Canada slaps tariffs on $13 billion worth of US goods

Canada announced Sunday that it has moved forward with retaliatory measures against U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, slapping $13 billion in its own tariffs on American exports.

CNN reported that over 40 U.S. steel products will see tariffs of 25 percent. A 10 percent tariff will be levied on more than 80 other American items, including toffee, maple syrup and coffee beans.

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Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, said Friday, “We will not escalate, and we will not back down.”

Freeland said she had spoken to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer multiple times this week about how to resolve the dispute over the tariffs.

The tariffs come amid an escalating feud between Canada and the U.S. over trade policy, after President Trump imposed steep steel and aluminum tariffs last month on Canada and other longtime U.S. allies.

The retaliatory measures were in the works for weeks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed during last month’s Group of Seven summit in Canada that the country would “not be pushed around.”

Trudeau’s comments drew the ire of Trump and his advisers, who declared that the prime minister had “stabbed us in the back.”

“The tariffs introduced by the United States on Canadian steel and aluminum are protectionist and illegal under [World Trade Organization] and [North American Free Trade Agreement] rules, the very rules that the United States helped to write,” Freeland said Friday.

“It is with regret that we take these countermeasures, but the U.S. tariffs leave Canada no choice but to defend our industries, our workers and our communities, and we will remain firm in doing so,” she said. 

Canada is not the only country that has pushed back against U.S. tariffs. The European Union and China have prepared a list of U.S. goods that will be subject to additional taxes.

U.S. and international lawmakers have expressed concerns that the tit-for-tat trade policies will spark a global trade war.

Trump has repeatedly doubled down on his administration’s policies, vowing that trade wars are “easy to win” and claiming that the tariffs will ultimately bring other countries to the negotiating table.