Trade War Intensifies as Trump Jacks Up Aluminum, Steel Tariffs on Canada to 50%
The next Canadian prime minister has said that "my government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect."
U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his North American trade war on Tuesday, announcing that he will double tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Canada in response to Ontario's retaliatory duties on electricity.
"Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on 'Electricity' coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD," Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
The new U.S. tariffs are set to take effect Wednesday, according to Trump, who started the current trade conflict with Canada and Mexico. He also said that he would declare a national emergency on electricity for the region of the United States impacted by Ontario's surcharge, which spans Minnesota, Michigan, and New York.
The U.S. president urged the Canadian government to "immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250% to 390% on various U.S. dairy products," and threatened to impose tariffs next month on cars, which he said "will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada."
Highlighting how the incoming tariffs threaten manufacturing hubs in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in a Tuesday statement that "Donald Trump continues to force a trade strategy that will not grow American manufacturing. Rather than lying about what tariffs will do, Trump should emphasize adopting cleaner technologies for our steel mills, allowing workers to unionize to advocate for better pay and safety, and establishing clear rules that ensure our trade partners do not violate labor and environmental standards."
"This is the hard work that the administration believes will magically happen on its own," Jealous added. "And if Trump continues to shy away from his duties, steelworkers and local communities will pay the price."
The tariff announcement came just a day after U.S. stocks plummeted on Monday, in the wake of Trump being asked on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo" whether he expected a recession this year, to which he responded: "I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big."
Journalist Aaron Rupar noted on X that Tuesday viewers of Fox could "watch the stock market lose over 100 points in real time while Maria Bartiromo talks about Trump's tariffs."
Trump on Tuesday also repeated his call for Canada to join the United States, saying that "the only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear."
"Canadians' taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever—And Canada will be a big part of that," he claimed. "The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World."
After Canada's Liberal Party elected Mark Carney as its next leader on Sunday, the former central banker and prime minister-designate declared that "America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form."
Carney also said that Trump—whose name provoked loud boos—has put "unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living. He's attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed—and we won't."
"The Canadian government has rightly retaliated and is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact here in Canada," he added. "My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect."
Trump's trade war seemingly has even some Republican experts baffled—as shown in an exchange that Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for
The Washington Post, posted to X on Tuesday morning.
Trump's tariffs—expected to reach beyond Canada, China, and Mexico early next month—and other decisions since Inauguration Day, including sweeping efforts to dismantle the federal government, have some experts speculating that the president, his billionaire Cabinet, and his adviser Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth, "are intentionally crashing the economy."
Early last week, Saikat Chakrabarti, a progressive running for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) seat who worked on Wall Street and helped found an online payment processing company, accused Trump of "manufacturing a recession."
"It makes sense when you realize his goal is to create something like Russia where the economy is run by a few oligarchs loyal to him," Chakrabarti said. "Creating that state is hard in a large, dynamic, powerful economy with too many actors who can oppose him. So he's accelerating concentrating money and power into the hands of his loyalists while he crashes the rest out."
While Trump responded to Friday's jobs report by declaring that "the Golden Age of America has just begun," Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said: "Just one month on the job, warning signs are flashing across the Trump economy. Inflation is rising, consumer confidence is plummeting, business investment is pulling back, and now, the labor market is stalling."
Adding to working-class Americans' fears of the future, while Trump—aided by GOP senators—installs billionaires to lead federal departments that Musk is tearing apart, Republicans who narrowly control Congress are working to send legislation that would cut taxes for the ultrarich by robbing programs that help the poor to the president's desk.
Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote Monday that "while a recession may not be fully baked into the cards at this point, the risk is evident and it's almost entirely coming from Donald Trump's policies."
Baker suggested that Americans should call what lies ahead the "Donald J. Trump Recession."
This article has been updated with comment from Sierra Club.
