US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump paused the planned rollout of punishing new tariffs on Canadian goods late on Tuesday, as both sides indicated they were close to a broader trade agreement after weeks of talks.<\/p>\n
Trump announced the three-day reprieve from 50-percent duties on select goods just hours before a midnight deadline.<\/p>\n
The delay was \u201cbased on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was less definitive, saying \u201csubstantial progress has been made\u201d towards a comprehensive trade deal, but \u201cthere is important work still to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ottawa and Washington have held intense negotiations on revising their existing deal, the United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USMCA), which Trump signed and praised during his first term but now says needs to change.<\/p>\n
The US Trade Representative\u2019s office said on X that the pact between Washington and Ottawa is set to \u201cinclude comprehensive market access for all American goods, economic security commitments, digital trade alignment\u201d and other provisions.<\/p>\n
A proclamation by Trump to pause the duties added that the suspension came about as \u201cCanada has expressed a\u00a0commitment to remove the discriminations or unreasonable and unequal impositions at issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carney said the prospective deal aims to \u201caddress outstanding trade issues and deliver greater certainty and real benefits for Canadian businesses, workers, farmers and families.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u2018Discriminatory treatment\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trump had signed orders for the 50% duties last month, with the White House alleging \u201cdiscriminatory treatment\u201d by Canada against US alcohol, automobile and dairy products.<\/p>\n
The new tariffs would cover products such as wine, hockey sticks and cement.<\/p>\n
They target around 5.5% of Canada\u2019s exports to the United States, worth about $20 billion (\u20ac17.28 billion), Oxford Economics estimates.<\/p>\n
While this only poses a \u201cmodest\u201d negative risk to Canada\u2019s economy, Oxford Economics said in a recent report that the duties would \u201caffect central Canada\u2019s manufacturing sector much more severely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canadian negotiators have been in Washington to push for a deal to avoid the new tariffs and also secure relief on Trump\u2019s sector-specific duties \u2014 which have battered Canada\u2019s auto, steel, lumber and aluminium industries.<\/p>\n
Ottawa reportedly offered concessions like pressuring provinces to put US alcohol and wine back on their shelves.<\/p>\n
Without going into details, Trump added in his Truth Social post: \u201cThe great Keystone XL Pipeline, long ago killed by Sleepy Joe Biden, may be awoken from the grave!\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has previously called for the revival of the controversial project opposed by environmental activists, which was blocked under his predecessor Biden.<\/p>\n
Political concerns\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not unusual for a trade negotiation to go right up to the deadline,\u201d former US commerce official Christopher Padilla told AFP.<\/p>\n
He expects that the Trump administration threatened new tariffs to try and win early concessions from Canada as the countries negotiate new terms for the USMCA.<\/p>\n
Oxford Economics anticipates that manufacturers who stand to be most impacted include those in the cement, paper, printing, wood, clothing and electronic equipment sectors.<\/p>\n
With the US Supreme Court striking down many of Trump\u2019s global tariffs earlier this year, the president had tapped an untested legal provision for the new duties targeting Canada.<\/p>\n
The US duties will not apply to Canadian energy, potash or goods already facing sector-specific tariffs, but are set to hit products covered by the USMCA.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s trade envoy Jamieson Greer previously said the tariffs aimed to \u201chold Canada accountable\u201d for its retaliation against the United States.<\/p>\n
Provinces have taken US alcohol products off their shelves, he said, and \u201cgiven better market access to dairy products from the European Union\u201d among other actions, Greer said in July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump paused the planned rollout of punishing new tariffs on Canadian goods late on Tuesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[17815,9,10,995,356,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,15847,5,1255,7,8,57803,1543],"class_list":["post-645142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-again","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-mark-carney","tag-news","tag-tariffs","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-truth-social","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117121328503291537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}