Trudeau announces 100% tariff on Chinese EVs, signals more measures coming
Canada will impose a 100 per cent surtax on nearly all Chinese-made electric vehicles, including certain hybrids as well as trucks and buses, in a bid to create a protective barrier around the country’s auto industry.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the measures on Monday while in Halifax where he had gathered his cabinet for a three-day retreat.
“We are transforming Canada’s auto sector into a global leader in building the vehicles of tomorrow,” Trudeau said at a press conference, “but actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace.”
A government press release cast Chinese EV producers as an “extraordinary threat” to Canada’s auto and metal workers — sectors that it said support roughly 255,000 jobs — citing China’s non-market economy, and what it described as “poor” environmental and labour standards.
Trudeau also announced a 25 per cent surtax on imports of steel and aluminum coming from China, effective Oct. 15, and signalled his government could enact similar measures aimed at solar panels and semiconductors in the future.
The measures had been telegraphed earlier this summer by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who also accused China of violating international trade rules by deliberately overproducing EVs in order to cheaply export them abroad. She launched a 30-day consultation on the matter in early July.
The tariffs follow a May announcement by U.S. President Joe Biden of 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese-made EVs.
Trudeau said on Sunday night that he had discussed China and other national geopolitical issues with U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan.
The federal and provincial governments, particularly Ontario and Quebec, have pledged tens of
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