Canada’s new tariffs on American milk, perfume and golf clubs took effect just after midnight Eastern time on Tuesday. The duties cover $20 billion worth of U.S. goods and widen a trade war that has already dragged on for months.
Ottawa acted after trade talks collapsed and the Trump administration went ahead with 50% duties on $20 billion in Canadian goods. Canadian officials have promised to match U.S. levies “dollar for dollar.”
The rates run from 15% to 50%. At 50%: milk, perfume, video game consoles, golf clubs, fishing rods, steel, aluminum, jackets and T-shirts. Cheese, carpets and some household appliances, including stoves and air conditioners, face 25%. Forklifts and industrial molds get 15%. Some American seafood was originally on the list at 25%, but Canada dropped it after lobster industry complaints.
Manufacturers in Michigan and Indiana could feel it most, along with dairy producers in Wisconsin and Vermont.
How it got here
President Donald Trump threatened heavy tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods soon after returning to office last year, saying Canada and Mexico had done too little to stop drugs and migrants crossing into the United States. Canada hit back with tariffs of its own, and some provinces boycotted American liquor. The two sides later opened talks and rolled back some of their harshest measures, but tension never eased. They have also fought over NATO and over Trump’s musings about making Canada the 51st state.
This summer the administration threatened tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian goods. Its complaint was that Canada discriminates against American-made products and retaliated too heavily against Trump’s 2025 trade measures. Trump held off last month as negotiators neared a deal. They could not close it, and each side accuses the other of sinking the talks with last-minute demands.
Prime Minister Mark Carney says the administration “asked too much and offered too little.” He also objected to pressure for control over Canada’s trade deals with other countries, which he cast as a threat to sovereignty, and said the U.S. “signature was written in pencil” on earlier agreements.
Words from both sides
Trump says Canada practices unfair trade and “wants the benefits of being a State, without being one.” On social media last month he wrote: “I don’t want Canadian cars, I don’t want Canadian parts, I don’t want Canadian anything. They’ve been ripping us off for decades, and it’s going to stop.”
The leader of Canada’s largest province called Trump a “dictator” last month and told him to “kiss my a**.”
More may be coming. Trump has floated further tariffs and restrictions. Last month he announced duties on all Canadian automotive and steel imports starting in January. On Monday he pushed to end imports of Bombardier planes unless the Montreal-based company shifts production to the United States.
The tit-for-tat duties touch only a small slice of the more than $700 billion in goods that crossed the border last year, according to U.S. government figures.
