Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Saturday morning that the country will enact retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. beginning on Sept. 8 in response to the Trump administration’s new 50 percent tariffs.
The prime minister said during a press conference that the country will “match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families and businesses.”
Carney said his government will release more details about these retaliatory policies in the “coming days” and that the tariffs would apply to goods like steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics.
He stressed during his morning remarks that the Canadian government “take this step reluctantly.”
“Reluctantly because we recognize that some of these measures will raise costs and reduce choice for Canadians,” Carney said. “Reluctantly because we recognize that some U.S. companies and some U.S. states are innocent bystanders in a dispute that they did not want. Reluctantly because this trade dispute is preventing Canada and America from doing so much good that we could do together.
“But at the same time, we take this step confident that it is in the best interest of Canada,” the prime minister added.
The new U.S. tariffs, which went into effect at midnight, impose a 50 percent tariff on over $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. This impacts a wide range of imported products, from wine to hockey sticks to cement.
In a statement released earlier in the day, Carney announced that he had instructed Canadian negotiators to walk away from these trade negotiations on Friday evening, just hours before the new U.S. policies went into effect.
