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Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on nearly $30bn worth of American imports after US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports went into effect Wednesday.
The Canadian government said it will be following a “dollar-by-dollar” approach and institute 25% tariffs on American imports, including steel, computers and sports equipment.
Donald Trump first announced the tariff on all steel and aluminum imports in February and scheduled them to go into effect on Wednesday. The tariffs going into effect has started a chain reaction of retaliatory tariffs as countries around the world decide how to respond to Trump’s policy.
Canada’s announcement comes after the EU announced its own tariffs on American imports, including products such as motorcycles and whiskey, totaling $28bn.
Trump had doubled the steel and aluminum tariffs against Canada, in retaliation to Canada raising the prices on electricity exports to the US, to 50%. But the White House dropped the measure after Canada said it will hold off on its electricity tariff.
Meanwhile, the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the country will wait until 2 April to determine whether it will respond to the steel and aluminum tariffs.
Canadian and EU leaders voiced regret over the impact the tariffs will have on domestic businesses, but argued countries need to respond appropriately to Trump’s actions
Mélanie Joly, the country’s minister of foreign affairs, said in a press conference Wednesday that the country will “not back down and we will not give into this coercion”, denouncing the chaos Trump has ensued on the global economy.
“The only constant in this unjustified and unjustifiable trade war seems to be President Trump’s talks of annexing our country’s through economic coercion,” Joly told a press conference.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that the steel and aluminum tariffs are “unjustified trade restrictions”. “Tariffs are taxes, they are bad for business and worse for consumers. They are disrupting supply chains. They bring uncertainty for the economy,” she said.
Despite the criticism from global leaders, Trump defended the tariffs after meeting with the Business Roundtable, a group of key US business leaders on Tuesday. “Markets are going to go up and they’re going to go down, but you know what? We have to rebuild our country,” Trump said on Tuesday.
After a week-long slump, US markets started making small gains on Tuesday morning after inflation figures that were better than projected.
