Canadian leader: ‘Insulting’ that U.S. suggests national security threat

WASHINGTON — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday criticized the White House rationale for imposing punitive trade tariffs on Canada as “insulting and unacceptable,” the latest leader to warn of a looming trade war with the U.S.

The complaint was a dramatic departure from the conciliatory approach Trudeau has shown to President Donald Trump over the last year, and it signaled the growing pushback from U.S. allies to the protectionist trade policies.

The White House announced last week that Canada, Mexico and the European Union nations would face a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum. Initially announced in March, the levies took effect Friday.

In i mposing t hem, Trump invoked a little-used provision that permits the use of tariffs to counter a national security threat.

Trudeau denied on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Canada or its steel and aluminum industries posed any such menace. Canada i s one of America’s largest trading partners and one of its closest allies. “The idea that we are somehow a national security threat to the United States is, quite frankly, insulting and unacceptable,” Trudeau Trudeau said.

He said Canada would impose retaliatory tariffs against Americanmade steel and aluminum, as well as on other goods. Officials have said cheese, whiskey, orange juice and dozens of other items will be targeted, many from states that Trump won in 2016 in an effort to pressure him to reverse course.

“We’re putting the same kinds of tariffs exactly on steel and aluminum coming from the United States into Canada to be directly reciprocal,” Trudeau said. “But we’re also putting a number of tariffs on consumer goods, finished products for which Canadians have easy alternatives.”

The confrontation, he warned, will hurt consumers and workers on both sides of the border.

“One of the truths about tariffs is they drive up costs for consumers,” Trudeau said. “And on top of that, these tariffs are going to be hurting American workers and Canadian workers.”

Other allies have denounced the tariffs in similarly harsh terms.

Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, said on “Fox News Sunday” that Trudeau was “overreacting.”

“I don’t think our tariffs are anything to do with our f riendship and l ongstanding alliance with Canada,” Kudlow said.