026. We must put an end to this uncertainty.”
Canada should start reviewing CUSMA with the U.S. as soon as possible, says
A former Trump official said that The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which is the trilateral trade pact Legault referred to in his post, must be reviewed in 2026.
Trump promised during last year’s election campaign that he would renegotiate the agreement.
Trump has previously denied using tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods to push for an early renegotiation of the agreement.
