Canada’s Counter-Tariffs on US Goods Take Effect

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars in US products took effect on Tuesday, as a trade war between the North American neighbors heats up. The duties of 15 percent, 25 percent and 50 percent apply to C$27.6 billion ($20 billion) in imports from the United States, covering steel and aluminum products as well as dairy goods such as cheese, although Canada removed some seafood products from the initial list.

Ottawa’s pushback comes weeks after US President Donald Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on a similar value of Canadian products, over what Washington deemed “discriminatory treatment” against US alcohol, automobile and dairy industries. The US tariffs hit items such as hockey sticks and cement, affecting about 5.5 percent of Canadian exports to the United States.

On Monday, Trump threatened to block sales of Canada’s Bombardier Aviation in the United States unless the Quebec-based plane maker moves manufacturing to the US. “No more selling Bombardier in the United States!”

Trump posted in capital letters on his Truth Social platform, without specifying how he would achieve a sales halt. Thousands of Bombardier aircraft currently operate in US airlines’ domestic fleets.

In a statement on Monday, the aerospace company said it had created “tens of thousands of jobs across the United States”, with “direct employment” in more than 20 states, including Kansas, Texas, Arizona and California.

It said it spends over $2.5 billion annually with suppliers and that its supply chain is “made up of approximately 2,800 American companies across 47 states”. “Bombardier values its great partnership with American companies and its US employees,” the statement said.

Analysts say US tariffs pose a modestly negative risk to Canada’s overall economy but have a sharper impact on Central Canada’s manufacturing sector. Negotiations between the two sides broke down on Aug 21 after days of meetings in Washington, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney saying he had decided to suspend the trade talks.

Carney said at the time that the Trump administration’s terms were ultimately unacceptable, adding that US negotiators had introduced restrictions on Canadian trade deals with other countries at the eleventh hour, and that US officials had made unacceptable “threats” to the French language and “Quebec culture”.

Trump’s top trade official Jamieson Greer later said the US government was aware that French language protections are sensitive and important. “This is not something where we push hard, or condition, or red-line,” he told Canadian public broadcaster CBC last month.

Ottawa and Washington have not resumed negotiations since, and have continued trading barbs.

Asked last week whether the two sides were in a trade war, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC he did not think one could be in a tit-for-tat fight with a country 13 times larger. “We’re not at war with Canada,” Bessent said on the sidelines of a G20 finance leaders’ meeting. “How are we going to be at war with Canada? They’re going to take their two set submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us?”a reference to a former attraction at a shopping center in Alberta province.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth separately appeared to mock the physical appearance of a Canadian soldier on social media. Carney said a day later that the remarks were “beneath their office” and “not constructive”, adding that the two sides could hold discussions “when the Americans stop doing memes” and start beingserious.

Trump also signed an order in August to rename Lake Ontario, on the border with Canada, as “Lake America”, sparking anger in Canada amid a broader wave of patriotism triggered by his hostility.

At the start of his second presidency, Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America, and he has repeatedly claimed Canada should become the 51stUS state.

Although Carney is backed by Canadian public opinion, his country remains reliant on its neighbor: nearly 60 percent of Canada’s imports come from the United States and about 70 percent of its exports go to the US market. To help businesses and workers, the Canadian government has unveiled an aid package of C$7.5 billion ($5.4 billion).