‘Canada wants benefits of being State without being one’: Trumps response following trade talks collapse
US President Donald Trump hit back at Canada after Ottawa suspended all trade negotiations with Washington, while reviving his “51st state” jab.”Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!! They have also charged our great farmers, for many years, massive amounts of Tariffs.
The remarks come as Canada suspended trade negotiations with the United States after Ottawa rejected what Prime Minister Mark Carney called damaging last-minute demands from Washington “excessive” and ‘uneconomic’.
Trade talks between Canada and the U.S. collapsed on Friday in a last-minute standoff over cutting U.S. tariffs on Canadian medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, people familiar with the matter said.
The U.S. and Canada had the outline of a deal, which would have lowered U.S. sectoral tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum and lumber, and were locked in talks Friday. However, remaining at odds over the treatment of larger vehicles, the dialogue stalled, said an official in the know.
In a late-night phone call on Friday, the Canadians insisted on additional relief while the Americans balked. Under the deal the two countries were working towards, the regular auto tariff would have been lowered to 15% from the current 25%.
Besides, Canada also wanted relief expanded to medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which typically range from large pickup trucks to commercial vehicles.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Saturday that to deny such relief to trucks is a big challenge, obviously. He said that without tariff relief on trucks, Ford’s new plant in Ontario, which makes F-350s and larger pickup trucks, would have been excluded.
“No rationale,” he added.
Both sides blamed each other for the sudden collapse of the talks, which resulted in the U.S. imposing new tariffs of 50% on about $20 billion in Canadian goods.
On Saturday, Carney announced dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on American goods starting September 8.
The national president of Canada’s largest private-sector union, Unifor, told reporters Saturday that Canada had no choice but to draw a line in the sand.
However, Carney’s office has declined to comment, while the U.S. and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, Carney claimed that the U.S. proposed new terms that were uneconomic and unfair and said that this undermined the net benefits for Canada.
He accused President Donald Trump of launching the trade war and said, “You are at war when you get attacked. We got attacked. We cannot accept what they’ve offered and we will not give what they’ve asked.”