Trump planning more tariffs against any country with its own tariffs on U.S. goods
President takes issue with Canada’s digital services tax, GST
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday moved ahead with plans to impose new tariffs on any global trading partner with taxes or other policies deemed "unfair" to American exporters.
The president has tasked an economics team with calculating a rate for "reciprocal" tariffs that would match the rate another country applies to American products. In coming up with a number, the team will also consider barriers seen to be putting U.S. exporters at a disadvantage — from trade regulations to sales taxes to exchange rates.
"We had a very unfair system to us.... Everybody took advantage of the United States," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
"Whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less."
The move indicates Trump is looking to overhaul the nation's global trading relationships and encourage more spending on American industry, with tariffs as leverage against allies and enemies alike.
Reciprocal tariffs would stack on top of the tariffs Trump has already threatened.
President takes issue with Canada
Trump repeatedly singled out Canada on Thursday.
"Canada has been very bad to us on trade, but now Canada is going to have to start paying up," he said after he was asked a question about the European Union.
He criticized Ottawa's digital sales tax, which imposes a three per cent tax on companies that provide digital services — like online advertising or shopping — and get more than $20 million of revenue from Canadian sources. (Think Google, Amazon or Apple.)
The United States has argued the tax discriminates against American companies.
"Only America should be allowed to tax American firms," a fact sheet from the White House said.
The president also sees Canada's general sales tax as a tariff, two senior Canadian government sources told Radio-Canada. He raised the issue during one of his calls with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Feb. 3. The sources say that Trudeau responded by noting there are several American states, including Florida, with sales taxes of their own.
Trump's issue is that Canada has a federal sales tax and the U.S. does not, a third source said.
The president also criticized Canada's NATO contributions on Thursday and said he'd argued with Trudeau about the decision to remove Russia from the then-G8 alliance after its invasion of Ukraine.
Trump was expected to introduce reciprocal tariffs at the event, but stopped well short of that mark. His memo gives staff 180 days — about six months — to study the levies trading partners have imposed on U.S. goods and come up with a response.
The White House official told reporters the administration would examine what it called the most "egregious" issues first when considering reciprocal tariffs, including countries with the biggest trade surpluses and highest tariff rates.
The tariffs would avoid a "one-size-fits-all" approach for more customized levies, he said, though he did not rule out a flat global tariff.
Canada had a trade surplus of $94.4 billion with the U.S. in 2023. Trudeau has a plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on $155 billion worth of American goods coming into Canada, should Trump's initial tariff promise come to fruition.
The president threatened 25 per cent tariffs on almost all imports from Canada and Mexico earlier this month. The nations avoided a trade war when their leaders made last-minute deals to postpone the tariffs by 30 days. The agreement involved boosting security at shared borders with the U.S., among other measures.
Trump nevertheless hit Canada's steel and aluminum industry with the announcement of 25 per cent tariffs on Monday, well before the end of the reprieve. Trudeau said those levies, set to come into effect on March 12, were "unjustified" and "unacceptable."
Trump said on Monday he was also looking at separate tariffs on cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. On Thursday, he said he was also looking at the extra taxes for cars.
Trump, who campaigned on a promise to bring down prices for Americans, said U.S. consumers could see costs rise in the short term as a result of the moves. The president has long seen tariffs as a way to fuel the domestic economy by making foreign products less attractive.
"Tariffs are great," he said Thursday.
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With files from CBC's Louis Blouin, Fannie Olivier and Reuters