Canadians should stay calm within the face of potential “devastating” tariffs on all imports from Canada promised by US President-elect Donald Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has mentioned. He has additionally threatened Washington with a response to any unfair tariffs.
Trump threatened Ottawa with 25% tariffs on Canadian items if it doesn’t tighten border safety to fight drug smuggling and unlawful migration. The president-elect made the identical risk to Mexico.
“Probably the most necessary issues for us to do is to not freak out, to not panic,” Trudeau mentioned at an occasion on the Halifax Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
Nonetheless, the prime minister has admitted that the tariffs could be “completely devastating” for the Canadian financial system. The nation provides its southern neighbor with crude oil and associated merchandise, pure gasoline, metal, aluminum, electrical energy, and a spread of agricultural items.
Many US imports from Canada and Mexico are at the moment exempted from tariffs due to a commerce settlement that Trump enacted throughout his first time period.
Trump was elected “on a dedication to make life higher and extra inexpensive for People,” and folks will notice that tariffs on every thing from Canada would make life “much more costly,” argued Trudeau.
He went on to say that Ottawa will “reply to unfair tariffs” in numerous methods,” citing an instance from 2018, when the US slapped import tariffs on Canadian metal and aluminum. On the time, Canada retaliated by imposing “rigorously focused” duties on US items, corresponding to ketchup, ballpoint pens, cherries, and Harley Davidson bikes. In accordance with Trudeau, the tariffs affected electoral districts held by key Republicans, which is what satisfied Trump to raise the levies.
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Trump is broadly believed to make use of threats of tariff hikes as a negotiating technique to attain his goals.
Radio-Canada and CBC Information reported on Monday that the Trudeau authorities is contemplating spending $1 billion to guard its border with the US to allay Trump’s issues and keep away from the tariffs.
Trump introduced plans to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico in November as a part of a proposed crackdown on unlawful immigration and medicines. Each points have been scorching subjects in the course of the 2024 presidential election marketing campaign.
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“1000’s of persons are pouring by way of Mexico and Canada, bringing crime and medicines at ranges by no means seen earlier than,” he wrote on his Fact Social platform. The president-elect went on so as to add that each nations “have absolutely the proper and energy to simply resolve this lengthy simmering drawback.”
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