TORONTO — 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.
Trump 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.
Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Trump is trying to distract from his threats of stiff tariffs by talking about making Canada the 51st state.
“President Trump, who is a very skillful negotiator, is getting people to be somewhat distracted by that conversation,” Trudeau said.
“Everything American consumers buy from Canada is suddenly going to get a lot more expensive if he moves forward on these tariffs. And that’s something we need to be focusing on a little bit more.”
Trudeau made comments in an interview with CNN in Washington, where he attended the funeral for the late U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
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.
“We would definitely respond as we did years ago,” Trudeau said.
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.
Florida, Trump’s home state, is known for its extensive citrus production.
Trump claimed again Thursday that the U.S doesn’t need anything from Canada, including oil.
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.
“We don’t need their energy. We don’t need their oil and gas,” Trump said. “We don’t need anything that they have.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province, said Trump has been misinformed about the U.S. not needing Canadian 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. Ford has noted that in the auto sector alone parts can go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border several times.
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. Trudeau called that a win for Trump.
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.
