‘BAD FOR AMERICANS AND BAD FOR CANADIANS.

Carr made the comments after he held a series of meetings in Washington with lawmakers, administration officials, and business people whom he said cast doubts on whether the import tax had any chance of passing in an upcoming omnibus tax bill.

The uncertainty surrounding a border tax has created significant concerns among Canadian companies, many of which rely heavily on exports to the U.S.

Morneau told the audience Monday that the Canadian government has conducted “extremely preliminary” assessments on the potential economic impacts of a tax on U.S. imports.

“As you can imagine, there’s too many hypotheticals to get to an answer that is absolutely clear in that regard,” he said.

Morneau also hailed the strength of the countries’ partnership and argued cross-border trade and investment have been “essentially” balanced over the years.

A border-adjustment tax, he warned, would raise prices for American consumers and could create currency issues that would present additional challenges of their own.

“Anything, from our perspective, that thickens our border is bad for Americans and bad for Canadians,” said Morneau, who will visit Indiana on Tuesday to meet governor Eric Holcomb, business leaders and visit CN Rail’s largest U.S. yard in the city of Gary.