Canada is looking at putting retaliatory tariffs on American orange juice, toilets and some steel products if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his threat to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian products, a senior official familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The official said the wide-ranging list hasn't been completed yet. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Watch NBC6 free wherever you are
WATCH HERETrump said this week he will use economic coercion to pressure Canada to become the nation’s 51st state. And he continues to erroneously cast the U.S. trade deficit with Canada — a natural resource-rich nation that provides the U.S. with commodities like oil — as a subsidy.
When Trump imposed higher tariffs during his first term in office, other countries responded with retaliatory tariffs of their own. Canada, for instance, announced billions of new duties in 2018 against the U.S. in a tit-for-tat response to new taxes on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Get local news you need to know to start your day with NBC 6's News Headlines newsletter.
SIGN UP
Yogurt imports from Wisconsin and whiskey from Kentucky, the home states of top Republicans Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell respectively, were hit with 10% duties in 2018.
A lot of citrus production happens in Florida, now Trump’s home state.
Trump said this week the U.S doesn’t need anything from Canada, including automobiles, lumber and dairy products. Supply chains for the auto industry are deeply connected, with parts manufactured in Ontario being used in cars that are assembled in Detroit and then sold back to Canada.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has noted that in the auto sector alone parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times.
Ford, the leader of Canada's most populous province, said Trump has been misinformed about the U.S. not needing Canadian products. Almost a quarter of the oil the U.S. consumes every day is from Canada, with Alberta exporting 4.3 million barrels a day to the U.S. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels a day, while domestically producing about 13.2 million barrels a day.
Ford warned that Canada will retaliate if Trump imposes tariffs. He said a wide range of U.S. products shipped to Canada will be targeted, but he declined to specify which ones.
Top Canadian government officials say Trump’s comments that Canada should become the 51st state are no longer a joke and are meant to undermine America’s closest ally.
“The joke is over,” Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s finance minister and point person for U.S.-Canada relations, said Wednesday. “It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen.”
LeBlanc has been talking to incoming Trump Cabinet officials about a billion-dollar plan to increase border security in an effort to deflect Trump's threat of tariffs.
Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.7 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day.
“The remarks that we have heard over the last few weeks are deeply concerning and in many respects profoundly disappointing. And I would hope that the United States would recognize the value of Canada as a neighbor, as an ally, as a friend and as a partner,” Defense Minister Bill Blair said at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting hosted by the U.S. Defense Secretary at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Trump initially threatened to impose tariffs on all Canadian goods if Canada and Mexico do not stem the flow of migrants and fentanyl from crossing the U.S. border — even though far fewer of each enters the U.S. from Canada than from Mexico.
On immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 1.53 million encounters with irregular migrants at the southwest border with Mexico between October 2023 and September 2024. That compares to 23,721 encounters at the Canadian border during that time.
Trump also railed about fentanyl from Mexico and Canada, even though seizures from the Canadian border pale in comparison to the Mexican border. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border.
