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Canada will keep all options open if US President-elect Donald Trump makes good on his threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on products from Canada.
This is what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
A tariff of 25 percent will be a severe blow to Canada’s economy, as 75 percent of the country’s exported goods are sent to the United States.
“Nothing can be ruled out if the US chooses to go ahead with these punitive tariffs”, says Trudeau.
The prime minister is speaking after a meeting with the leaders of the country’s ten provinces, where they have discussed possible countermeasures to Trump’s statements about tariffs.
As it remains unclear exactly what Trump’s plan will look like, Justin Trudeau declines to elaborate on what the Canadian response might be.
However, it sounds like Canada will act ‘forcefully’ and ‘strongly’.
“I support the principle of a proportional ‘a dollar for a dollar’ response”, he says without going into detail about what this will mean in practice.
On January 20, Trump will be sworn in as President of the United States, and he will thus take over Joe Biden’s place in the White House.
Both during the election campaign and after the election victory, Trump has announced that products from the USA’s two neighboring countries, Mexico and Canada, will be subject to a 25 percent tariff.
He has also said that he is considering imposing a special tariff on Danish goods if Denmark does not agree to give the US control over Greenland.
According to Trump, the tariffs on products from Canada will help strengthen security at the US border and limit the number of illegal immigrants and the amount of the opioid pain reliever Fentanyl entering the US.
Earlier Wednesday, Canada’s Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the ‘flow’ of migrants and drugs coming to the US from Canada is very small compared to the amount entering the US from Mexico.
Earlier in January, Trudeau announced that he would step down as prime minister once a new leader of his party, the Liberal Party, had been found.
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Source: politiken.dk
