Canada continues to fight American steel tariffs: Freeland
Foreign affairs minister says new trade agreement with U.S. is ‘a good deal for Canada’
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says she will continue to fight American tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium exports, which she insists are unjustified and illegal.
Freeland was in Port Colborne Thursday afternoon to tour a factory and meet local business leaders and Liberal supporters.
After her tour of JTL Integrated Machine Ltd. — an industrial metal fabrication supplier — Freeland continued her pushback on American trade practices even has she proclaimed the new Canada-U.S-Mexico trade deal “not just any deal, but a good deal for Canada.”
Canada and the U.S. reached a provisional deal on trade after several rounds of negotiations this year. The talks were triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump, who proclaimed the previous agreement, NAFTA, one of the worst trade deals in history.
Overshadowing those talks were tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium exports — and retaliatory Canadian tariffs on American imports — imposed by Trump.
On Thursday Freeland repeated the Canadian government’s position that Trump’s rationale for the tariffs is “absurd,” because the clause used by the White House to impose the tariffs requires a threat to American national security.
“The argument being used is that somehow Canadian aluminium and steel somehow poses a national security threat to the United States. We think that is patently absurd,” Freeland said.
“Look around here, see all the work all these guys are doing for U.S. companies. We are not a strategic threat to the United States, we are a strategic partner.”
Freeland said Canada continues to challenge the tariffs and noted the U.S. International Trade Commission began hearings Thursday to look at the economic impact of the tariffs on trade. She said American business leaders are saying the tariffs are a net negative for American companies.
The same is true in Canada where businesses, such as ASW Steel in Welland, have been forced to reduce in the number of shifts for workers.
Niagara Centre Liberal MP Vance Badawey, who joined Freeland on her tour, said the government is providing relief to ASW and other steel companies in the form of duty delays and other measures. Ultimately, he said, the Canadian government expects its challenges to be successful.
On Thursday the CBC reported that Canada was willing to accept the trade deal while the tariffs
recall all the details of the incident as he wasn’t taking his medication at the time.
At the time of the offences, court heard, the defendant had been living in a tent along the Niagara Parkway.
On May 18, he began feeling unwell and called 911.
He told paramedics he had been “living in the bush” and was suffering from minor nausea, occasional hallucinations as well as tick bites.
Paramedics described Stewart as “compliant and displayed no irritability,” Strecansky said.
Niagara Emergency Medicval Services transported him to Douglas Memorial where he told a nurse he was schizophrenic and had run out of his medication several days earlier. A nurse who treated the defendant said he was “calm and polite.”
The hospital was closed overnight following the shooting and patients were redirected to Greater Niagara General Hospital in Niagara Falls.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit was called in investigate the matter.
The province’s police watchdog agency investigates incidents involving police that result in death, serious injury or sexual assault. An SIU spokesperson said Thursday its investigation into the shooting is ongoing.