President Donald Trump signed proclamations on Tuesday excluding specified Canadian products from importation into the United States, the White House said. The bans take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Sept. 29.
White House notices and reporting by Reuters, the BBC and CBC said the exclusions cover a wide range of Canadian alcoholic drinks — including malt beer and various wines and spirits — as well as motorcycles and mopeds, and certain dairy-related goods such as whey. Non-alcoholic beer and some molasses products appear on the same exclusion lists. The proclamations were issued under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The White House said the bans replace 50 percent tariffs that already applied to those goods.
Goods that arrive before Sept. 29 but have not yet entered for consumption stay under the prior 50 percent duty, the proclamations said. Separate changes to the tariff list — adding items such as some cheeses and ATVs, and dropping others such as rock salt and cement — take effect Sept. 15, according to a White House fact sheet. Those products are not banned. They face a different rate.
The U.S. move came hours after Canada’s own counter-tariffs took effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Finance Canada said Ottawa would match U.S. duties dollar-for-dollar and rate-for-rate on $27.6 billion of U.S. goods, at 15, 25 or 50 percent, after Washington imposed 50 percent tariffs on a similar value of Canadian goods on Aug. 22. Some wire reports have used a figure near $20 billion for the same packages. The official Canadian release uses $27.6 billion.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a video address Tuesday, said Canada was matching the new U.S. measures and that a “pivot” away from greater dependence on the United States “will come at a cost.” He said the cost of standing still would be higher. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canada’s retaliation left Washington no choice but to respond. A senior administration official, speaking to reporters, estimated the import bans would affect “single-digit billions” of dollars of Canadian goods. Capital Economics, cited by the BBC, put the banned slice at about 0.25 percent of Canada’s exports to the United States. That is an estimate, not a government census.
Trump separately said on Monday that Bombardier should no longer sell aircraft in the United States unless it builds them there. That statement was not part of the Tuesday exclusion proclamations. Reuters reported that the White House had not spelled out how such a sales ban would be enforced. Bombardier said it already makes major components in the United States and works with thousands of American suppliers.
SOURCES: The White House, Finance Canada, Reuters, BBC, CBC, New York Times.
