Canada won’t lift its tariffs until all US tariffs lifted

Trump and Trudeau are scheduled to speak later today but a report said that Canada isn’t in the mood to compromise on allowing any level of US tariffs.

A source cited by Bloomberg says Canada is not open to lifting tariffs until the US takes them down.

The official said Trudeau’s government is cool to the idea of a “middle ground” settlement in the trade war floated by US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. In particular, any scenario where Canada has to fully rescind its retaliatory tariffs in return for a partial rollback of American tariffs will be rejected by Trudeau, the official said.

There is some nuance here because only C$30 billion in Canadian tariffs are in place, while the rest $C125 billion) are scheduled for 21 days from now.

Lutnick earlier sent some mixed messages:

“There are going to be tariffs — let’s be clear — but what he’s thinking
about is which sections of the market that maybe he’ll consider giving
them relief until we get to, of course, April 2,” Lutnick said. “I think
it is going to be in the middle somewhere.”

Canada would have no problem with reciprocal tariffs as there are virtually no tariffs in Canada on US goods, save for some agricultural goods that rarely cross the border anyway. However the US has also hinted that Canada’s sales tax is a tariff, which is absurd but that seems like something that is on the table.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.