Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister in charge of US-Canada trade. Photo / Amid Farahi, AFP
Hefty US tariffs on some Canadian products have taken effect after days of negotiations that went down to the wire failed to produce an agreement.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed that his country will match the US tariffs “dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses”, after officials
said that Washington and Ottawa had not managed to strike a deal.
The lack of a final agreement means that new 50% duties, set to impact some US$20 billion of Canadian exports to the United States, are now in effect.
Impacted products range from hockey sticks to cement.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer told reporters that “Canada declined to finalise the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week”.
That came despite Washington’s offers for tariff reductions in sectors like steel and aluminium, he added.
A senior US official said there are no further scheduled meetings for now.
The surprise announcement came after Trump said that the United States “should be able to have a deal with Canada,” citing his “good relationship” with Carney.
After many hours of trade talks last week, however, Canada’s top negotiator Dominic LeBlanc told reporters that officials still “have more work to do”.
LeBlanc and Greer also met for around three hours on Thursday.
Greer said that the Trump administration put on the table “significant tariff reductions on steel, aluminium, autos and lumber” in exchange for concessions from Canada.
He said that Canada was also maintaining its “prolonged retaliation” against the United States, including prohibitions on certain American goods and services.
Canada’s regional leaders said previously that the United States was particularly irritated by one retaliatory measure: the removal of US alcohol and wine from liquor stores.
But Carney said in a statement that “last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal”.
