Canada hits back at US with retaliatory tariffs

THE LIST of more than 250 US goods subject to Canadian duties include Florida juice, Wisconsin toilet paper and North Carolina gherkins.

Ottawa, June 30: Canada hit back at the US with retaliatory tariffs on American summertime essentials including Florida orange juice, ketchup and Kentucky bourbon in its opening salvo in a trade war with President Donald Trump.

As temperatures and tensions increase, the measures targeting Canadian dollar 16.6 billion ($12.6 billion) in US steel, aluminum and consumer goods will take effect tomorrow, when Canadians celebrate a national holiday and just days before Americans celebrate Independence Day amid a heatwave expected in both countries. Ottawa also unveiled Canadian dollar 2 billion ($1.5 billion) in aid for the two sectors and their 33,500 workers. Ottawa “had no choice but to announce reciprocal countermeasures to the steel and aluminum tariffs that the United States imposed on June 1, 2018,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Trump in a call on Friday according to a statement from his office.

“The two leaders agreed to stay in close touch on a way forward,” it said.

Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland announced the tariffs at a steel facility in Hamilton, Ontario where she was flanked by brawny workers in yellow hardhats.

“We will not escalate and we will not back down,” she said, while noting that this trade action was the strongest Ottawa has taken since World War II.

But she said the move was made with “regret” and “very much in sorrow, not in anger” against a close ally. — AFP