Canada retaliates against Trump tariffs by raising steel duties, rates on $20B of goods
NBC News · LC · trust 62/100
The new duties of between 15% and 50% will take effect on Sept. 8, the Canadian government said. A list of the products impacted by the counter-tariffs contained more than 800 entries.
These duties “will focus on sectors such as steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics, that are most impacted by U.S. tariffs,” Canada’s finance ministry said.
“We stand united in fighting for Canada,” said finance minister François-Philippe Champagne. “As the Prime Minister has said, we will support our workers, our businesses, and our industry with whatever it takes for as long as it takes.”
Champagne said Canada’s response was tailored to “match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian good.”
“Our existing counter-tariffs, including those on automobiles, will remain in place,” he added.
The announcement came after the United States hit scores of Canadian products with new 50% tariffs that went into effect early Saturday. These levies followed weeks of trade negotiations that broke down, putting the longtime allies on unfamiliar footing.
Prime Minister Mark Carney on Saturday had pledged to strike back at the U.S. tariffs “dollar-for-dollar” and Canada’s government did just that.
“Goods subject to 50% counter tariffs include steel and aluminum products that were previously only subject to a 25% counter tariff, furniture, and clothing and apparel,” a government statement said.
Dairy, appliances, cheese and fish will face 25% duties, and a rate of 15% will apply to other products including rubber molds and machinery parts.
Carney said he pulled the plug on a deal late Friday only after Washington proposed “unfair” and “uneconomic” terms at the last minute.
“We could not accept what the U.S. had offered, nor could we give what they asked,” Carney said.
American officials rebutted Carney’s account of why the talks collapsed. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday that he had “sought to accommodate the Canadians by ... cutting tariffs in half on steel, on aluminum, and extensively reducing them on, on autos and even on things like, like softwood lumber.”
“They simply wanted more,” Greer told CNBC.
Canada’s plan for retaliation against Washington comes as Trump and Canadian officials traded dozens of insults over the past few days.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford told a Canadian radio show Monday that Trump could “kiss my ass.”
“We’re going to go at him full steam,” said Ford, who has backed Carney’s response to Trump’s tariffs.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford called President Donald Trump the “king of bankruptcies.” Justin Tang / AP file Trump wasted little time responding to what he called “lots of ‘bluster’ from Doug Ford.”
“Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line’ or, the consequences for Canada will be far WORSE!” Trump wrote on social media.
Within hours, Trump threatened to impose a second wave of 50% tariffs on Canadian autos and steel.
Ford later called the president the “king of bankruptcies.” “I’m not going to take the bait,” Ford said. “This guy’s a loser.”
On Tuesday morning, Trump ramped up his rhetoric against Ottawa once again, threatening to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.”
Canadian officials described Trump’s social media post as “shenanigans.”
“We’ll always call it Lake Ontario,” Canada’s minister of industry Mélanie Joly said at Tuesday’s press conference.
Asked whether the federal government had pressed Ford to dial back his pugilistic criticism of Trump, Joly said only that, “We all know that Premier Ford is a very colorful person.”
She emphasized that preserving the auto industry — deeply rooted in Ontario — is “a key consideration for this government.”
Joly has been in regular contact with Honda, Ford Motor and Toyota’s Canadian divisions, she said.
Trump and Ford have a history of getting under one another’s skin.
In 2025, Ford’s Ontario ran a TV ad during the MLB World Series broadcast. The ad, which Ford also posted on X , opened with a clip of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.
“When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs, and sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time,” Reagan says in the clip. “But over the long run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.”
The ad incensed Trump, who terminated trade talks with Canada shortly afterward . He also threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on Canadian goods but did not follow through at the time.
The ad was eventually pulled down after Ford said he had achieved his goal of starting a “conversation.”
Share Add to Google Steve Kopack Steve Kopack is a senior reporter at NBC News covering business and the economy.
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