Tariffs on Canada and Mexico will land on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday.
“Very importantly tomorrow, tariffs — 25 per cent on Canada and 25 per cent on Mexico — and that’ll start. So they’re going to have to have a tariff,” Trump told reporters in the White House.
Trump was referring to the broad-based 25 per cent tariffs on all goods coming in from Canada and Mexico, with a lower 10 per cent rate for Canadian energy exports and an additional 10 per cent on Chinese goods.
Trump has said these tariffs are aimed at curbing the flow of illegal substances, specifically fentanyl, coming in through the border into the United States. He claimed on Monday that fentanyl continues to pour into the U.S. from China through Canada and Mexico.
The tariffs were originally slated to go into effect on Feb. 4, but Trump decided to defer them for a month after a phone call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The 30-day pause was aimed at giving both countries time to secure their respective borders with the United States.
While U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a Fox News interview Sunday had said Canada and Mexico had done a “reasonable job” at securing the borders, Trump on Monday said the two did not have any room left for negotiation.
“No room left for Mexico or for Canada. No. The tariffs you know, they’re all set. They go into effect tomorrow,” Trump said.
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Stock markets in Canada and the U.S. reported big losses Monday shortly after Trump’s announcement. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down nearly 392 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 649 points, among other losses posted by major markets.
Trump’s original executive order, signed on Feb. 1, states that the tariffs would go into effect at 12:01 am Eastern on Tuesday, Feb. 4.
Trump’s 30-day delay means the tariffs will now go into effect at 12:01 am Eastern on Tuesday, March. 4.
Trump also seemed to hint that the tariffs are aimed at forcing the North American auto industry to shift production into the United States.
“I would just say this to people in Canada or Mexico if they’re going to build car plants, the people that are doing them are much better off building here,” he said.
The tariffs that Trump has linked to migrants and fentanyl crossing the border are not the only set of tariffs that are expected to hit over the next few weeks. Additional tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as global reciprocal tariffs are set to hit in the coming weeks.
‘We’re ready,’ says foreign minister
Ottawa has vowed to hit back with dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs against the United States.
Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters on Monday that the federal government’s previously announced plan for retaliatory tariffs will be revived if U.S. tariffs are imposed.
Those were to begin with an initial 25 per cent levy on $30 billion in U.S. products, with duties on another $125 billion in goods to follow three weeks later.
“We are ready,” Joly said as she entered a Canada-U. S. cabinet committee meeting in Ottawa on Monday.
She added “efforts are still ongoing” among Canadian officials who are pushing the Trump administration and U.S. lawmakers to call off the tariffs.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said Trump’s tariff plan will cause long term damage to the Canada-U.S. trade relationship.
“We will have a long road back to Canada and the U.S. being trusted economic partners again. Businesses can’t just switch their whole model to avoid tariffs and then go back again, depending on what politicians decide on any given day,” said Matthew Holmes, vice president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said his province also would retaliate by removing American alcohol from Liquor Control Board of Ontario shelves and ripping up a $100-million deal with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide Starlink internet service in remote areas.
Other provinces announced similar plans to pull American alcohol and terminate U.S. business contracts in February, and have indicated they will revive them in the event of U.S. tariffs this month.
Ford also repeated his threat to shut off the electricity Ontario supplies to several U.S. states.
“If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything, including cut off their energy, with a smile on my face,” he said.
Canadian officials and premiers made a month-long diplomatic push in Washington, but the tone from the Trump administration did not appear to move publicly.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said earlier Monday that the Trump administration was using uncertainty as a bargaining tool and he hoped “logic will prevail.”
He also defended the meetings he and other ministers held with U.S. officials despite their apparent lack of impact.
“I don’t want to say … that the meetings in Washington aren’t useful, even though I come out of some of these meetings with some ambivalence, not knowing whether they have been useful or useless,” he said.
“I can’t leave it up to chance and hope that nothing will happen.”
–With files from Reuters and the Canadian Press
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