The Trump administration announced Monday that it will slap 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods, claiming discrimination against American-made products such as alcohol and dairy.
In a call with reporters this afternoon announcing the tariffs, a senior administration official said that the new tariffs are to “hold” Canada “accountable” for their “substantial retaliation against the United States as the U.S. imposes trade actions to reindustrialize, reshore, and support its manufacturing.”
“For example, one of the things that has happened is that all but two Canadian provinces and territories have halted the purchase, distribution, or retailing of U.S. alcoholic beverages, but they have not imposed similar restrictions on other countries,” the senior administration official said.
The senior administration official also added the move was in response to Canada’s tariffs on some American cars and tariffs and trade quotas related to dairy.
The 50% tariffs would exclude energy products, potash, fish and critical minerals, but they would include goods that had previously been protected from import taxes by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
President Donald Trump claims in the proclamations that Canada discriminates against American autos, alcohol and cheese relative to other nations, but his argument rests in large part on retaliatory actions taken by Canada after the U.S. president imposed tariffs on Canada for refusing to stop fentanyl smuggling.
“By doing this, President Trump is leveling the playing field for crucial American exports: motor vehicles, alcohol, and dairy,” the senior administration official said.
“Each Section 338 proclamation imposes a 50% tariff on a different set of Canadian imports, covering products ranging from wine to hockey sticks to cement,” the senior administration official said.
These are not the tariffs that Trump called for in a social media post on Friday, criticizing America’s northern neighbors for the smoke that covered American cities, coming from Canadian wildfires.
