Trump Vows 50% Tariff on Canadian Goods Using Depression-Era Law

[00:00:00]Just when you think there's a quiet moment, tariffs are always going to come back into the picture. So, it was only a matter of time before this popped back up again, but the big underlying irritant is that Canada hasn't yet come to the table with the USMCA review talks. It's been entirely just the US and Mexico up until this point. Um, and so what to my understanding, it seems like the US really wanted something to pressure Canada to concede some of the irritants, whether it be with um some of the provinces still ban US alcohol. Um there's been some long-standing issues with dairy access and auto access. Um so this is all of those long-term issues kind of bubbling up here, and we still have 30 days before the Trump administration actually puts these tariffs into effect. So, we'll see if anything that the Prime Minister does in response to it actually helps mitigate um the tariff threats.

[00:01:01]>> Yeah, 30 days is actually longer than usual. Usually it's 2 weeks for for anything to happen. Um on top of that, there is the added irritant of the wildfires uh from Canada over the last uh few days. It's cleared up since then, but um Alicia, talk a little bit about how this feels like a kitchen sink of all of President Trump's grievances against Canada.

[00:01:22]>> Exactly, and it's it's good that you mentioned that because that was top of our minds coming into this.

[00:01:27]Um Trade Trade Ambassador James Greer denied that this has anything to do with the wildfires um largely because the legal basis of this is those irritants described in the report, which is um discrimination against the auto sector, against the dairy sector.

[00:01:45]Um however, we can't ignore the fact that President Trump just days before this came out said that he wanted to add tariffs to the cost of the Canadian wildfires. Um so it'll be interesting to see what President Trump says and if he creates any explicit linkage between this threat and his previous complaints, you know, from a couple days ago.

[00:02:06]>> Okay, so these uh tariffs would uh be on uh things including, as you must said, milk, beer, plywood, but also hockey equipment, which is going over the top.

[00:02:15]>> I know. So I looked at that and I was like, "Whoa, this is now you're throwing down the gloves." Um, Alicia, what is the likelihood or the possibility that maybe the USMCA, which is itself a successor to NAFTA, gets taken apart and the US just strikes bilateral deals with Mexico and then a bilateral deal with Canada.

[00:02:36]>> That's definitely the track that they're on right now. Um, talking to sources, there's a lot of you know, theorizing about maybe the US will, like you said, just do these two separate bilateral deals, one with Mexico and one with Canada. Um, there's also the question of maybe the US creates like a framework deal with Mexico and just brings that to Canada and says, "Hey, you guys have to sign on um whether you like it or not." But all of these actions are pressuring Canada in some way. Of course, President Trump has expressed um his disdain for some of Canadian Canada's actions. Um, you know, last year he floated the idea of bringing them on as a 51st state. So um there's definitely a lot of political issues intertwined with these these tariff threats.

[00:03:25]>> What is Canada's strategy for trade negotiations with the US? We have about 30 seconds left.

[00:03:32]>> It's a great question and the US side has been very quiet with us. Um, they said that Canada is engaging with talks um but isn't necessarily bringing the explicit actions that they would want.

[00:03:43]So I think it's a matter of time to see whether this sort of prompts some concessions on their part or if Canada continues to stay strong and um stand by some of the actions it's done.