“And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday,” Trump said.
President Donald Trump says he will place reciprocal tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy products as early as March 7, to match the duties Canada charges for shipping the products to the United States.
“Canada has been ripping us off for years on tariffs for lumber and for dairy products,” Trump said from the Oval Office on March 7.
“They’ll be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it, and that’s what reciprocal means,” he added.
“And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday.”
Trump said Canada had been treating American farmers “very unfairly” by imposing high tariffs on dairy products of up to 250 percent, and that Canadian trade representatives had been “very difficult to deal with.”
Canada has a supply management system that coordinates production and demand relating to dairy, chicken, eggs, and turkey products while controlling imports as a way of setting stable prices for farmers and consumers.
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The U.S. president also said his administration is changing environmental standards to allow for more lumber production so the country does not “need” Canadian lumber. The U.S. Lumber Association has accused Canada of benefitting from unfair trade practices, which it said is leading to the closures of U.S. lumber mills.
“They make it impossible for us to sell lumber or dairy products into Canada. But our numbers are a tiny fraction of that, almost nonexistent,” Trump said.
Trump had initially vowed to impose reciprocal tariffs on countries on April 2, and has vowed to put 25 percent tariffs on all imports of steel and aluminum on March 12.
The Liberal government said on Feb. 6 that it would not make concessions concerning the country’s supply management system, with International Trade Minister Mary Ng saying the system is “really important to the Canadian economy.” She added that the issue had been negotiated as part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) during Trump’s first term as president. During the negotiations of the agreement in Trump’s first presidency, Canada made some concessions to its supply management, allowing the United States more access to the Canadian market.
“With respect to supply management, I would also say that the Americans absolutely have taken advantage of the dispute settlement system that is a part of our trade agreement,” Ng told CTV in February. “The dispute settlement panel in that particular instance actually ruled in Canada’s favour, which is that we are living up to our obligations in the trade agreement, particularly around dairy.”
The United States already applies duties on Canadian lumber at a rate of 14.54 percent. Ng has said in the past that the tariff is “baseless and unfair,” saying it harms “consumers and producers on both sides of the border.”
Earlier this week, Trump went ahead with imposing blanket 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, saying the two haven’t done enough to stop the flow of fentanyl through their borders into the United States. However, he signed paused some of the tariffs later in the week, signing two executive orders on March 6 that suspended 25 percent tariffs on USMCA-compliant exports from Canada and Mexico for a month.
Around 50 percent of American imports from Mexico are covered by the trade agreement, while 38 percent of Canadian goods are covered, according to the White House.
Following the announcement, Ottawa paused an additional $125 billion of tariffs on U.S. products, which was set to kick in on March 25. Ottawa’s initial 25 percent tariffs on $30 billion of U.S. goods are still in effect. Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada will continue working toward “the removal of all tariffs.”
