Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods take effect Sunday following the Trump administration’s new tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office said in a statement that the prime minister “had no choice but to announce reciprocal countermeasures to the steel and aluminum tariffs that the United States imposed on June 1, 2018.”
Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke late Friday to discuss trade and other economic issues, the White House said Saturday.
“The two leaders agreed to stay in close touch on a way forward,” according to the prime minister’s office.
The telephone conversation between the two leaders was their first encounter since the G-7 summit in Quebec in June. After that meeting, Trump tweeted that Trudeau was “weak” and “dishonest.”
Trudeau also spoke Friday with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to keep him up-to-date on Canada’s response to the U.S. tariffs.
The American goods that Canada has placed tariffs on include ketchup, lawn mowers and motorboats.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the tariffs are regrettable. She said, however, Canada “will not escalate and we will not back down.”
Some of Canadian tariffs on U.S. items are politically targeted.
For example, Canada imports $3 million in yogurt, most of it coming from a plant in Wisconsin, the home state of House Speaker Paul Ryan. U.S. yogurt will now be hit with a 10 percent duty.
Whiskey is also on Canada’s list of tariffs for the U.S. Whiskey comes largely from Tennessee and Kentucky.
Kentucky is the home state of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell.
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