Washington, Aug 26 (IANS) US President Donald Trump has escalated his trade confrontation with Canada, declaring it the most “difficult and unreasonable” trading partner and asserting that the country could not survive economically without access to the American market.
The White House on Tuesday accused Canada of having “been ripping off the United States for decades” and said Trump would no longer allow it to benefit from preferential access to the world’s largest economy.
“Canada is easily the most difficult and unreasonable. They feel entitled, but they are not a State, and will be entitled no longer!” Trump said in a statement released by the White House.
The strongly worded statement came after Canada announced additional retaliatory tariffs on American products. It marked a sharp deterioration in relations between two countries that share one of the world’s largest bilateral trading relationships.
The White House said the United States had offered Canada deep tariff reductions covering steel, aluminium, automobiles and lumber. It accused Ottawa of responding with “unreasonable demands, walk-backs, and flat-out rejection.”
It also claimed that Canada and China were the only countries that had chosen retaliation over negotiation in their trade disputes with Washington.
According to the White House, Canada imposed 25 per cent tariffs and company-specific quotas on American vehicles, contributing to a 22 per cent decline in US automobile exports to the Canadian market over the past year.
It also accused Canadian provinces and territories of restricting American wine, beer and spirits. US alcohol exports to Canada had fallen by 81 per cent in one year, it said.
Dairy emerged as another major source of friction. The White House said Canada used restrictive tariff-rate quotas and imposed over-quota tariffs approaching 300 per cent on certain US dairy products.
It described the rates as so high that they effectively blocked American products from entering the Canadian market.
The administration also said the United States had recorded an average annual goods trade deficit of about $50 billion with Canada over the past decade.
“Without the United States, Canada could not survive,” the White House said, noting that Canada sends roughly three-quarters of its goods exports to the American market.
It said the US economy was approximately 13 times larger than Canada’s and had more than eight times its population. “The United States has the clear leverage,” the statement said.
Canada rejected Washington’s position and announced that it would match the new American tariffs “dollar-for-dollar, rate for rate.”
The Canadian government said Washington had proposed terms that were not in Canada’s national interest and that it suspended negotiations rather than accept an agreement that could harm its workers, businesses and strategic industries.
Effective September 8, Canada will impose tariffs of 15, 25 and 50 per cent on American goods covering $27.6 billion in imports. The targeted sectors include steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, electronics, furniture and clothing.
“When the United States asked too much and offered too little, we chose to stand up for Canadians,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said.
Ottawa also announced a $7.5 billion assistance package for workers and businesses affected by the trade dispute. The measures include liquidity support, worker-retention programmes, training assistance and investments to help companies diversify.
The United States, Canada and Mexico have traded under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement since July 2020. The pact replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement and established updated rules governing automobiles, agriculture, labour, intellectual property and digital commerce.
Canada is one of the United States’ largest trading partners, with deeply integrated automobile, energy, agriculture and manufacturing supply chains. Disruptions caused by tariffs can affect producers and consumers on both sides of the border because many products and components cross the frontier several times before reaching the market.
