{"id":379477,"date":"2025-08-28T05:02:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T05:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/379477\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T05:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T05:02:19","slug":"ontario-ban-on-u-s-booze-to-remain-until-new-trade-deal-reached-ford-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/379477\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario ban on U.S. booze to remain until new trade deal reached, Ford says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A sign on wine shelves at an LCBO in Toronto, March, 2025. Earlier this year, Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered LCBO to remove U.S. alcohol off its shelves and ban future sales in response to U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods.Jill Colvin\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s ban on American booze<\/a> will remain until U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> removes tariffs on Canadian goods or when the two countries strike a new free trade deal \u2013 which could be a long time, Premier Doug Ford warned on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Ford has taken a hard-line stance in Canada\u2019s ongoing trade war<\/a> with Trump. In March, the premier ordered the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to remove U.S. alcohol off its shelves and ban future sales as a direct response to Trump\u2019s first set of tariffs<\/a> on Canadian goods.<\/p>\n

The booze ban will likely play a role in upcoming negotiations on a new North American free-trade deal, Ford hinted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s a deal, another USMCA deal, which I don\u2019t think is going to happen for the next few months \u2013 but you never know with President Trump, he could pull the carpet out from underneath us in a heartbeat like he has before \u2013 or they get rid of their tariffs and then we\u2019ll bring the booze back into the LCBO, and if they don\u2019t, then they aren\u2019t getting any booze on our shelves,\u201d Ford said.<\/p>\n

Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> announced he would drop retaliatory tariffs on goods from the United States that are covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, a position at odds with Ford.<\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will maintain his ban on American booze despite Canada dropping some retaliatory tariffs in the ongoing trade war with the United States.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Canada imposed 25 per cent tariffs on a long list of American goods in March, including oranges, alcohol, motorcycles and cosmetics. Carney said it was a different time in negotiations with the Americans and that a different tack was needed.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s counter-tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles will remain. The tariffs on automobiles generally align with the United States but Canada\u2019s counter-tariffs on steel and aluminum remain at 25 per cent, despite the U.S. raising its rate to 50 per cent in June.<\/p>\n

Trump boosted tariffs on Canada to 35 per cent at the start of August, with the White House saying the flow of fentanyl across the border and retaliatory tariffs were behind the increase. Those duties are not applied to goods compliant under CUSMA.<\/p>\n

Ford has long held firm on a dollar-for-dollar retaliation on Trump\u2019s tariffs, but he downplayed any disagreement with Carney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just believe when they\u2019re tariffing us 50 per cent on our steel and the whole world\u2019s using Canada as a dumping ground for steel, we have to make changes,\u201d Ford said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tariffing them 25 per cent, fair is fair. I\u2019d tariff them 50 per cent on our aluminum, copper, forestry products and obviously steel. We have to protect our steelworkers here in Ontario. So we have to fight fire with fire, but we\u2019ll see how the prime minister makes out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ban on American alcohol has been a boon for Canadian booze. <\/p>\n

U.S. wine and spirits off the menu long-term for majority of Canadian drinkers: report<\/a><\/p>\n

Explainer: What are the current tariffs between Canada and the U.S.?<\/a><\/p>\n

Ford said Ontario wine sales are up 67 per cent. In the three months that followed the ban, Ontario and Canadian-made alcohol sales were up 19 per cent at the LCBO, figures provided by the Ontario finance minister show. <\/p>\n

The liquor board in Quebec was contemplating dumping banned American booze that was expiring<\/a>, but Finance Minister Eric Girard recently told the board to donate the alcohol to charity instead.<\/p>\n

Ford said there are no plans yet in Ontario to destroy American booze.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have a few months before anything expires and we\u2019ll take it from there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s office later said that less than one per cent of U.S. alcohol has expired and another one per cent will not expire for another decade.<\/p>\n

Liberal parliamentary leader John Fraser said the booze ban should be used by the federal government at the negotiation table, but Ford is not part of the negotiation team and his tough talk on Trump is all for appearances.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all show and no dough,\u201d Fraser said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A sign on wine shelves at an LCBO in Toronto, March, 2025. Earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[6934,6925,6935,1500,6918,6936,943,6917,6930,6931,6927,6919,6916,1700,2266,728,6929,6923,6946,6920,6921,1234,6926,388,3611,6607,603,6941,6942,6944,6939,6943,6937,6940,6922,6932,6933,285,3027,6938,6924,53,183,6928,49,978,727,659,263,6945],"class_list":{"0":"post-379477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-northwest-territories","38":"tag-nova-scotia","39":"tag-nunavut","40":"tag-ontario","41":"tag-pei","42":"tag-photos","43":"tag-political-news","44":"tag-political-opinion","45":"tag-politics","46":"tag-politics-news","47":"tag-quebec","48":"tag-sports-news","49":"tag-technology","50":"tag-travel","51":"tag-trudeau","52":"tag-united-states","53":"tag-us","54":"tag-us-news","55":"tag-usa","56":"tag-world-news","57":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}