{"id":169986,"date":"2025-09-26T06:01:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169986\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T06:01:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:01:06","slug":"carney-rolls-back-countertariffs-on-u-s-by-more-than-originally-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/169986\/","title":{"rendered":"Carney rolls back countertariffs on U.S. by more than originally announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last month that he was removing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods ‘specifically covered’ by the USMCA.Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The federal government dropped countertariffs on a broader range of U.S. goods than initially indicated last month, as it softened its retaliation in a bid to revive trade<\/a> talks with the White House. <\/p>\n

In late August, Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> announced he was removing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods \u201cspecifically covered\u201d by the continental free-trade agreement, the USMCA. <\/p>\n

He described this as a goodwill gesture, designed to mirror U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> approach to tariffs, where Canadian products that meet USMCA rules of origin aren\u2019t subject to the 35-per-cent across-the-board tariff. <\/p>\n

You\u2019re a mean one, Mr. Trump: Decoding the impact of tariffs on toy imports from China<\/a><\/p>\n

When it came to implementing the change at the end of August, however, Ottawa removed tariffs on all U.S. goods except steel, aluminum and automobiles, according to government documents published online. <\/p>\n

This means a smaller portion of the retaliatory regime that former prime minister Justin Trudeau implemented earlier this year<\/a> remains in place than previously indicated. <\/p>\n

The discrepancy was first reported on Thursday by CBC News.<\/p>\n

The difference between what Mr. Carney said, and what his government actually did, opens him up to political attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother elbows-down lie,\u201d Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre posted on social media in response to the CBC story. <\/p>\n

Two trade experts said the actual impact of the discrepancy is likely small. <\/p>\n

William Pellerin, a partner in the international trade group at the law firm McMillan LLP, said that around 90 per cent of U.S. goods crossing into Canada would likely have been USMCA-compliant. This is similar to the proportion of Canadian exports to the U.S. that are currently crossing the border tariff-free under Mr. Trump\u2019s USMCA carveout. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say 10 per cent of the goods might never have qualified and remained subject to the 25-per-cent tariff that we imposed as our countertariff,\u201d Mr. Pellerin said. Any tariff revenue from that \u201cprobably would have been dwarfed by the compliance costs on industry and on government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfgang Alschner, a trade law professor at the University of Ottawa, said the idea of a USMCA-exemption was essentially created by the Trump administration to administer its new tariff regime. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor Canada to now mirror that really makes little sense, because we don\u2019t have the capabilities to really enforce it anyway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Canada was one of only two countries, alongside China, to retaliate against the tariffs Mr. Trump placed on all trading partners earlier this year. Ottawa imposed three separate rounds of countertariffs in March and April covering nearly $100-billion worth of U.S. products. <\/p>\n

Opinion: Canada must be ready to get its elbows up again to stand a chance in the post-Trump era<\/a><\/p>\n

Ottawa soon began watering down the measures, offering tariff carveouts for U.S. goods used in Canadian manufacturing, and exemptions for U.S. auto companies that continue to make cars in Canada. <\/p>\n

Then in August, Mr. Carney announced the further reduction in retaliatory tariffs in an attempt to bring the U.S. back to the negotiating table after the two sides failed to secure a trade deal over the summer. <\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s pursuit of a deal with the Trump administration \u201chas required providing and adapting varying trade mechanisms to better support Canadians in response to shifting trade patterns,\u201d John Fragos, press secretary for Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne, said in an e-mail. <\/p>\n

\u201cCanada took these steps to advance negotiations, provide stability to key sectors, and safeguard our strong trading position as we continue to pursue a good deal and look toward CUSMA renewal next year,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last month that he was removing retaliatory tariffs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,8400,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-169986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-e-ny","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}