The escalating US-Canada tariff dispute has become the latest symptom of a tariff-driven trust crisis rooted in Washington's trade policies, Chinese experts warned on Tuesday. As Canada's retaliatory tariffs on US goods took effect, they noted that growing calls for policy autonomy among US traditional allied economies could push them toward building more stable and reliable economic ties elsewhere.

Canada struck back at Trump on Tuesday with tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. goods.

U.S.-Canada trade disputes go back to the 1870s National Policy tariffs and the McKinley Tariff of 1890, but one historian said this current moment is genuinely unprecedented.