President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will double the tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum imported from Canada, an escalation of the brewing economic feud between the U.S. and its largest trading partner.
Trump posted to his Truth Social platform that the tariffs would go from 25% to 50% starting Wednesday, a move that comes in response to the province of Ontario placing a 25% tariff on electricity coming into the United States.
Trump added that he would be declaring a “national emergency” on the three states Ontario has targeted so that the tariffs could go into effect.
Trump also called on Canada to drop its duties on American dairy products and threatened to “substantially increase” tariffs on cars imported into the U.S. if Canada did not drop “other egregious, long time tariffs.”
Trump then doubled down on some of his recent rhetoric about making Canada part of the U.S.
“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump wrote. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”
Canada has quickly emerged in the first months of Trump’s second presidential term as a target of his ire, putting the once-close allies on rockier footing. Trump has instituted and then pulled back tariffs on a variety of Canadian goods while also goading its leaders publicly and blaming it for a lack of action on fentanyl trafficking (relatively little of the drug is seized at the northern border compared to the U.S. border with Mexico).
Mexico has faced similar tariff threats and rhetoric, but its president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has appeared to have succeeded in assuaging Trump while Canada has more aggressively retaliated with tariffs and public comments.
In a prior Truth Social post late Monday, Trump called Canada a longtime “tariff abuser.”
“The United States is not going to be subsidizing Canada any longer,” he warned, adding: “We don’t need your Cars, we don’t need your Lumber, we don’t your Energy, and very soon, you will find that out.”
Stocks fell to their lowest point of the trading day Tuesday on the news. The S&P 500 was down about 0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was off 0.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 400 points, declining more than 1%.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced Monday a 25% surcharge on electricity tapped by some 1.5 million residents of Michigan, Minnesota and New York that went into effect Monday in response to Trump’s recent bellicose language toward Canada.
“I will not hesitate to increase this charge,” Ford said at a press conference. “If the United States escalates, I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely. … Believe me when I say I do not want to do this. I feel terrible for the American people who didn’t start this trade war. It’s one person who is responsible, it’s President Trump.”
The New York Independent System Operator, which manages the state’s grid, has said it there is enough generating capacity to transition away from Canadian sources.
