New Delhi: US President Donald Trump on Monday announced a 50 percent tariff on a broad range of Canadian goods, sharply escalating a trade dispute between the two neighbours and prompting Prime Minister Mark Carney to accuse Washington of violating their North American free-trade agreement.
“Today, the United States administration announced its intention to impose a new 50 per cent tariff on a significant number of Canadian goods,” Carney said in a statement on Monday. He described the announcement the latest in a series of “unilateral US trade actions”, and said earlier American tariffs, including those imposed on Canada’s automobile sector, were in “direct violation” of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA.Canada’s past measures against US products, he added, had been introduced in response to Washington’s earlier tariffs. “Canada, as is its right, has merely matched those measures,” Carney said.
The tariffs, expected to affect around $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, will come into force after 30 days. They will cover products that had previously received preferential treatment under CUSMA, known in the US as the USMCA.Energy products, potash, fish, and critical minerals have been excluded, limiting the immediate impact on strategically important American supply chains.Canada is the single largest supplier of energy to the US and a major source of other key industrial inputs, with bilateral energy trade valued at around $150 billion in 2024.The Trump administration said the measures were intended to counter what it described as Canadian discrimination against American automobiles, alcoholic beverages, and dairy products.Trump signed three proclamations invoking Section 338 of the US Tariff Act of 1930, a rarely used provision allowing the president to impose duties against countries found to discriminate against American commerce.
