2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Tonda MacCharles)
OTTAWA—Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to fight back against Donald Trump’s latest raft of trade tariffs, declaring Wednesday night that the U.S. president’s “Liberation Day” measures would drastically alter the global economy even if they spared Canada from the heaviest blows.
Though Trump’s new “reciprocal” tariffs targeted mostly countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere around the world, Canadian auto imports into the United States were set to suffer from punishing 25-per-cent tariffs set to kick in after midnight Thursday morning. The White House also decided to keep existing tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and maintain tariffs — justified under Trump’s alleged border emergency — against Canadian goods that aren’t compliant with the existing North American trade deal that sets rules about limiting foreign content. Under that order, non-compliant goods were hit with 25-per-cent import taxes and non-compliant energy and potash with 10-per-cent tariffs.
But Carney suggested that the status quo is no relief, especially with American measures rollicking the international trading system. He said the Americans have also “signalled” there will be new tariffs in “so-called strategic sectors” like pharmaceuticals, lumber and semi-conductors. “The series of measures will directly affect millions of Canadians,” Carney said.
“We’re going to fight these tariffs with countermeasures. We are going to protect our workers, and we are going to build the strongest economy in the G7.” Carney made the comments after suspending his campaign as Liberal leader in the April 28 federal election, returning to Ottawa for the second time in less than a week to huddle with advisers and cabinet ministers to address the U.
S. trade crisis. Jean Charest, the former Quebec premier who sits on prime minister’s Canada-U.
S. advisory council, said Canada got “different treatment” from Europe and others, but it didn’t get “special treatment” and still got “kicked in the ass” on steel, aluminum and cars. Canadians expressing relief show we are “literally suffering a Now, however, Charest said Canada has a better chance to deploy arguments with elected representatives and senators because Trump said he would use legislation to enact tariffs.
“It’s good news for us because then we have a much broader audience with whom we can engage directly and on a local level on all the issues that we care about.” Carney, he said, is expected to roll out a “strategic” and “measured” counter-response. “We can’t go dollar for dollar,” he said, but “we’re going to continue to say, and should continue to, say we keep everything on the table.
” In the end, Canada is in a “terrible” bind, he said. “They hurt us and we’re going to hurt ourselves to hurt them. It’s a world of bad choices and making the choice that’s late least damaging is where we are.
” Dan Ujczo, an international trade lawyer based in Ohio with the firm Thompson Hine, said Trump’s order Wednesday spared Canada the worst but preserved the tariffs that Trump had imposed or threatened in recent weeks. “There’s essentially nothing new on the negative side of the ledger for Canada,” he said. Still, Ujczo noted Trump’s new tariff order warned that the U.
S. considers it fair — based on Canadian policies it views as trade barriers — to slap Canada with a 12 per cent “reciprocal” tariff. As it stands, that 12-per-cent tariff will apply on Canadian goods that don’t comply with the existing North American trade deal, but only if the separate batch of levies linked to Trump’s border emergency are lifted.
Ujczo warned that the 12-per-cent tariff threat could give Trump leverage over Canada in the coming renegotiation of the North American trade deal, explaining that it means all Canadian exports to the United States would get tariffs of at least that much if Trump tore up the agreement. “This has made (the North American trade deal) potentially more important,” he said. It is not clear how much of Canada’s exports do not comply with the trade deal, but federal estimates two weeks ago suggested about 40 per cent don’t, with exporters finding the paperwork too cumbersome.
Marking a historic rupture with trading allies, Trump unveiled his so-called “Liberation Day” plan to stop other countries from “raping” and “pillaging” the U.S. after North American stock markets closed in order to shield the U.
S. president from mounting criticism. In the Rose Garden of the White House, Trump defied his critics and said his latest global tariffs will “supercharge our domestic industrial base.
We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers. And ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.” Overall, the president will hit all other U.
S. trading partners with a baseline 10 per cent tariff to take effect at 12:01 a.m.
on April 5. That baseline ramps up on an individualized basis for countries with which the United States “has the largest trade deficits” and escalated tariffs, the White House says, will take effect at 12:01 a.m.
April 9. The overall scale ranges from the baseline 10 per cent up to a high of 50 per cent on the tiny French islands of St-Pierre and Miquelon, off Newfoundland’s south coast — where seafood exports are a mainstay for a population of under 6,000 people. Trump said he calculated the pain other countries impose on the U.
S. and halved the rate to tailor it to those he sees as the worst offenders. So he announced reciprocal tariff rates on China at 34 per cent, on the European Union at 20 per cent, Britain at 10 per cent, India at 26 per cent, Japan at 24 per cent, South Korea at 25 per cent, and Taiwan at 32 per cent for example.
Trump has reserved the right to reduce or escalate the tariff level depending on what steps other countries take to align with the U.S. or to retaliate.
The White House says reciprocal tariffs will not stack on top of steel and aluminum tariffs, or any tariffs on foreign made autos, nor will these reciprocal tariffs hit other items Trump intends to penalize in the future, including copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors or lumber. The loonie got a bit of a break as the full details of Wednesday’s announcement became clearer. Within an hour of the Rose Garden ceremony, the Canadian dollar rose by more than half a cent (U.
S.) to 70.33 cents, but had given up some of that gain, and was back to 70.
10 cents by 6 p.m. At Queen’s Park, Premier Doug Ford took heart that Canada was not singled out for reciprocal tariffs in addition to Trump’s levies on steel, aluminum and automobiles.
“The positive thing that I saw was we weren’t on that list,” said Ford, who had feared a new layer of tariffs on existing ones. “But as we all know, that can change hour by hour, day by day,” he added warily. The head of the association representing the Big Three U.
S. automakers in Canada wasn’t quite ready to relax even though he said it could have been worse. Because of the exception for CUSMA-compliant products, Canada’s automotive sector is better placed than other countries around the world, said Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association.
“The only bright point here for Canada is that because of the integrated nature of our supply chain, a very large proportion of the parts and components that go into vehicles built in Canada is American,” said Kingston. “These tariffs — and in particular if they move forward with automotive parts tariffs — are going to severely disrupt the supply chain built over the better part of 60 years,” said Kingston, adding that higher prices for cars, along with job losses, are a likely result. Reacting to the 25-per-cent auto tariff Trump said is coming into effect at midnight, David Adams, the head of the Global Automakers of Canada said this will unfairly impact workers on both sides of the border.
Adams urged governments in Canada to “think carefully about how to respond effectively to these unjustified tariffs” and look to “long-term solutions” to get them removed. The head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce slammed the tariffs, and said the rest of the world is now getting a taste of what Canada and Mexico have been facing for months. “The world is waking up today to a reality that Canada has been living with for months,” said Chamber CEO Candace Laing.
“This chain reaction of tariffs and counter-tariffs will have a real and distressing economic impact on Americans, Canadians and the global economy. “We hope that today’s positioning regarding Canada by the U.S.
is part of a path to real negotiation, ultimately leading to long-term partnership focused on continental economic security and resilience.”.
