Thursday March 13, 2025 | NATIONAL NEWS (reporting from VICTORIA, BC)
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
As of 12:01 am today March 31, Canada will be applying 25% retaliatory tariffs on $29.8 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to US President Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs that came into effect Wednesday morning.
The new levies target $12.6 billion in steel products and $3 billion in aluminum products.
The counter-tariffs will also apply to a wide range of other products that clearly show how dependent the Canadian economy and lifestyle are dependent on US-produced goods, including: agriculture and garden tools, computer and server technology, smart phones, video game consoles, jewelry, sports equipment, cast-iron goods, earthenware and stoneware, brooms, carpet and wall coverings, appliance parts, bicycles and scooters, and other targeted items that are regularly imported from the United States.
The announcement was made yesterday in Ottawa by Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly; and François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry.
“Our focus is on doing the work that Canadians workers and businesses expect their governments to do together,” said LeBlanc adding that a conversation expected today with senior US administration will ‘lower the temperature’ ahead of the April 2 deadline that the US administration presently has in the works on steel and aluminum tariffs.
The federal government is applying “maximum pressure” to defend jobs and the Canadian way of living, but there is a need to “find off-ramps”, said Joly in her comments to media. She referred to the tariff war as “a day to day fight” for Canada’s economy and “the future of our country”, saying the sovereignty and identity of Canada are “non negotiable”.
Champagne said the tariff war imposed by Trump is ‘bringing the wild west to factory floors’, referring to the role of steel and aluminum as essential for the North American economy.
Meeting in Washington today:
LeBlanc noted that Canada’s economic security is part of our national security. He hopes the current tariff situation will de-escalate, lobbing a metaphor about stopping a ‘race to the basement’.
He hopes his meeting in Washington today along with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick along with Ontario Premier Doug Ford will be a productive opportunity to discuss trade irritants between the two countries.
The meeting evolved following Ford’s assertion that he would apply 25% tariff on all electricity exports from Ontario to three northern states in the US (New York, Minnesota and Michigan) where populations and industry rely on electricity imported from Ontario.
Ford is currently Chair of the Council of the Federation (Canada’s 13 premiers), which gives considerable weight to his action on the bilateral stage.
Elsewhere during the day yesterday, Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney met with Ford to discuss the tariff situation.
Energy in the mix:
“When we are talking about non-tariff retaliation, it could be about restricting supply, it could be putting our own export duties on products. It could be energy and minerals, it could be broader than that,” said Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson, in an interview with Reuters later in the day yesterday.
Canada is the top supplier of imported oil to the United States, providing around four million barrels per day primarily to refineries in the midwest USA that are largely engineered to run the particular oil grades that Canada supplies from the Alberta oil sands.
Wilkinson pointed out that if the USA can’t get critical minerals from Canada that China would be the next likely source.
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