AP – Canada is looking at putting retaliatory tariffs on American orange juice, toilets and some steel products if United States (US) President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian products, a senior official familiar with the matter said.
The official said the wide-ranging list hasn’t been completed yet. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authoriaed to speak publicly on the matter.
Trump said this week he will use economic coercion to pressure Canada to become the nation’s 51st state.
And he continues to erroneously cast the US trade deficit with Canada – a natural resource-rich nation that provides the US with commodities like oil – as a subsidy.
Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Trump is trying to distract from his threats of stiff tariffs by talking about making Canada the 51st state.
“President Trump, who is a very skillful negotiator, is getting people to be somewhat distracted by that conversation,” Trudeau said.
“Everything American consumers buy from Canada is suddenly going to get a lot more expensive if he moves forward on these tariffs. And that’s something we need to be focusing on a little bit more.”
Trudeau made comments in an interview with CNN in Washington, where he attended the funeral for the late US President Jimmy Carter.
When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own.
Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the US in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminium.
“We would definitely respond as we did years ago,” Trudeau said.
Yoghurt imports from Wisconsin and beverages from Kentucky, the home states of top Republicans Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell respectively, were hit with 10 per cent duties in 2018. Florida, Trump’s home state, is known for its extensive citrus production.
Trump claimed again on Thursday that the US doesn’t need anything from Canada, including oil.
Almost a quarter of the oil the US consumes every day is from Canada, with Alberta exporting 4.3 million barrels a day to the US. According to the US Energy Information Administration, the US consumes about 20 million barrels a day, while domestically producing about 13.2 million barrels a day.
“We don’t need their energy. We don’t need their oil and gas,” Trump said. “We don’t need anything that they have.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province, said Trump has been misinformed about the US not needing Canadian products.
Supply chains for the auto industry are deeply connected, with parts manufactured in Ontario being used in cars that are assembled in Detroit and then sold back to Canada.
Ford has noted that in the auto sector alone parts can go back and forth across the Canada-US border several times.
Ford warned that Canada will retaliate if Trump imposes tariffs. He said a wide range of US products shipped to Canada will be targeted, but he declined to specify which ones.
Top Canadian government officials said Trump’s comments that Canada should become the 51st state are no longer a joke and are meant to undermine America’s closest ally.
“The joke is over,” the country’s finance minister and point person for US-Canada relations Dominic LeBlanc said on Wednesday.
“It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen.”
LeBlanc has been talking to incoming Trump Cabinet officials about a billion-dollar plan to increase border security in an effort to deflect Trump’s threat of tariffs.
Trudeau called that a win for Trump.
Canada is the top export destination for 36 US states. Nearly CAD3.6 billion (USD2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day.
