Prime Minister Mark Carney has said a fresh wave of US tariffs on Canada is a “miscalculation” designed to “hurt and divide us”, after trade talks collapsed late on Friday.<\/p>\n
“They asked too much and they offered too little,” Carney told Canadians on Saturday morning, adding the country was now in a trade “war” after being hit with punishing new US duties.<\/p>\n
The prime minister confirmed he would match US tariffs “dollar-for-dollar” from 8 September, including levies on steel, dairy, appliances and electronics.<\/p>\n
The collapse of the trade talks upends a deeply integrated trading relationship between two allies, with no clear path to resolution.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump has yet to comment.<\/p>\n
Both countries were optimistic of a deal earlier in the week, but talks fell apart after both sides accused the other of making last-minute changes.<\/p>\n
Now that talks have broken down, Canada has been hit with new 50% US tariffs on a range of Canadian goods, in addition to existing US tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminium, automobiles and lumber.<\/p>\n
The new tariffs are limited in scope, covering about $20bn (\u00a315bn; C$28bn) of Canadian imports, or about 5% in total, including wine, dairy, cement, clothing and hockey equipment.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said Canada was retaliating “reluctantly” to protect its interests. Details of the counter-measures will be released in the coming days, he said.<\/p>\n
Leaders of other federal parties in Canada, including the Conservative opposition, voiced support for the prime minister, as have the leaders of some Canadian provinces.<\/p>\n
Tariffs – a tax placed on imports from other countries – have been a key component of Trump’s trade policy, with the US president arguing they will boost American manufacturing and create jobs at home.<\/p>\n
Critics, however, say tariffs have raised prices for American consumers and have disrupted and damaged the global economy.<\/p>\n
Carney’s speech on Saturday was his first address to Canadians after he announced late on Friday night that a deal would not be reached, accusing the Americans of making “last-minute changes” that were “unfair” and “uneconomic”.<\/p>\n
US negotiators, meanwhile, accused Canada of making “new demands and walk backs” on terms which had been previously agreed.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Fox News there were no plans to resume talks.<\/p>\n
He added that the US had been prepared to cut some of its tariffs on Canada as part of the ill-fated deal.<\/p>\n
Carney, however, said the US presented “unacceptable” terms that were too restrictive, including curbing Canada’s ability to strike new trade deals with other countries.<\/p>\n
He also rejected the assertion that Canada had made last-minute requests: “We clarified what was on offer and were continually disappointed by the answers.”<\/p>\n
Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province Ontario, backed Carney and said Trump “can’t be trusted”.<\/p>\n
British Columbia Premier David Eby said the US demand for restrictions on Canada’s ability to have other trade deals “would reduce us to the economic equivalent of the 51st state”.<\/p>\n
“It was never acceptable to Canadians,” Eby said.<\/p>\n
The Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre also appeared to support Carney, calling the latest US levies “unjustified”.<\/p>\n
Quebec’s premier, Christine Fr\u00e9chette, warned jobs would likely be lost as a result of the new US tariffs.<\/p>\n
“Behind these numbers are real people,” she said, vowing to introduce measures to support impacted sectors.<\/p>\n
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, whose oil-rich province has worked to make inroads with the Trump administration, urged both sides to resume talks.<\/p>\n
The collapse comes after more than a year of on-again, off-again trade talks, which intensified in recent weeks after a US-imposed deadline to strike a deal or face further tariffs.<\/p>\n
The two countries were also engaged in a mandatory review of an existing North American free trade agreement, known as USMCA, with Mexico.<\/p>\n
The pact was signed by Trump during his first term to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. It underpins $1.6tn (\u00a31.2tn) in annual trilateral trade across Canada, the US and Mexico.<\/p>\n
Earlier this summer, Canada and Mexico had formally requested for USMCA to be renewed for another 16 years. The US, however, declined to renew it in its current form.<\/p>\n
Asked how Friday’s trade talk collapse would impact the North American free trade pact, Carney said it was “certainly not good news”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney has said a fresh wave of US tariffs on Canada is a “miscalculation” designed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[17,111,202,141,400,4780],"class_list":["post-179121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-canada","tag-mark-carney","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-prime-minister","tag-tariffs","tag-trade-talks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179121","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=179121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}