- Follow here for live coverage of the details and impact on Canada of the U.S tariffs. The CBC News Network livestream above runs until 11 p.m. ET.
President Donald Trump launched a trade war against Canada on Saturday by imposing a 25 per cent tariff on virtually all goods from the U.S.’s neighbour — an unprecedented strike against a longstanding ally that has the potential to throw the economy into a tailspin.
Trump’s long-threatened plan to inflict economic pain on Canada has materialized on the day he said it would, and it includes a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy products, according to a senior Canadian official who shared details of Trump’s plan with CBC News.
These potentially devastating tariffs will take effect on Tuesday and remain in place until Trump is satisfied Canada is doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., the government official said.
Experts have said trade action of this magnitude has the potential to shave billions of dollars off Canada’s gross domestice product (GDP) and plunge the country into a painful recession requiring government stimulus to prop up the economy.
Canada is expected to hit back later Saturday with retaliatory tariffs of its own to make Trump think twice about taking on his country’s biggest customer.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to make an announcement at 6 p.m. ET, sources told CBC News.
U.S. President Donald Trump says he is ‘not looking for concessions’ from Canada as the White House confirmed he’s going forward with 25 per cent levies on imports from Canada on Saturday. Trump added he will ‘probably’ set tariffs on Canadian oil at 10 per cent.
Trump’s move Saturday shows no country is safe from his push to dramatically reshape the U.S. economy, roll back globalization and torpedo free trade deals like the new NAFTA, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, that he signed in his first term.
Some $800 billion worth of goods crossed the Canada-U.S. border in the first nine months of 2024 alone, according to Canadian government data.
Trump’s tariffs could drive down the flow of those goods with major ramifications for businesses and workers on both sides of the 49th parallel given just how intertwined the two countries are after decades of liberalized trade.
Trump is delivering on a campaign promise to seek retribution from countries he claims are “ripping off” the U.S.
By doing so, he is ignoring data that shows the Canada-U.S. trade deficit is largely driven by American demand for cheaper Canadian oil. When oil exports are excluded, the Americans actually have a trade surplus with Canada, according to federal data.
Trump has cited wildly inaccurate trade deficit figures in the past, claiming at different times it’s anywhere from $100 billion to $200 billion. The U.S. government’s own data suggests the trade in goods deficit with Canada was $55 billion US as of November 2024.
Trump has also said the tariffs are to punish Canada for being lax on drugs and migrants even as the U.S. government’s figures show less than one per cent of fentanyl and illegal migrants are coming from this country.
Figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) show the agency seized just 19.5 kilograms of fentanyl at the northern border last year, compared to a whopping 9,570 kilograms at the southwestern one.
CBP data shows the number of people sneaking over the border into the U.S. last year was 24,000, a drop in the bucket compared to the surge coming in from Mexico.
The president teased for weeks that if Canada did more to crack down on the border, the country might get a reprieve from his trade actions.
The Canadian government delivered a billion-dollar border plan, but it wasn’t enough. Trump said Friday there was nothing Canada could do to avoid the tariffs.
The next move in this trade war will fall to Trudeau and the federal cabinet.