7/01/2018

CANADA'S RETALIATORY CANNONS


Canada announced billions in retaliatory tariffs against the US on Friday, in a tit-for-tat response to the Trump administration's duties on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government released the final list of items that will be targeted beginning July 1. Some items will be subject to taxes 10 or 25 percent.

Trudeau and US President Donald Trump spoke late Friday.

''As he has said in the past conversations and in public, the Prime Minister conveyed that Canada has had no choice but to announce reciprocal countermeasures to the steel and aluminum tariffs that the United States imposed on June 1, 2018,'' Trudeau office said in a statement.

''The two leaders agreed to stay in close touch on a way forward."

It was their first direct conversation since Trump tweeted that Trudeau was ''weak'' and ''dishonest'' after leaving the G-7 meetings in Quebec earlier this month.

Trudeau also spoke to Mexican President Enrique Pena Neito and updated him on Canada's response to the U.S. tariffs.

The taxes on items including ketchup, lawn mowers and motor boats amount to $12.6 billion.

''We will not escalate and we will not back down,'' Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said.

Freeland said they had no other choice and called the tariffs regrettable.

Many of the US products were chosen for their political rather economic impact. For example, Canada's imports just $3 million worth of yogurt from the US annually and most of it comes one plant in Wisconsin, the home state of House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The product will now be hit with a 10 percent duty.

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