Trump tariffs: World including India watches Canada test ways of fighting back
Donald Trump’s administration are watching Canada to get a preview of what happens when you hit back.
Canadian officials have gone hostile in their responses to Trump’s trade war. Ontario Premier Doug Ford slapped a 25% charge on electricity exports to make power more expensive for people in New York and two other states — earning the president’s ire. Mark Carney, the incoming prime minister, called the US “a country we can no longer trust,” and said his new government will keep its retaliatory tariffs in place “until the Americans show us respect.”
On Tuesday, the brinkmanship seemed to pay off: Trump started the day threatening to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50%, but by day’s end both sides had pulled back. Ford suspended the electricity tax, prompting Trump to say “I respect that” and drop the metals levy back to 25%.
Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum — which came into force on US imports on Wednesday — drew a swift response from Canada and the European Union. The government in Ottawa announced new 25% counter-tariffs on about C$30 billion ($20.8 billion) of US-made items, while Brussels laid out countermeasures against US goods worth as much as €26 billion ($28.3 billion). But other metals-exporting countries including Japan and South Korea held off on any immediate retaliation.
Even before that widening of the trade war, Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign minister, had issued a warning to other nations. Watch what Trump is doing to Canada, she said. “You’re next.”
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It wasn’t meant to get to this point. For months, Joly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other officials made a series of trips to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and then to the US capital in an unprecedented charm
