Canada's Trudeau urges US consumers to consider the harm of Trump's tariff threats

Source: AP

Updated 7:16 PM EST, January 12, 2025


VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Canada’s outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday suggested that President-elect Donald Trump’s remarks about Canada becoming America’s “51st state” has distracted attention from the harm that steep tariffs would inflict on U.S. consumers.

Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports. “The 51st state, that’s not going to happen,” Trudeau said in an interview with MSNBC. “But people are talking about that, as opposed to talking about what impact 25% tariffs (has) on steel and aluminum coming into the United States.” Trudeau told MSNBC: “No American wants to pay 25% more for electricity or oil and gas coming in from Canada. That’s something I think people need to pay a little more attention to.”

Trump has also said that if Canada merged with the U.S., taxes would decrease and there would be no tariffs. “I know that as a successful negotiator he likes to keep people off balance,” Trudeau said of Trump’s threats to use economic force to turn Canada into the 51st state. Trump has also 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.

Canadian officials say that if Trump follows through with his threat of punishing tariffs, Canada would consider slapping retaliatory tariffs on American orange juice, toilets and some steel products. Already during Trump’s first term in the White House, Canada responded to Trump’s tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum with its own on American products like bourbon, Harley Davidson motorcycles and playing cards. “He got elected to try and make life easier for all Americans, to support American workers,” Trudeau said of Trump. “These (tariffs) are things that are going to hurt them.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/canada-trump-trudeau-united-states-tariffs-2e73bc587e9335b3fbd8e2d4e5480e04