U.S. President Donald Trump said that Canada has been “ripping off” the United States for years with tariffs on lumber and dairy products and threatened to place reciprocal tariffs on Canada as early as Friday.
In an address from the Oval Office on Friday, he continued to assert that other countries have been unfair to the U.S. in areas such as farming and said the U.S. would be reciprocating with tariffs.
“That’s what reciprocal means. And we may do it as early as today,” he said. “Or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday, but that’s what we’re going to do.”
Trump said his policies are aimed at bringing factories lost during the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) back to the U.S.
And on dairy and lumber, he said Canada “has been ripping us off for years.”
An Ottawa-based trade lawyer said Trump’s assertions were troubling.
Trump said, “India charges us massive tariffs” and that the U.S. could not sell anything in India. India’s Foreign Ministry announced Friday, however, that it was working on a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. that would “reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers and deepen supply chain integration between the two countries.”
Trump on Thursday delayed for four weeks his new 25% tariffs on most Mexican and Canadian exports to the United States.
He said he delayed Mexico’s tariffs after hearing directly from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum who said her government had helped curb the flow of migrants and the deadly opioid fentanyl into the U.S.
One day earlier, Trump announced he was pausing the tariffs on vehicle imports from the two countries after the three biggest U.S. automakers said the tariffs would have a severe financial impact on them.
