Canada will retaliate should the United States follow through with imposing a 10 per cent tariff on certain Canadian aluminum products on August 16.
“In response to the American tariffs, Canada intends to swiftly impose dollar-for-dollar countermeasures,” said Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, in a statement following an August 6 announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump to impose the tariffs — citing national security concerns.
“Canadian aluminum does not undermine U.S. national security,” said Freeland. “Canadian aluminum strengthens U.S. national security and has done so for decades through unparalleled cooperation between our two countries.”
This is not the first time this year that Trump has threatened to impose the tariffs; he previously made the threat around the time the new NAFTA trade deal, known as CUSMA in Canada (United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement), came into effect on July 1. And of course the threat and imposition of the tariffs were used during the actual negotiation process. This time around, Trump claims Canada is “dumping” aluminum into the U.S.
“In the time of a global pandemic and an economic crisis, the last thing Canadian and American workers need is new tariffs that will raise costs for manufacturers and consumers, impede the free flow of trade, and hurt provincial and state economies,” said Freeland.
The Aluminum Association of Canada also released a statement, noting how disappointing it was to have the U.S. levy new tariffs on Canadian aluminum a little more than a month after the trade deal came into force.
“We were already seeing a rebalancing in product mix from basic commodity ingot (P1020) back to value added product (VAP) through the recovery of the automotive industry” said Jean Simard, President and CEO of the Aluminium Association of Canada. “There is no surge for 2020 over 2019, monthly anomalies do not make for a yearly surge, they are simply results of changing market dynamics in crisis times.”
Based on data from the association, overall exports of primary aluminum from Canada into the U.S. dropped approximately 2.6 per cent from May to June. And primary aluminum import volumes from Canada for the first half of the year were nearly 5 per cent less than the same period in 2017.
Trump’s move also comes just a few months prior to the next U.S. election, and at a point where American polls and data indicate less favourability towards him as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in certain states, the economy continues tro struggle, and many people continue the Black Lives Matter protests for social justice.
