Trucks enter the United States at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, on the U.S.-Mexico border on February 1, in San Diego, Cali. The White House said 25-per-cent tariffs will be imposed on Canada and Mexico on Saturday.Apu Gomes/Getty Images
The United States will impose punitive new tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday, making good on repeated pledges to tax imports from his country’s biggest trading partners.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Mr. Trump suggested there is nothing Canada could do to forestall the levies.
“We’re not looking for a concession,” he said. “We’ll just see what happens.”
The White House said 25-per-cent tariffs will be imposed on Canada and Mexico, and 10 per cent on China, although Mr. Trump signalled a lower rate is likely for Canadian crude.
“The reason for that is because both Canada and Mexico have allowed an unprecedented invasion of illegal fentanyl that is killing American citizens and also illegal immigrants into our country,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said earlier in the day.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday (January 31) that the U.S. will impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, along with a 10% tariff on China on February 1, but she declined to say whether there will be exemptions.
Reuters
Mr. Trump’s plan as he outlined it was vague on some details and will require clarification. He said tariffs would also cover Canadian oil and gas but these may only take effect around Feb. 18.
He said the levy on oil, however, will “probably” be cut to 10 per cent.
Even so, the expected trade measures, if enacted as Mr. Trump has promised, constitute a far-reaching rupture in the broader relationship between two countries that have numbered among the world’s closest allies and most collegial trading partners.
“Canada hasn’t had this kind of a challenge from our biggest trading partner in our history. This dramatically resets the entire relationship overnight,” said Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security, a group established by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a Canadian think tank.
“Hopefully, Canada’s economy is strong enough to start weathering this storm,” she said. “But the storm is coming.”
Federal and provincial leaders have spent weeks preparing countermeasures, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday said Canada is “ready with a response – a purposeful, forceful but reasonable, immediate response” to U.S. tariffs.
The Canadian government conducted an intensive lobbying campaign in Washington this week to persuade the Trump administration to alter course.
On Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Public Safety Minister David McGuinty met Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar in Washington.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is ready to deliver a "purposeful, forceful but reasonable immediate" response if U.S. President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on Canadian imports. (Jan. 31, 2025)
The Canadian Press
Ms. Joly later told reporters Canada “will be ready Day One” with a “strong retaliation plan” if the U.S. imposes tariffs Saturday but she didn’t clarify whether counter-levies would be imposed on American goods immediately or after a consultation period as has been done in the past.
As The Globe and Mail has previously reported, Canada’s first round of retaliatory tariffs would cover $37-billion of U.S. imports. These countertariffs would cause the least economic damage to Canadians, officials said. Depending on how hefty initial U.S. tariffs on Canada are, Ottawa would then move to tariffs covering another $110-billion or so of American goods.
Ms. Joly ultimately couldn’t predict whether there remains any chance Mr. Trump might relent before Saturday. “I’m not in the headspace of President Trump,” she said Friday, adding later: “I wish I could answer that question, but the reality is we have not yet seen a piece of paper declaring that.”
The Foreign Affairs Minister said Canada is still talking to the Trump administration.
Ms. Leavitt, in remarks Friday, said Mr. Trudeau should call Mr. Trump. However as of 7 p.m. ET Friday, Mr. Trudeau’s press secretary Jenna Ghassabeh said the two men have not talked.
Asked whether $1.3-billion in new border security investments had been in vain because they have not dissuaded Mr. Trump from tariffs, Mr. McGuinty said no.
President Donald Trump’s favorite economic tool is the tariff. In his first day in office, he said he planned to slap a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico -- and more are probably coming.
The Associated Press
“The investments we’re making in our border takes a strong border and makes it even stronger. The net benefit of this is good for Canadians and good for our American neighbours.”
Canadian officials have repeatedly made the case in Washington that illegal migration and fentanyl smuggling from Canada into the United States represent a tiny fraction of the same illicit traffic from Mexico into American territory.
