Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Ottawa and Beijing agreed to ease some reciprocal levies last week
US President Donald Trump has said he would impose a 100% tariff on all Canadian goods if Ottawa follows through on a trade agreement with China. The warning was issued as Trump accused Beijing of seeking to exploit Canada in order to bypass US trade barriers.
Trump has previously used tariffs, or the threat of tariffs, in trade disputes with a number of countries, including Canada. His administration has imposed a range of duties on Canadian exports. Ottawa and Washington were close to a deal last year to ease some of those levies, but the talks ultimately collapsed. Trump has since reiterated that he is prepared to raise tariffs on Canadian goods, although no new measures have taken effect.
“If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the USA,” Trump warned in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
“If Governor Carney thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken,” Trump said of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, repeating a moniker he’d created when he called for America’s northern neighbor to become the 51st US state.
Earlier this month, Carney traveled to China to reset strained relations and reached what Canadian officials have described as a preliminary agreement or strategic partnership addressing specific trade barriers, rather than a comprehensive free trade deal.
Relations between Washington and Ottawa have further deteriorated in recent weeks following Carney’s criticism of Trump’s pursuit of Greenland, which the American president has said he wants to become a US territory.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Carney said a rules-based global order was over and argued that “middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”
Trump responded during his own Davos address by saying Canada “lives because of the United States,” a claim Carney rejected. Trump later disinvited Carney from his proposed ‘Board of Peace’, a body he has said would be tasked with addressing international conflicts.
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