The federal\u00a0government announced on Monday another package to prop up the hard-hit steel, aluminum and copper sectors after U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump tightened his tariff regime to apply to more products, hammering Canadian industry.<\/p>\n
At a plant in Vars, a rural community on the edge of Ottawa, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said the government will establish a $1-billion loan program through the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) so companies most affected by the Trump scheme can get the money they need to stay in business. That cash will be available on “favourable terms” for at least the next three years, she said.<\/p>\n
There will be a separate $500-million fund that gives money to companies making what the government calls “strategic pivots,” as the U.S. market for some of these products becomes increasingly untenable.<\/p>\n
“When markets turn unfair, Canada needs institutions that can step up and deliver fast. BDC is ready to get this money into the operations of steel and aluminum companies quickly, keeping their doors open and them producing,” said Isabelle Hudon, the president and CEO of the Crown corporation.<\/p>\n
These measures follow other government manoeuvres to save sectors grappling with Trump’s so-called 232 tariffs on industrial products \u2014 levies the Canadian government is trying to negotiate away as part of the CUSMA review talks.<\/p>\n
The government has already imposed tariffs on some Chinese steel to reduce foreign competition and rolled out a $5-billion strategic response fund<\/a>, among other initiatives.<\/p>\n The government says this new package is needed now because Trump extended the steel, aluminum and copper levies last month to apply to more products, including previously exempt derivatives like steel coils and aluminum sheets. As a result, Canadian tool and mould makers are suddenly facing huge customs bills at the border<\/a>.<\/p>\n Asked if today’s announcement is a sign Ottawa believes the U.S. tariffs are here to stay, Joly said: “You don’t know. I don’t know. This is not up to us to answer. These decisions will be taken south of the border. But we don’t just sit idle waiting for things to happen \u2014 we act,” she said.<\/p>\n U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Trump’s point person on the trade negotiations with Canada, warned late last month<\/a> that the administration is wedded to tariffs and things will not go back to how they were.<\/p>\n “The president’s not gonna go back to the old situation where we had no tariffs and we just let foreign goods made by foreign workers come in without any fee,” Greer said.<\/p>\n StatsCan data<\/a> shows that exports of steel products in particular have effectively collapsed in the wake of the U.S. trade action.<\/p>\n As of last year, the value of these exports \u2014 most of which go to the U.S. \u2014\u00a0was just a third of what it had been before Trump won back the presidency and enacted a protectionist agenda. Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.-based Algoma Steel has laid off hundreds of workers as a result<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump’s tariffs are designed to boost U.S. employment in the sector and privilege American products.<\/p>\n But data from the\u00a0World Steel Association, the international industry body, shows only a modest uptick in stateside production so far. American steel tonnage produced increased by just three per cent in 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n