Canadian dairy and lumber might be in the clear from U.S. President Donald Trump‘s tariffs — for now.
While speaking from the Oval Office on Friday, the president said he planned to impose a dollar-for-dollar, 250 per cent tariff on dairy and lumber imports from Canada by Monday or Tuesday. However, in a televised interview with NBC News Sunday morning, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said these tariffs wouldn’t go into effect until April 2, the same day Trump says he’ll impose sweeping tariffs on all global imports.
“On April 2, we are going to revisit again the fentanyl issues. And we are going to revisit again the trade, the general trade issues of reciprocality,” Lutnick said on “Meet the Press,” a reference to Trump’s claims that tariffs against Canada are needed to tackle fentanyl coming across the countries’ shared border and to address “unfair” trade practices.
On Friday, Trump accused Canada of treating U.S. dairy farmers unfairly. “Canada has been ripping us off for years on lumber and on dairy products,” he said.
According to U.S. customs data, the Canadian border accounts for less than 0.1 per cent of annual fentanyl seizures — 43 pounds worth in 2024, compared to 21,100 pounds intercepted at the Mexican border over the same period.
Lutnick’s comments present another instance of backpedaling from the Trump administration over tariffs.
Late last week, as Canadian and U.S. stock markets tumbled, the president announced a temporary reprieve for all goods covered under the CUSMA trade agreement until April 2. The move was largely a repeat of early February, when Trump put a pause on tariffs after reaching 11th-hour deals with Canada and Mexico.
The uncertainty from these back-and-forth positions has paralyzed Canadian businesses. Meanwhile, the auto and manufacturing sectors also face a 25 per cent U.S. tariff on all foreign steel and aluminum that Trump said Friday is still going into effect on Wednesday.
Still, those in Canada’s dairy industry who voiced frustration over Trump’s proposal on Friday might be breathing a sigh of relief from Lutnick’s comments.
Defending the country’s supply management system, Dairy Farmers of Canada president David Wiens told the Star on Friday that his organization calls “upon our federal and provincial governments to defend our economy, and to safeguard our national food security and sovereignty.”
Meanwhile, American dairy producers, who have accused the Canadian government of not living up to its commitments under the CUSMA trade agreement, were supportive of the potential of a tariff targeting Canadian dairy.
Canada’s dairy industry is tiny compared with the size of its American counterpart, noted Mike von Massow, a professor at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Agricultural College, on Friday. “There are more cows in the state of Wisconsin than there are in all of Canada,” he told the Star.
According to government and industry statistics, Canada produces roughly 9.5 trillion litres of milk per year; the U.S., 112.9 trillion litres.
In 2023, Canada exported $293.3 million of dairy products to the U.S., with more than $1 billion in American dairy imports coming here.
With files from Josh Rubin and Peter Edwards
