Canada tariffs on US goods begin

OTTAWA, Ontario — Canada has begun imposing tariffs on $12.6 billion in US goods as retaliation for the US President Donald Trump administration’s new taxes on steel and aluminum imported to the northern neighbor.

Some US products, mostly steel and iron, face 25 percent tariffs, the same penalty the US slapped on imported steel at the end of May. Other US imports, from ketchup to pizza to dishwasher detergent, will face a 10 percent tariff at the Canadian border, the same as US’ tax on imported aluminum.

Trump had enraged Canada and other US allies by declaring imported steel and aluminum a threat to America’s national security and therefore a legitimate target for US tariffs. Canada is the US’ second-biggest trading partner in goods, just behind China.

Speaking on Sunday in Leamington, Ontario, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked Canadians for standing united against US sanctions. He urged Canadians to “make their choices accordingly” in considering whether to buy US products.

The selection of Leamington, known as Canada’s tomato capital, was no accident. The town is home to a foodprocessing plant that supplies tomato paste and other products to French’s, a major competitor of Kraft Heinz. Heinz left Canada and sold its Leamington plant in 2014, after 105 years of Canadian operations.

The new Canadian tariffs, which took effect at 12:01 am on Sunday, are hitting a long list of US consumer goods, including ketchup and other Kraft Heinz products.

As part of his combative America First approach, Trump has repeatedly attacked the trade policies of the neighbor, citing Canada’s triple-digit tariffs on dairy products, which account for only about 0.1 percent of US-Canada trade. The US, in fact, last year enjoyed a $2.8 billion overall trade surplus with Canada.

NAFTA efforts

Trump has also tried to pressure Canada and Mexico into agreeing to rewrite the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement to shift more auto production and investment to the US. But that effort has stalled, and Trump said on Sunday that he didn’t expect a deal that he could support until after the US midterm elections in November.

Trump has also suggested that he may pursue separate trade pacts with Canada and Mexico instead of continuing with a three-country deal. But any reworked deal would need to be considered by the US Congress, and negotiators missed a self-imposed deadline to wrap up the talks by mid-May to allow it to be considered by lawmakers before the November elections.

Meanwhile, the European Union warned on Monday that up to $294 billion worth of US exports would face counter-measures if Trump went through on its threat to slap duties on auto imports.

In a letter to US authorities, the European Commission, which handles trade policy for the bloc’s 28 members, said “up to $294 billion of US exports ... could be subject to countermeasures across sectors of the US economy”.

This was the equivalent to 19 percent of US total exports in 2017, it added.