‘No American Wants To Pay 25% More’: Trudeau Warns on Trump Tariff Threat
Outgoing prime minister calls making Canada part of US “non-starter”
The outgoing leader of Canada is warning Americans about the impact of the tariffs Donald Trump has threatened to levy against goods and services coming from north of the border.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also poured cold water on Trump’s oft-stated desire to make Canada the “51st state” in the United States.
Trump has said he intends to add a steep 25 percent import tax on Canadian goods after he takes office next week.
Canada is the United States’ largest trading partner. The United States imported $419 billion worth of Canadian goods in 2023, including everything from lumber and cement to cars and minerals.
People are focusing on Trump’s outlandish talk about adding the sovereign nation of Canada to the United States, rather than the harm tariffs would do, according to Trudeau, who last week announced that he would resign his post.
“I mean, let’s remember, I got to work with President Trump through his first four years in office, and we were able to renegotiate the most important trade deal either of us have, which is the Canada-U.S. free trade deal, in a way that was beneficial to both our countries,” Trudeau said in an interview with MSNBC host Jen Psaki. “And I know that as a successful negotiator, he likes to keep people a little off balance. The 51st state, that’s not going to happen. It’s just a nonstarter. Canadians are incredibly proud of being Canadian.
“But people are now talking about that as opposed to talking about, for example, what the impact of 25-percent tariffs on steel and aluminum coming into the United States on energy, whether it’s oil and gas or electricity. I mean, no American wants to pay 25 percent more for electricity or oil and gas coming in from Canada,” he added. “That’s something that I think people need to pay a little more attention to.
“And perhaps the idea of a 51st state is distracting a little bit from a very real question that will increase the cost of living for Americans and harm a trading relationship that works extremely well.”
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