Trump escalates trade war with ban on purchase of Canadian spirits and motorcycles
The prohibition, which also includes dairy derivatives, will take effect on September 29
The United States government will ban the import of a range of Canadian goods from the end of this month, in a new escalation of the trade war between the two countries. The announcement from the administration of Donald Trump came just hours after tariffs Ottawa imposed on U.S. products took effect as a reciprocal measure, following Washington’s imposition of 50% duties on a range of imports from its neighbor worth about $20 billion.
Among the products that will be barred are some Canadian spirits, motorcycles and certain dairy derivatives. The new measure will take effect in three weeks, on September 29, the White House said in a series of proclamations published on its website.
In a social media post hours earlier, Trump had lamented, as he has in recent weeks, what he considers a lack of Canadian “reciprocity” and warned he would order his administration to remove Canadian goods from lists of products authorized for import, after accusing the neighboring country of harming “American farmers and businesses.”
On Monday, the U.S. president had threatened to ban sales of planes from the private Canadian company Bombardier unless they were manufactured in the United States.
A senior U.S. administration official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity said the new ban aims to create “a level playing field” after Canada imposed its reciprocal tariffs on U.S. imports.
The official said his government has the authority to impose the ban under section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, passed in the midst of the Great Depression and which, he claims, authorizes the president to prohibit products from another country if that nation “does not end discriminatory conduct” against the United States. He also sought to downplay the episode, saying Washington remains open to possible negotiations and that the punished products were carefully chosen to avoid driving up prices and harming U.S. consumers.
November’s midterm elections, in which control of the Senate and the House of Representatives will be decided, are fast approaching amid a flurry of polls showing strong voter discontent with President Trump over the war with Iran and rising prices.
In a video shared on social media, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday urged a greater separation of Canada from its neighbor after decades in which the two countries maintained close diplomatic, economic, and military cooperation: Washington is Ottawa’s main trading partner. “We have everything we need to pivot and prosper,” Carney said, recalling that in January at the Davos conference he had declared the world order the United States founded after World War II dead and buried. “That pivot will come at a cost,” Carney acknowledged. “There’s always a cost to action. But it doesn’t come close to the cost of standing still.”
Canadian tariffs
Canadian tariffs range from 15% to 50% on U.S. imports and also cover furniture and electronic products. Ottawa said they would take effect on September 8 after negotiations between the two neighboring countries failed on the night of August 21 and the United States began to apply its duties.
Although the Supreme Court in June canceled a large portion of the broad tariffs Trump imposed last year, the current administration plans to impose a new round of duties on dozens of countries. The president — convinced that a trade deficit with a given country constitutes a scam, a position no one has managed to persuade him to review — favors that kind of tax as his preferred foreign policy tool. The new round, which could be announced in the coming days, is expected to be justified on the grounds that the affected countries have produced an excessive quantity of certain goods that they have sold to the United States, causing large deficits in bilateral trade balances.
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