Donald Trump escalates US-Canada trade war with 50% tariff on steel and aluminium

Open the newsletter to watch the White House for free

Your guide to what the American elections mean 2024 for Washington and the world

President Donald Trump said he would impose a 50 percent tariff on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, and his battle escalated with one of the largest commercial partners in the United States.

“The Minister of Commerce has ordered the addition of an additional tariff of 25 %, to 50 %, on all steel and aluminum next to the United States from Canada, one of the highest identification countries anywhere in the world,” Trump wrote on the truth platform on Tuesday.

American aluminum prices rose and American stocks decreased after the announcement, as the S& P 500 index fell 0.8 percent, as fears deepened the impact of Trump’s commercial wars on the American economy.

Trump said this step was to an additional cost of 25 percent that Ontario in Canada had placed power exports to the United States, which raised electricity prices to about 1.5 million Americans in New York, Michigan and Minnesota.

In a post of subsequent social media, Trump added: “Can you imagine that Canada is largely descending from the use of electricity, which affects the lives of innocent people, such as Darkness and the threat of bargaining?”

This advertisement is the latest in a series of Salvos Tit for Tat between the United States and Canada, as Trump’s aggressive and economic threats threaten to break the North American trade.

Shortly after his inauguration, the US president said that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico, but last week he was given one month rest for goods that meet the rules of the 2020 Free Trade deal.

The aluminum and steel tariffs are part of a separate set of duties that will be imposed on producers all over the world, which is scheduled to spend the power on Wednesday.

White House officials say the 25 percent global tariffs on mineral imports are aimed at protecting the US local industry.

Doug Ford, Prime Minister of Ontario, who has publicly flew with Trump in recent days, replied that the American markets were “accumulating” on the commercial policy of the American president. Ford wrote on X.

“The response of Ontario within their specialization is to take it – we were in constant contact with the Americans about the federal response and working on the deadline on April 2, when we want to see all the definitions that were completely removed,” said Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkenson.

Despite the slide in the broader stock indicators, the shares in US steel producers rose on Tuesday. The American steel increased by 4 percent, NUCOR 2 increased, and the steel dynamics gained 1.5 percent.

A close tracking scale has increased to the difference in aluminum prices in the United States and London, which is called MidWest Premium, sharply on Tuesday, confirming the increasing costs facing American industrial groups.

Futures that follow the premium, which follow the prices of the metal that was delivered to plants in the American Middle West, rose up to 18 percent, according to FactSet data.

Trump said that if Canada did not drop a “long time” tariff, it will “increase greatly” on the fees on cars coming to the United States, a move that he said would “closely close” the car industry in the country.

“The only thing that makes Canada to become Canada is the first fifty state. This would make all definitions, and everything else, completely disappears,” Trump, who also suggested that the northern neighbor of the United States could no longer make sure that Washington will protect it militarily.

Canada strongly rejected such suggestions from Trump since he became president in January.