By Promit Mukherjee and Bhargav Acharya <\/p>\n
OTTAWA, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Canada hit back on Tuesday with retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion worth of U.S. annual imports and rolled out aid for businesses and workers, matching Washington’s latest \u200cduties dollar-for-dollar. <\/p>\n
The counter-tariffs on U.S. goods take effect on September 8 and impose duties of 15%, 25% and 50% \u200cacross around 700 products imported from south of the border, a government statement said. <\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump’s new 50% tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian imports took effect \u200bon Saturday after talks between the two countries collapsed. <\/p>\n
The new tit-for-tat tariffs mark a new low in relations between the longtime allies, and Trump earlier on Tuesday threatened to rename Lake Ontario, which straddles both countries, “Lake America.” <\/p>\n
“Our dollar-for-dollar, rate for rate counter-tariffs as well as a multi-billion dollar support package will protect workers, farmers, families, and businesses,” Canada’s Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne said. <\/p>\n
The White House and the U.S. \u200cTrade Representative did not immediately respond to a \u2060request for comment. <\/p>\n
Canada levied the 50% tariffs on steel, aluminum, furniture and clothing, set the 25% tariffs on cheese, appliances and some seafood, and placed the 15% tariffs on electronics and tools, a Canadian \u2060government official told reporters. <\/p>\n
Trump’s new tariffs are relatively narrow, affecting roughly 5% of Canada’s exports to the United States. But trade analysts say they could have severe, concentrated effects on some sectors that are already struggling like wood products, particularly kitchen cabinet makers. <\/p>\n
Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, calculated using \u200b2024 \u200btrade figures, cover goods accounting for nearly 4.5% of Canada’s imports from \u200bthe United States. <\/p>\n
Industry Minister Melanie Joly said the counter-tariffs \u200cwere primarily aimed at protecting Canadian businesses but were also aimed at applying political pressure before Americans vote in the November 3 midterm elections. <\/p>\n
“We need to make sure that the competitors don’t have access to the Canadian market in a better way than their own… products, and that’s why the retailers need to show that from Canada,” she said. <\/p>\n
“Second, we’re also targeting products that will target states in the U.S. and so we’re being wise and strategic to put political pressure, and that’s why we think it’s \u200cthe right thing to do right now.” <\/p>\n
The Canadian tariffs will also cover some \u200bprepared foods, perfumes and toiletries, plastics, lumber, wood pulp and paper products, \u200bcarpets and clothing. <\/p>\n
The list also targets industrial goods including iron \u200band steel, aluminum, hand tools and other metal products, machinery and electrical equipment, as well as rail \u200cengines, motorcycles, furniture and gaming equipment, government documents showed. <\/p>\n
Canada \u200balso unveiled a C$7.5 billion \u200bpackage of measures featuring support for small and medium-sized businesses, a stream for funding cash flow of companies, and support for workers at risk due to the new tariffs. The Business Development Bank of Canada, a federal lender, will provide \u200bpart of the support to affected businesses, \u200coffering interest-free loans of between C$2.5 million and C$5 million. <\/p>\n
Joly said companies would not be required to make repayments \u200bfor 36 months, a period that would run through the end of the Trump administration’s term. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Promit \u200bMukherjee and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Deepa Babington) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Promit Mukherjee and Bhargav Acharya OTTAWA, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Canada hit back on Tuesday with retaliatory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,103,193609,12,101,71995],"class_list":["post-825549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-canadian-tariffs","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-retaliatory-tariffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}