OTTAWA—Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a U.S. court decision that ruled against President Donald Trump’s “unjustified” use of emergency powers to slap sweeping tariffs on American trading partners.
But Carney said other equally offensive tariffs and threats remain.
“The government welcomes yesterday’s decision by the U.S. Court of International Trade, which is consistent with Canada’s long-standing position that the U.S. IEEPA tariffs (enacted under the International Economic Emergency Act) were unlawful as well as unjustified,” Carney said Thursday in a speech to the House of Commons.
A three-judge panel on the New-York based federal court ruled Trump was wrong to use the 1977 act to levy so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every country that America trades with, calling the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law as allowing ”unlimited tariff authority” unconstitutional, voiding the orders, and barring imposition of the duties.
The court separately also blocked Trump’s so-called “fentanyl” tariffs because it said “they do not deal with the threats” the president cited in his executive order when he imposed the duties on Canada and Mexico.
The Trump administration railed against the order, charging that the judges have usurped the president’s rightful authority over trade agreements. “The courts should have no role here,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a briefing to reporters Thursday. “We fully expect to win this case in court.”
Other American tariffs enacted under a different law using national security provisions, known as s. 232 tariffs, such as those against Canadian metals and cars remain in place.
Leavitt underscored those and said “the president has other legal authorities he can use to implement tariffs, and the administration is willing to use those.”
Carney said those are major threats, including Trump’s vow to levy tariffs on other Canadian sectors in order to bring back manufacturing to the United States.
“We recognize that our trading relationship with the United States is still profoundly and adversely threatened and affected by similarly unjustified 232-tariffs against steel, aluminum and the auto sector, as well as continuing threats of tariffs against other strategic sectors, including lumber, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals,” Carney told the Commons.
“It therefore remains the top priority of Canada’s new government to establish a new economic and security relationship with the United States and to strengthen our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies around the world,” Carney said in his address on the throne speech that was read by King Charles Tuesday in the senate.
It was the prime minister’s first extensive speech in Parliament, following his parliamentary debut in question period a day earlier.
In it Carney reiterated his campaign promises to grow Canada’s economy, saying “Canadians voted last month for big, bold changes. They called for a transformative plan for a competent, independent nation. They called for unity.”
“Our plan is bold, our plan is transformative. Our plan is unified,” he said. “Its success will breed more success.”
Carney quoted Aristotle, vowed to reduce the rate of growth of government spending from an “unsustainable” nine per cent to two per cent a year, and promised to “ensure the sustainability of the vital social programs on which Canadians rely.”
He also said he would “consider” a Bloc Québécois bill presented Thursday that re-ups a legislative proposal from the previous parliament that would fence off Canada’s “supply managed” eggs, poultry and dairy agricultural sectors.
The seatless Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who failed to be re-elected and must seek to win a yet-to-be-called byelection in another riding, could not address the throne speech in the Commons in reply to Carney.
In Poilievre’s stead, Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman castigated the level of Liberal spending set out in the main estimates tabled Tuesday, which set out $487 billion in federal government spending in 2025-2026 although the Carney government has not tabled a budget.
Lantsman said Carney’s estimated spending is “worse” than the level of spending under his predecessor Justin Trudeau.
“The first spending bill that he’s dropped in the House of Commons spends eight per cent more than Trudeau did in his last year in office, that’s almost three times bigger than population and inflation combined.”
Carney pushed back, saying he’ll shift the core of spending on day-to-day government operations to “to investment spending” which he predicts will draw private investment to support rapid construction of major infrastructure projects like energy pipelines, electricity grids, high-speed rail along with new housing.
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