Ottawa, Ontario — The United States is reinstating a 10 percent import tax on Canadian aluminum. These tariffs were originally imposed in 2018 but were lifted in 2019 to smooth the way for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement.
President Donald Trump has now stated that he is reimposing the tariffs on Canada again. Speaking at a Whirlpool plant in Ohio, the president said that Canada had promised that “its aluminum industry would not flood our country with exports and kill all of our aluminum jobs, which is exactly what they did.”
Aluminum imports from Canada did rise sharply from February to March but have since levelled off and in fact dropped 2.6 percent from May to June, according to the Aluminum Association trade group.
Canada supplied about three-quarters of all the aluminum imported into the U.S. between January and May of 2020, said the executive order implementing the tariff on “non-alloyed unwrought aluminum.”
Canada retaliated in 2018 with $16.6 billion in tariffs on U.S. products, including ketchup, ballpoint pens, licorice, orange juice, whisky and toilet paper. So far, it hasn’t been specified what goods will be subject to countermeasures this time.
Following the announcement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to twitter to voice his opinion on the reinstated tariffs.
“In response to the American tariffs announced today, Canada will impose countermeasures that will include dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs. We will always stand up for our aluminum workers. We did so in 2018 and we will stand up for them again now,” tweeted Trudeau.
The U.S. tariff will be in effect as early as next week, on Sunday, Aug. 16.
