Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has imposed retaliatory tariffs that came into effect at midnight on Tuesday, claiming that retaliation was necessary after President Trump imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent last month. Carney targeted $20 billion of U.S. exports \u2014 the same level of Canadian imports as Trump\u2019s tariffs \u2014 with Canadian tariffs of 15, 20, and 50 percent depending on the product. According to the New York Times, polls show that Prime Minister Carney\u2019s decision has garnered unusually widespread support from across Canada\u2019s many regions.<\/p>\n
In a video address to Canadian citizens, Prime Minister Carney announced that \u201cthey [the United States] wanted dependency, not a true economic partnership. In the spring of last year, I warned that America is trying to break us so they can own us. And I promised that will never, ever happen.\u201d He added, \u201cas has been the case for the last 18 months, our first priority remains on protecting and supporting Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses from these unjustified actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump responded Tuesday evening by adding additional products to the list of goods that were to receive a 50-percent tariff, as well as an immediate ban on Canadian beer, wine, and liquor, and a later ban that will go into effect on September 29th on three-wheeled motorcycles manufactured by Montreal-based Bombardier Recreational Products (B.R.P.) \u2014 a backtracking from his initial threat to ban business jets by Bombardier. The B.R.P. motorcycle ban by the U.S. seems to be a counter to Canada\u2019s 50-percent tariff imposition on Harley-Davidson motorcycles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Carney\u2019s recent actions have drawn in favorable opinions from Canadian citizens, the prime minister himself is not as keen on imposing retaliatory tariffs, stating: \u201cI don\u2019t believe in escalating the conflict; that\u2019s not constructive.\u201d However, Canadian opinion seems to favor retaliation over restraint, the latter of which could strain political opinion and draw in questions about Carney\u2019s ability to stand his ground. This poses a difficult conundrum: did his decision stem from a need for positive public opinion, or was it what he truly thought was best for Canadian citizens?<\/p>\n
The answer is complicated. According to the New York Times, Assistant Professor Andrew McDougall from the University of Toronto and Professor Wendong Zhang at Cornell University both agree that Carney\u2019s actions were necessary for political support, which he especially needs during his term as prime minister. Zhang stated that according to his model of the trade war\u2019s effects, retaliation would cause more economic harm than good, but he still expects further action from Canada, as \u201cit\u2019s politically suicidal to not have a reaction.\u201d Carney has also expressed doubts about progressing the trade war, but stated that it was less costly to commit to action than stand still. Regardless, it would be ideal for both countries to do a mutual rollback of recent tariff impositions, although it seems more likely that Canada will diversify its trade and supply chain partnerships to other countries rather than tend to its brittle relationship with the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has imposed retaliatory tariffs that came into effect at midnight on Tuesday, claiming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-847963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847963","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=847963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}