Trump’s Canada tariffs take force, firing up trade war

What happened

President Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian imports took effect Saturday after negotiations collapsed. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said U.S. negotiators “asked too much and offered too little,” and Ottawa would roll out “dollar for dollar” retaliatory tariffs starting Sept. 8. Trump’s latest tariffs cover about 5% of Canadian imports, ranging from wine, dairy and hockey sticks to overcoats and some Christmas ornaments.

Who said what

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canada rejected the “best treatment” of any major U.S. trading partner. The U.S. terms were “uneconomic” and “unfair,” Carney said, and “unacceptable” last-minute demands would have restricted Canada’s ability to strike trade deals with other countries, among other infringements on sovereignty. “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!!” Trump said Sunday on social media.

The “dumbest trade war in history” just “got dumber,” The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. Trump is taxing an “array of consumer goods” a “mere 10 weeks before midterm elections,” when his approval rating is already “frigid” in part because voters believe he is “waging blunderbuss wars without a strategy, and on trade they’re right.”

What next?

Unlike some of the other laws Trump has used to impose tariffs, the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act used here “does not appear to impose a time limit on the duties,” CNN said. “We should be prepared to duke it out for two years,” until Trump leaves office, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said, and “then hopefully, sanity will return.”

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