{"id":178915,"date":"2026-08-22T20:25:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/178915\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T20:25:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T20:25:38","slug":"us-and-canada-fall-deeper-into-a-trade-war-with-new-tariffs-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/178915\/","title":{"rendered":"US and Canada fall deeper into a trade war with new tariffs | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 The United States and Canada, historic allies<\/a> along an undefended border, fell deeper into a trade war Saturday marked by angry recriminations and new tariffs that are expected to raise prices for products in both countries.<\/p>\n

Each side blamed the other for the collapse of negotiations in Washington late Friday, leading the U.S. to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods<\/a> and Canada setting Sept. 8 as the start of its retaliatory penalties.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s import taxes will hit about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States<\/a> every year, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors. Prime Minister Carney said Ottawa would respond with targeted tariff protection for industries exposed to the new U.S. duties, including some steel products. He also mentioned the dairy, appliance, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics sectors.<\/p>\n

No further talks were planned. Whatever the eventual outcome, a loss of trust seems one of the earliest casualties.<\/p>\n

Carney accused Washington of using \u201ceconomic integration as a weapon\u201d and said \u201cits signature was written in pencil.\u201d Resorting to the language of battle, he said his country had been \u201cattacked\u201d by the new American tariffs. \u201cYou\u2019re at war when you get attacked,\u201d he said, adding that Canada had the reserves, resilience and plan to respond.<\/p>\n

But to Trump’s chief trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. was compelled to act after a year of retaliation by its longtime partner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve said enough, and so we\u2019ve taken countermeasures. Our interest is in protecting American workers and protecting American supply chains,\u201d the U.S. trade representative told \u201dFox & Friends Weekend.”<\/p>\n

Canada cites \u2018unacceptable demands\u2019<\/p>\n

Carney said Canada had been willing to drop remaining retaliatory tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos if the U.S. substantially lowered its own, and to encourage provinces to restore U.S. alcohol sales. But he said Washington\u2019s final demands went too far. \u201cThey asked too much and offered too little,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n

Greer said the Republican administration was offering to cut tariffs on steel, autos and lumber, \u201cthings that are sensitive for them. And they\u2019ve always had the best deal, and they still would have an even better deal, but they didn\u2019t want that.”<\/p>\n

As a result, he said, \u201cWe\u2019re moving forward with measures that respond to Canadian retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney said the U.S. added last-minute terms that would have reduced tariff relief for Canadian-made vehicles, restricted Canada\u2019s ability to strike trade deals with other countries and weakened protections for language, culture and sovereignty.<\/p>\n

He said such demands were \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The breakdown in negotiations marked a sharp reversal from two days earlier, when officials from the two countries sounded as if they were headed toward a compromise.<\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who leads Canada\u2019s most populous province, praised Carney for rejecting the deal, saying it would have hurt Ontario\u2019s auto, steel and manufacturing sectors. Ford urged Canada to use \u201cevery tool in our toolbox\u201d to fight the U.S. tariffs.<\/p>\n

The moves also call into question the future of a North American trade agreement<\/a> covering the United States, Canada and Mexico that is crucial to industry in all three countries.<\/p>\n

Carney said the breakdown was \u201ccertainly not good news\u201d for the review of that agreement and that the failed negotiations had given Canada \u201ca new perspective\u201d on what Washington wants from the broader economic relationship.<\/p>\n

Typically cooperative alliance goes sour<\/p>\n

The political impact will likely be even bigger than the economic fallout. The countries sold each other $880 billion worth of goods and services last year.<\/p>\n

The tariffs were initially supposed to kick in at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Trump extended the deadline for three days to allow talks to continue, but the countries could not reach an agreement in time.<\/p>\n

The U.S. and Canada have wrangled for decades over trade, poking each other over sore spots such as Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada\u2019s protected dairy market.<\/p>\n

Somehow, they still managed to remain friends, allies and trading partners. Canadian soldiers fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan after 9\/11. The 5,525-mile U.S.-Canada border is undefended, and nearly 330,000 people<\/a> and $2 billion worth of goods cross it every day; 800,000 Canadians live in the United States.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s approach to dealing with Canada marks an extraordinary departure from the traditionally cooperative relationship between the two countries. Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian goods in a push to bring manufacturing back to the United States and made inflammatory comments about turning Canada into America\u2019s 51st state<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Carney said Canada had recognized that \u201cAmerica has changed\u201d and that the two countries would \u201cnot return to our old relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canadians and Americans are frustrated<\/p>\n

The Canadian public is fed up. A petition to expel U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, a Trump ally, has collected nearly 248,000 signatures since July 21. It accuses the former Republican congressman from Michigan of having \u201cnormalized\u2019\u2019 Trump\u2019s talk of annexing Canada, among other things.<\/p>\n

The two countries had good reasons to find a compromise.<\/p>\n

Nearly 72% of Canada\u2019s goods<\/a> exports last year went to the United States. The Trump administration might be wary of imposing new tariffs \u2014 paid by U.S. importers who try to pass along the cost to consumers via higher prices \u2014 before the November midterm elections. American voters are already frustrated with the high cost of living.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth sides will be under immense pressure in the coming days to still find an off-ramp,\u201d said Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official.<\/p>\n

Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, called the tariffs \u201ca body blow to North American competitiveness\u201d and warned they would raise costs for Americans while threatening Canadian customers, investment and small businesses.<\/p>\n

Trump has turned to Depression-era trade penalties<\/p>\n

Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his second-term economic agenda. Last year, he imposed double-digit import taxes on almost every country, justifying them by declaring the long-standing U.S. trade deficit a national emergency. The Supreme Court in February ruled that he had overstepped his authority. The justices struck down the trade penalties and set the stage for the federal government to pay refunds to importers.<\/a><\/p>\n

So Trump has looked for other legal authority to justify tariffs.<\/p>\n

To punish Canada, he reached back to the Great Depression, invoking Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to threaten 50% tariffs on products that account for about 5% of Canadian exports to the United States.<\/p>\n

Nearly a century ago, with the U.S. and world economies in collapse, Congress passed the 1930 tariff law, imposing taxes on imports from around the world. Known as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs after their congressional sponsors, they are notorious among economists and historians for limiting world commerce and making the Great Depression worse.<\/p>\n

Section 338, which has never been used before to impose tariffs, authorizes the president to slap import taxes of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses. No investigation is required to justify the levies. Nor is there any limit on how long they can stay in place.<\/p>\n

The rift comes as the United States, Mexico and Canada are trying to renew a trade agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term and once praised as a triumph. The United States has begun formal talks with Mexico over revamping the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as USMCA. But talks with Canada have not begun and escalating trade conflict casts doubt on whether they will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The United States and Canada, historic allies along an undefended border, fell deeper into a trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[525,17,56580,2039,592,5855,434,113,5996,218],"class_list":["post-178915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-canada-us-trade-tariffs-trump","tag-economic-policy","tag-general-news","tag-government-policy","tag-international-trade","tag-politics","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}