Washington’s trade fight with Ottawa has not cooled; it has simply changed shape. With a proclamation signed on Friday, the US president lifted his 50% duties on a set of Canadian products while putting a fresh batch of goods under the same rate. Both changes apply from October 30.
Coming off the list are plywood sheets, some paper and corrugated board products, packing crates and boxes, refrigeration equipment and several kinds of machinery. Going on are items such as valves, carpets, waste products, cocoa powder, paints, soaps and shampoos, lubricants and plastics. The White House framed the move as a refinement of measures meant to answer what it calls Canada’s discrimination against US car exports, using a section of a trade law dating from 1930.
The politics are hard to miss. The new lists kick in four days before the November 3 elections, and the relief was first announced not by the administration but by Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who is locked in a close re-election race. Collins said she had secured exemptions for nine product categories that matter to her state’s farm economy. Her statement left out the new duties, which the White House published less than an hour later.
Her Democratic opponent, logger Troy Jackson, accused Collins of helping to create the tariff mess and then wanting praise for a token gesture, mocking her with a line about a cup of water against a blaze. Canada is by far Maine’s biggest source of imports, so the levies have bitten deeply in the state.
The 50% tariffs, covering about $20bn of Canadian goods, took effect in August after talks collapsed, and Prime Minister Mark Carney retaliated in kind. Canada’s government says it is studying the latest list and remains ready to negotiate in good faith.
