Canada prepares response to Trump tariffs: ‘There are no winners in trade wars’

Ottawa, Canada – President-elect Donald Trump “We don’t want their cars, we don’t want their lumber,” he said of Canada at a Mar-a-Lago news conference last week. We don’t need their dairy products, the US’s northern neighbor said, and his plan to impose “severe” and “significant” tariffs on it would be 25% on Canadian exports.

The US depends on trade with Canada, which imports 60% of US crude oil. Last July, the result reached a record 4.3 million barrels per day.

Doug Ford, Prime Minister of Canada’s largest province, Ontario, said in an interview, “Who owns the critical minerals? We do.” “Who has the high-grade nickel – which the US needs for manufacturing and the military? We do.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. shipped more than $322 billion in goods to Canada between January and November 2024. During the same period, the US imported more than $377 billion in goods from Canada, resulting in a trade deficit of nearly $55 billion.

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At a recent Mar-a-Lago press conference, Trump repeatedly cited US subsidies to Canada, which have grown from $100 million to $100 billion to $200 billion a year.

About $2.7 billion in goods and services cross the Canada-US border every day, and Canada is the leading export destination for 36 US states. About 75 percent of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. through this economic partnership, University of Ottawa international business professor Tyler Chamberlain told FOX Business.

“Business represents 67% of the Canadian economy,” he said. In comparison, foreign trade in 2010 It will represent 25 percent of America’s gross domestic product, or economy, by 2023, according to World Bank data.

“Anything that has to do with trade affects us compared to the United States, so the proposed tariffs are for Canadians,” Chamberlain said. “It will be the greatest disaster of all time.” Americans should also be concerned, he added.

“Industries in the United States that rely on goods from Canada will be forced to pay more for their products because of any tariffs imposed on them,” Chamberlain said.

Reuters recently reported that Trump is considering using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to declare a national economic emergency to justify imposing tariffs on Canada.

Canada’s Trudeau announced his resignation amid party pressure amid criticism of Trump and his budget management.

on the same day, Premier of Ontario Trump has made a proposal that could derail his plans to impose sanctions on Canada. The Ford government announced the “Fortress Am-Can” that was intended to achieve “energy security and energy economic growth on both sides of the border” for the American-Canadians.

Energy accounts for about a third of Canada’s trade with the U.S. The plan includes approvals for pipelines as well as large and small modular nuclear reactors. However, Ford told FOX Business that Ontario is also prepared to retaliate in response to the U.S. tariffs, “which will certainly send a message to America.”

He and his fellow Canadian premiers meet. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Next Wednesday in Ottawa to discuss next steps.

Trudeau told CNN on Friday that if Trump moves forward with tariffs, Canada will respond as Trump did several years ago when he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum. “We responded by putting tariffs on Heinz ketchup, playing cards, bourbon, Harley-Davidson, things that hurt American workers,” he explained.

CBC News As reported last week, the retaliatory tariffs would target steel products — produced in the key swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania — along with orange juice made in Trump’s home state of Florida, an unnamed Canadian government source said.

Energy exports could also be used as leverage to push the incoming Trump administration away from imposing tariffs on Canada.

Last month, Ontario’s premier threatened to cut off Ontario’s power supply to several US states, including New York, Michigan and Minnesota. According to spokeswoman Grace Lee, Ontario It powered 1.5 million American homes by 2023.

Next month, Ford and his state and territory colleagues will travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. lawmakers to try to end the tariffs.

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Alberta Premier Daniel Smith met with Trump over the weekend.

“We had a friendly and constructive conversation in which I explained the US-Canada energy relationship and, in particular, how hundreds of thousands of American jobs are supported by energy exports from Alberta. I was able to have a similar conversation with the support of many of the incoming administration’s key partners and strong energy and security ties with Canada. They are encouraged to listen,” she shared on X.

Before the meeting, former Canadian cabinet minister Perrin Beatty, who was recently president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said Trudeau had to do what Smith and Ford did to present Canada’s position and “build a constituency.” Make sure Americans in the United States and Canada know how it benefits them to have a strong relationship.

The independent panel of experts on Canada-US relations, which Beatty chairs, called for a “Canada-first” response to Trump, and said in a statement that “Canada simply cannot bear the demands and demands.”

According to the group, Canada should instead “require the new administration to take action in areas that are important to our country, stemming the flow of drugs and guns from the United States to Canada.”

Beyond the tariff issue, Canada should prepare to renegotiate the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the successor to the 2020 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). BT – He served in the cabinet of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government, which helped create NAFTA, the predecessor of the Canada-US free trade agreement. Reagan administration – This time next year, the Trump White House is expected to inform Congress that it intends to renegotiate the USMCA within the next decade.

Last October, Trump told FOX Business Network anchor Maria Batiromo that he would inform Canada and Mexico that he “intends to revoke the USMCA’s six-year renegotiation provision that I have put in place” as soon as he “takes office.” Interview “Make it a much better deal.”

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Canada’s former foreign minister, BT Trump, said of the trade imbalance between the US and Canada that “mostly Canadian energy is sold to the US at a lower world price”.

“Instead of the US buying this energy and giving it to Canada, Canada is subsidizing the US because our government doesn’t have the infrastructure to properly serve international markets,” BT said.

Beatty, who served as Canada’s defense minister, noted that Canada and the US are security partners in the North American Aerospace Defense Command and have partnerships in the defense industrial base. “While Mr. Trump is harming our economy, he is also harming America’s security in the process,” she said.

In his view, the past should guide the future.

Beatty cited the Tariff Act — commonly known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, passed by Congress in 1930 — that implemented protectionist trade policies. Canada was the first country to impose new tariffs on 16 products, covering about 30% of US exports to Canada.

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“Smut-Hawley didn’t cause the Great Depression,” Beatty said. But he extended it and deepened it.

“Unfortunately, we don’t learn from history,” he said. “There are no winners in trade wars, only losers.”

Reuters contributed to this report.