Trump Slaps Canada With 50% Tariffs, Igniting Trade War

Donald Trump reignited his trade fight with Canada on Monday, announcing a sweeping 50 percent tariff on most goods imported from America’s northern neighbor.

In a White House fact sheet, officials said the new tariffs would take effect in 30 days and apply to a broad range of Canadian products, including “products ranging from wine to hockey sticks to cement.”

An official also said Trump had asked aides to examine additional tariffs on Canada over the impact of Canadian wildfires on air quality in the United States, after the president claimed the smoke was “coming in and poisoning our air.”

The announcement followed Trump’s claim that Canada has unfairly targeted major American exports, including autos, alcohol and dairy products.

The decision threatens to trigger a fresh round of economic disruption, raising concerns about higher inflation and further straining relations between the two deeply connected countries since Trump’s return to the White House.

An administration official, previewing the tariff action, said Canada was among the few countries besides China to retaliate against Trump’s earlier tariffs and argued that it should now face consequences.

Speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, the official said Trump signed three proclamations to impose the tariffs under Section 338 of the 1930 Trade Act.

Several Democratic lawmakers moved last year to repeal that section, warning that Trump could invoke it in ways that might destabilize the economy.

The 50 percent tariffs would exclude energy products, potash, fish and critical minerals, but they would include goods that had previously been protected from import taxes by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. 

That 2020 trade pact recently expired and triggered a new set of negotiations that could run until 2036. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to both the White House and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for comment. 

Recently, Trump has also been demanding Canada and Carney pay ‘damages’ after wildfires spread down into America.

Trump announced Sunday night that he had spoken with the prime minister about the wildfires in Ontario that have caused massive plumes of smoke to blanket cities across the States.

The President said the conversation at the World Cup final went well, ‘But I told him, ‘You’ve got to stop these fires from coming in and poisoning our air.’ Our air’s being poisoned.

‘I have a good relationship with Mark Carney, but you know, we got to stop the fires up there,’ Trump said. 

‘If we can help them, we’ll help them – but maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or [we] should do some tariffs,’ he then threatened.

Trump went on to call the smoke ‘terrible,’ specifically pointing out the situation in Detroit, Michigan, where assembly line workers at Ford Motor’s Michigan Assembly Plant were sent by ambulance to nearby hospitals on Thursday, according to the Detroit Free Press. 

But the poor air quality was felt in other parts of the country as well, with smoky conditions being felt in Washington, DC and New York City on Thursday evening. 

Trump himself likely experienced the smoky conditions in the capital and while traveling to New York City for a work dinner on Friday evening, as the National Weather Service issued air quality alerts in at least 16 states.

The President then made his first threat to impose tariffs on the US’s northern neighbor that day.

‘We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their forests and brush,’ he wrote on Truth Social Friday.

The US is being ‘invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable,’ Trump added.

He vowed to call Carney to demand answers, claiming that the ‘cost is incalculable.’

‘This is willful negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States billions of dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the tariffs Canada is currently paying,’ Trump said.

At the World Cup final on Sunday, Trump watched the game with Carney, who has openly challenged the US president and has sought to expand Canada’s trade relations with other nations. 

The Trump administration official said their time together at the game was not a working visit to discuss trade and tariffs.

Trump claims in the proclamations that Canada discriminates against American autos, alcohol and cheese relative to other nations, but his argument rests in large part on retaliatory actions taken by Canada after the US president imposed tariffs on Canada under the pretext that it should do more to stop fentanyl smuggling.

Trump noted in his autos proclamation that Canada maintained, starting in April 2025, a 25 percent tariff on the imports of US motor vehicles that did not qualify for preferential treatment under the USMCA.

His proclamation on alcohol notes that Canadian provinces and territories halted the purchase and retailing of American alcoholic beverages last year, which was also a response to Trump’s tariffs and taunts of making Canada the 51st state.

But Trump has long objected to Canada’s treatment of US cheese, saying in his proclamation that Canada discriminates against the US compared to Europe on dairy products.

Trump and Carney have had a frosty relationship, with Carney, a former central banker, winning the premiership last year by promising to stand up for Canada.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January, Carney called out Trump — without naming him — by saying that the ‘most powerful’ countries are using the economy to coerce less powerful nations.

Trump responded at the time by saying: ‘Canada lives because of the United States.’