“Canada does not accept the premise of China’s investigation, nor its findings,” International Trade Minister Mary Ng said.
China’s latest tariffs on Canadian imports are unjustified, Ottawa says, noting that there is no basis to Beijing’s claims of unfair Canadian trade practices.
“Canada does not accept the premise of China’s investigation, nor its findings,” International Trade Minister Mary Ng said on March 8 in a joint statement with Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay and Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier.
“As a trading partner, Canada has demonstrated a commitment to ensuring a level playing field for Canadian businesses, and support for fair, rules-based trade. This includes addressing China’s non-market policies and practices that artificially lower production costs and distort markets.”
The ministers’ statement was issued just hours after the Chinese regime announced tariffs on over $2.6 billion worth of Canadian agricultural and food products. China will apply a 100 percent tariff to just over $1 billion of Canadian canola oil, oil cakes, and pea imports, and a 25 percent duty on $1.6 billion worth of Canadian fish, seafood, and pork.
The levies, set to take effect on March 20, are a retaliatory response to Canada’s import duties on China announced last August, specifically a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles effective Oct. 1, 2024, and a 25 percent tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum products effective Oct. 15, 2024.
While the Chinese regime in a statement accused Ottawa’s tariffs as “discriminatory measures that severely harm China’s legitimate rights and interests,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last August that China had given itself an “unfair advantage” in those sectors, “compromising the security of our critical industries and displacing dedicated Canadian autos and metal workers.”
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China responded last September by launching an “anti-dumping” probe into Canadian canola imports. This led to its latest tariffs on Canadian canola and other products, which Ottawa described as “unjustified tariffs” in the ministers’ March 8 joint statement.
Matching US Tariffs on China
A political risk consultancy suggests that China’s latest move could be a warning to Canada that its efforts to strengthen trade relations with the United States may jeopardize Canada-China relations.
“The timing may serve as a warning shot,” said Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia Group, in an interview with Reuters published March 8. “By striking now, China reminds Canada of the cost of aligning too closely with American trade policy.”
China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner, trailing far behind the United States. Canada exported $47 billion worth of goods to the world’s second-largest economy in 2024, according to Chinese customs data.
Just a week earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly had told reporters in Vancouver that Canada is “open” to talks about matching U.S. tariffs on China.
“When it comes to the U.S. and their own concerns, we’re able to have conversations,” she said on Feb. 28. “We are very open to have trade-related conversations, including when it comes to China.”
Joly’s comment came after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg earlier that day that Mexico had proposed matching the United States on its China tariffs and that Canada could help build a “Fortress North America” from the flood of Chinese imports by doing the same. The Mexican government has not confirmed the proposal.
A few days later, on March 3, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order raising tariffs on Chinese imports to 20 percent, up from 10 percent initially imposed on Feb. 4. The president blamed the regime for fentanyl trafficking into his country.
China responded on March 4 saying it would impose an additional tariff of up to 15 percent on some U.S. agricultural goods, effective March 10. The new tariff is on top of an existing 15 percent already in place. Beijing also said it was “ready to fight till the end” with the United States, “be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war.”
In an interview with Bloomberg on March 7, Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada is willing to hold early talks with the Trump administration on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a trade pact scheduled for joint review in 2026.
LeBlanc added that Ottawa wants to work with Washington to stop Beijing from undercutting North American markets with predatory pricing.
The minister’s comments came after Trump on March 4 went ahead with imposing 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, with the tariff lowered to 10 percent on Canadian energy products. The president has repeatedly said the levies are tied to border security to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs such as fentanyl into the United States from its northern and southern neighbours.
Trudeau responded the same day by imposing 25 percent tariffs on $30 billion of American goods, saying these countermeasures will stay in place until the United States eliminates its tariffs against Canadian goods.
Trump then on March 6 paused tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods that fall under the USMCA until April 2.
Aside from the border- and fentanyl-related tariffs, Canada still faces the threat of 25 percent tariffs on its steel and aluminum, which Trump said would be levied against all countries on March 12, originally scheduled to take effect on March 4.
The Trump administration has also said it plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on all nations starting April 2, the same day that the tariff exemption for USMCA-compliant goods is set to expire.
Chandra Philip, Lily Zhou, Matthew Horwood, Noé Chartier, and Reuters contributed to this report.
