No relief in sight as gasoline price hits four-year high
The United States was keeping its trading partners in suspense Monday, with steel and aluminum tariffs scheduled to snap into effect at midnight barring any new announcement.
Canada has particular reason to be watching closely: it’s the No. 1 supplier of both materials to the U.S.
Canada is hoping to win another exemption, along with Mexico, as all three countries continue their efforts to negotiate changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Tariffs were previously scheduled to hit weeks ago, but President Donald Trump issued orders delaying them until May 1. A White House official says the only thing that could stop them again is a new presidential order.
“Absent any additional presidential proclamation, all tariffs would go into effect at midnight,” the official said.
“So in order for the exemptions to be extended or made permanent, a new proclamation would have to come from us like the original ones did.”
Canada’s position is that neither tariffs — nor the alternative of quotas — makes economic, legal or military sense. Trump’s A coil of steel is moved by a crane at the Direct Strip Production Complex at Essar Steel Algoma in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
legal justification for such tariffs is that reliance on foreign metals threatens American national security.
Canada has argued that it has been supplying metals to the U.S. military for generations, that its imports and exports of steel are balanced, and that it is working with the U.S. to keep over-produced Asian steel out of North America.
It’s also unclear how tariffs would affect the heavily integrated auto industry, where the same piece might criss-cross the border multiple times.
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“There’s no jurisdiction on the planet that has a better case for a full exemption than Canada,” said Joseph Galimberti, president of the Canadian Steel Producers Association.
“We source our raw material from the U.S. We do extensive business with the U.S. We have comparable costs (on salaries). We are in no way, shape, or form unfair trade ... There’s not a hint that we do anything along the lines of state subsidies ... We have been their partner in addressing global overcapacity ...
“I could go on and on and on.”
Canadians celebrating the onset of summer driving season have been dismayed by another spring phenomenon — rising gasoline prices across the country.
According to GasBuddy.com, the average price of regular gasoline in Canada at noon on Monday was about $1.33 per litre, up 22 cents from the average of $1.11 per litre at the same time last year.
The record high for the same day was just over $1.37 set in 2014.
GasBuddy pegged average Vancouver prices at over $1.58 per litre, up 28 cents from last April 30.
Canadian fuel market analyst Michael Ervin, senior vicepresident at the Kent Group Ltd., says he doesn’t expect prices to rise much more than they already have this summer — but he doesn’t see any relief either until demand slows in the fall.
He says Vancouver-area prices
■ are higher than most other regions in Canada, but he doesn’t think the difference is higher than normal. He says an average wholesale price in Vancouver (not including tax and retail markup) is about 98 cents a litre, about 10 cents higher than in Winnipeg.
Ervin says North American wholesale gasoline prices have jumped dramatically this year because refineries in Canada and the United States are going full out, in part because of growing exports of refined products from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Mexico and South America.
The benchmark price of U.S. crude oil has been on a mostly steady incline since last June and last week hit US$68.64 per barrel, the highest since December 2014.
The U.S. daily national average for regular gasoline is $2.81 per gallon, up from about $2.39 per gallon a year ago, according to Oil Price Information Service.
“This will be the most expensive driving season since 2014,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for Oil Price In-