Mr. Miller said as frustrating as it might seem for some given Mr. Trump’s unwavering plan to impose tariffs, Canada has to keep communicating with Washington. U.S. tariffs “could be crippling” for Canada’s economy “just as our response will be damaging to the U.S.,” he said.
But Mr. Trump has said, time and again, that he is determined to use tariffs to American advantage. In the coming weeks, the President said he will impose additional taxes on imports to the U.S. of steel and aluminum, computer chips and medicine.
“We want to bring pharmaceuticals back to the country. And the way you bring it back to the country is by putting up a wall, and the wall is a tariff wall,” he said.
Mexico’s Secretary of the Economy Marcelo Ebrard, speaking to media in Mexico Friday, warned U.S. consumers would face higher prices for a slew of products from fruits, vegetables, meat and beer, to cars and trucks, electronics, household appliances and medical equipment.
“We estimate the impact would be felt immediately, highlighting why a 25-per-cent tariff is a strategic mistake,” Mr. Ebrard said. “It is crucial to understand that the main impact will be on millions of U.S. families.”
Mr. Trump has dismissed such concerns. “Tariffs don’t cause inflation. They cause success,” he said Friday.
The White House dismissed suggestions that Mr. Trump’s acts would trigger a trade war. In Ontario, however, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford said he backs “strong and forceful” countertariffs on the United States, adding that Ottawa should be prepared to take even tougher action on critical minerals or energy if the U.S. doesn’t back down.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to the press at Triple M Metal in Brampton on Saturday, February 1. Mr. Ford said he backs “strong and forceful” countertariffs on the United States.Eduardo Lima/The Canadian Press
Mr. Ford said Canada’s retaliatory tariffs should only be the “tip of the spear,” and that if the U.S. “doesn’t see reason,” he would support other measures, noting that Washington needs Canada’s high-grade nickel and other critical minerals, energy and electricity, uranium and potash.
“If President Trump proceeds with these tariffs, Canada can, and should, make him regret them,” Mr. Ford said, adding that the U.S. President is “hell-bent on undermining Canada, our workers, our economy our quality of life.”
Canadian business leaders say they want to wait to see what written statements are issued on tariffs before reacting.
“Until we see it in writing, we can’t be sure,” said Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association.
But whatever happens, the seriousness of the trade threat from the U.S. “could just be the opening salvo of a lengthy period of trade uncertainty,” said Goldy Hyder president of the Business Council of Canada. “Whatever happens, this is a wake-up call for Canada.”
While he expects pain on both side of the border, he called it an imperative for Canada to respond with urgency by sweeping away barriers to interprovincial trade barriers, cutting regulatory red tape and boosting tax competitiveness.
“And we need to do all of this immediately. Time is not our friend,” Mr. Hyder said.
Mr. Trump’s administration has launched a sweeping review of the country’s foreign trade, which includes new scrutiny of the effects of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.
Discerning what exactly the White House wants has proven difficult. While Mr. Trump has raised fentanyl and migrants – neither of which come to the U.S. from Canada in large numbers – those around him have sought much larger gains.
Some have also returned to power freighted with old hatreds.
Economist Peter Navarro speaks during the presidential inaugural parade in Washington, DC, on January 20. Mr. Navarro is among those helping to draft the new White House approach to sanctions.ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
Economist Peter Navarro is among those helping to draft the new White House approach to sanctions. On Friday, he faulted Canada for a “very, very lax” approach to visas that has placed the U.S. at risk.
“A lot of the terrorists that have come in have come from Canada,” he told MSNBC Friday. At the same time, he expects tariffs on foreign goods to cover the cost of running his country. Tariffs “will pay for a lot of government that we need to pay for and lower our taxes.”
Mr. Navarro has been open in his disdain for Canada, saying in 2018 that “there’s a special place in hell” for Mr. Trudeau – he apologized, but in a subsequent book derided the Canadian leader as an effete, androgynous metrosexual. He also lamented making trade concessions to the “hardliner” Canadians, which he blamed for costing Mr. Trump critical battleground state votes in 2020.
With reports from Jeff Gray and Laura Stone