Canada’s move comes despite a Tuesday agreement to end the prospect of a 25% tax on United States. electricity consumers.
The opening bullets in President Donald Trump’s global trade war have been fired.
Canada slapped additional retaliatory trade penalties on $21 billion in US imports on Wednesday, in reaction to Trump’s implementation of universal steel and aluminum tariffs.
Canada’s retaliatory measures mirror those announced by the European Union on Wednesday, which target a variety of US goods worth $28 billion, including beef, motorbikes, and whiskey, as well as American-made steel and aluminum. China, too, said it was preparing a reaction.
Following weeks of warnings and discussions, the tariffs are among the first fresh, large-scale charges levied by the countries, despite Trump’s threats of many more. Aside from supplementary charges of 20% on Chinese imports, Trump has deferred other threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
The back-and-forth threatens to spark a global trade war, thereby stifling global economic growth. The Trump administration has attempted to downplay the immediate consequences of the trade wars while conceding that an economic “transition” or “detox” would occur as the president carried out his policy objectives.
As trade barbs flew Wednesday, stocks gave up earlier gains after a better-than-expected inflation report that seemed to provide short-term relief. Shares of U.S. automakers declined. Analysts from Barclays Financial Services Group noted in a letter to clients on Wednesday that when Trump applied similar levies, Ford and GM reported lower profitability. The tariff battle with Canada pits the U.S. against its biggest trading partner. America’s northern neighbor is the largest foreign supplier of aluminum and steel to the U.S.
The retaliatory penalties were announced at a news conference on Wednesday. A Canadian government spokesperson described Trump’s tariffs as “completely unjustified, unfair, and unreasonable.”
According to François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of innovation, science, and industry, “the U.S. administration is once again inserting disruption and disorder into an incredibly successful trading partnership and raising the costs of everyday goods for Canadians and American households alike.”
Even if a détente with the Trump administration was achieved Tuesday to address concerns of a 25% fee on American consumers of Canadian electricity, Canada nonetheless made its announcement. Trump had warned that if Ontario implemented the fee, steel and aluminum tariffs would go to 50% in Canada.
The Trump administration’s justifications for the trade actions have changed over time. In the case of the steel and aluminum tariffs, Trump has hinted the countries are taking advantage of the United States.. through their trade policies, which he argues is reflected in America’s widening trade deficit.
Nonetheless, America’s imports and exports are both at all-time highs. Some economists have suggested that the tariffs will likely endanger as many jobs as they will generate, given the necessity of access to lower-cost, or specialized, raw steel and aluminum for American tractor and appliance makers.
Meanwhile, in the instance of threatened — then suspended — general trade duties in Canada and Mexico, the administration has highlighted illicit fentanyl trafficking from those countries.
However, Trump provided a far clearer justification for the tariff assault last month.
“This is the beginning of making America rich again,” the president declared.
The Trump administration had not yet responded to the retaliatory measures announced Wednesday but has signaled it would respond in kind to any such moves.
By :- Next Tech Plus
