CANADA’S Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday 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 per cent tariffs that came into effect from midnight.
“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.
“I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the US and have directed Canada’s negotiators to return to Ottawa,” Carney said.
“They (negotiators) have worked hard, in good faith, to defend the interests of Canadians throughout these negotiations up until the very last minute,” he said.
“However, last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”
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.
“We cannot accept what they have offered, and we will not give what they have asked,” Carney said.
Carney, the only person to ever run the central banks of two major economies, was elected last year on promises to stand up to Trump, and remains broadly popular. Polls show most Canadians oppose making any concessions to Trump.
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