OTTAWA — Canada fired back with new 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs against $29.8 billion worth of American steel, aluminum and other products as incoming prime minister Mark Carney said he would meet Donald Trump when the U.S. president shows “respect” for Canadian sovereignty and is ready to work on a common comprehensive approach to trade.
“We are ready to sit down with the Americans, with the U.S. government,” Carney said after he met with Hamilton steelworkers and publicly endorsed the Canadian government’s response to Trump’s penalties on Canadian steel and aluminum that came into force Wednesday.
But Carney put a caveat on his willingness to meet Trump any time soon.
“I’m ready to sit down with President Trump at the appropriate time, under a position where there’s respect for Canadian sovereignty and we’re working for a common approach, a much more comprehensive approach for trade,” he said.
“We are all going to be better off when the greatest economic and security partnership in the world is renewed, relaunched. That’s possible,” he said.
Carney said the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by Trump are “unjustified,” and that they breach the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade deal. He said he “respects” Trump’s concerns for American workers and families, and agreed that controlling fentanyl is an issue facing both countries, which is why he said Canada tightened border security.
The former central banker became Liberal leader Sunday and will be sworn in as prime minister on Friday along with his new cabinet. He is expected to call a federal election in the coming weeks.
Until now, Carney has deferred to outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in responding to Trump. However, on Wednesday he expressed support for the retaliation designed under Trudeau.
“We don’t want to do this, because we believe in open borders and free and fair trade, but we’re doing this in response,” Carney said. All proceeds from Canada’s counter-tariffs will go toward affected industries and workers, and the federal government will “double down” on its partnerships with Canadian industries, he said.
In Toronto, Premier Doug Ford said he’s optimistic that Carney can improve Canada’s relations with Trump, who did not get along with the departing prime minister.
“It’s going to be a better relationship than with Prime Minister Trudeau. And no disrespect to Prime Minister Trudeau, I can tell you one thing, Mark Carney is an extremely astute business mind,” said Ford, who had a breakfast meeting with the new Liberal leader Wednesday at Wally’s Grill in Etobicoke.
“He understands numbers,” Ford said, “and so does President Trump and (Commerce) Secretary (Howard) Lutnick there, and I think they’re going to get along very well.”
In Ottawa, Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced the federal government’s latest countermeasures on steel and aluminum and other U.S.-made products will take effect Thursday.
They include 25 per cent tariffs on $12.6 billion worth of steel and $3 billion worth of aluminum imports from the U.S. and an additional $14.2 billion worth of other imports. The list of additional products affected includes computers and servers, display monitors, sports equipment, cast iron products, tools and water heaters.
This is in addition to the initial counter-tariffs on $30 billion worth of American imports that targeted peanut butter, orange juice, peanut butter, wine, spirits, beer, coffee, appliances, apparel, footwear, motorcycles, cosmetics, and certain pulp and paper products.
It means Canada has so far imposed tariffs on nearly $60 billion worth of American imports, all part of the Canadian package set to hit $155 billion worth of American imports in retaliation for Trump’s threatened 25 per cent tariffs on most Canadian products, with a lesser 10 per cent surcharge on oil, gas and potash. Trump has linked the American tariffs to his claims about fentanyl and illegal migrants crossing from Canada into the U.S. — claims that are unsubstantiated by the United States’ own government data.
Those so-called “border-related” tariffs have been temporarily delayed until April 2 — the same date Trump has threatened even higher “reciprocal” tariffs on the world, and in Canada’s case to match what he claims are “unfair” barriers to American dairy products, unfair federal subsidies given to Canadian lumber, and unfair digital services taxes on American big tech companies, among a litany of other trade grievances.
The U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs hit all global shipments to the U.S. and went farther than Canada had expected because they target not just raw metals but many other products made with steel and aluminum. LeBlanc said Ottawa is studying those and may increase counter-tariffs once the broader impact is fully understood.
Trump’s order on steel and aluminum reinstated tariffs he had levied during his first term, and cancelled previously won tariff exemptions that Canada, Mexico and the EU had enjoyed.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday she would not reveal Mexico’s retaliation plan until after it sees what Trump has in store on April 2, but the European Union gave the green light to a retaliatory package of counter-tariffs on €26B (about $40 billion CDN) worth of American goods. The European measures come into force in April pending Trump’s actions.
“Tariffs are taxes,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers.”
But Trump defended his wielding of tariffs as a weapon in his battle to repatriate manufacturing to the U.S., repeating his threats against Canada and the EU. “April 2 is going to be a very big day for the United States of America,” he said Wednesday.
LeBlanc will travel to Washington Thursday with Ford. He said his priority is to get the steel and aluminum tariffs lifted immediately and to avoid further penalties on April 2.
Unlike Ford, LeBlanc denied the meeting is about restarting negotiations on a new free trade deal with Trump. However, he said, if Trump’s officials want to open the review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico deal early, ahead of 2026 as the agreement calls for, “we’ll be ready.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly blasted Trump’s “excuses” for imposing tariffs on Canada. For the steel and aluminum tariffs, she said, “the latest excuse is national security.”
Joly said Canada is facing an “existential threat” from a president employing economic coercion as he continues to talk about making Canada his country’s 51st state. In French, she said, “It’s ultimately the future of our country that’s in doubt.”
She said she would make Canada’s case when she speaks with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Charlevoix, Que.
Rubio told reporters Wednesday that Trump believes Canada as an American state makes sense “from an economic standpoint.”
“He says if they became the 51st state, we wouldn’t have to worry about the border and fentanyl coming across because now we would be able to manage that,” said Rubio. “He’s made an argument that it’s their interest to do so. Obviously the Canadians don’t agree, apparently.”
Rubio said none of that is on the agenda at the meeting in Charlevoix.
“That’s not what we’re going to discuss at the G7,” he said. ”They are the host nation, and I — I mean, we have a lot of other things we work on together. We defend North America through Norad and the airspace of our continent together, so — not to mention the issues of Ukraine and other commonalities. So we’re going to be focused in the G7 on all of those things. That’s what the meeting is about. It is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada.”
LeBlanc downplayed the Trump annexation threat, saying that “obviously outrageous comments” by the U.S. president are “not constructive” to the conversation he wants to have, and that his focus is not on “exaggerated rhetoric.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre didn’t comment on the U.S. tariffs but criticized the incoming prime minister on social media Wednesday, writing “Mark Carney has nothing but slogans. I have a plan to put Canada First.” In a written statement, spokesman Sebastian Skamski used Poilievre’s nickname for Carney, saying “sneaky Carbon Tax Carney” intends to impose a new “carbon tax on steel makers and other industries at the same time as President Trump tariffs our steel.”
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe expressed concern about the prospect of an escalating trade war. He noted China has hit Canadian canola, pork and seafood products with 100 per cent tariffs after Ottawa sided with the U.S. and used 100 per cent tariffs to block Chinese EVs from flooding the market here. Moe said nobody is buying Chinese EVs in Canada while China’s tariffs “will decimate” the canola industry in his province within “weeks, not months.”
Moe said the goal should be to get any U.S. tariffs taken off quickly, adding, “a calm hand is necessary as we walk through what is a very strenuous, stressful conversation that has very, very real impacts on both sides of the border,” said Moe.
With files from Robert Benzie, Mark Ramzy and Rob Ferguson
