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ontario
Trade War Intensifies as Trump Jacks Up Aluminum, Steel Tariffs on Canada to 50%
The next Canadian prime minister has said that "my government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect."
Mar 11, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his North American trade war on Tuesday, announcing that he will double tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Canada in response to Ontario's retaliatory duties on electricity.
"Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on 'Electricity' coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD," Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
The new U.S. tariffs are set to take effect Wednesday, according to Trump, who started the current trade conflict with Canada and Mexico. He also said that he would declare a national emergency on electricity for the region of the United States impacted by Ontario's surcharge, which spans Minnesota, Michigan, and New York.
The U.S. president urged the Canadian government to "immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250% to 390% on various U.S. dairy products," and threatened to impose tariffs next month on cars, which he said "will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada."
Highlighting how the incoming tariffs threaten manufacturing hubs in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous said in a Tuesday statement that "Donald Trump continues to force a trade strategy that will not grow American manufacturing. Rather than lying about what tariffs will do, Trump should emphasize adopting cleaner technologies for our steel mills, allowing workers to unionize to advocate for better pay and safety, and establishing clear rules that ensure our trade partners do not violate labor and environmental standards."
"This is the hard work that the administration believes will magically happen on its own," Jealous added. "And if Trump continues to shy away from his duties, steelworkers and local communities will pay the price."
The tariff announcement came just a day after U.S. stocks plummeted on Monday, in the wake of Trump being asked on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo" whether he expected a recession this year, to which he responded: "I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big."
Journalist Aaron Rupar noted on X that Tuesday viewers of Fox could "watch the stock market lose over 100 points in real time while Maria Bartiromo talks about Trump's tariffs."
Trump on Tuesday also repeated his call for Canada to join the United States, saying that "the only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear."
"Canadians' taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever—And Canada will be a big part of that," he claimed. "The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World."
After Canada's Liberal Party elected Mark Carney as its next leader on Sunday, the former central banker and prime minister-designate declared that "America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form."
Carney also said that Trump—whose name provoked loud boos—has put "unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living. He's attacking Canadian families, workers, and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed—and we won't."
"The Canadian government has rightly retaliated and is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impact here in Canada," he added. "My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect."
Trump's trade war seemingly has even some Republican experts baffled—as shown in an exchange that Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for
The Washington Post, posted to X on Tuesday morning.
Trump's tariffs—expected to reach beyond Canada, China, and Mexico early next month—and other decisions since Inauguration Day, including sweeping efforts to dismantle the federal government, have some experts speculating that the president, his billionaire Cabinet, and his adviser Elon Musk, the richest person on Earth, "are intentionally crashing the economy."
Early last week, Saikat Chakrabarti, a progressive running for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) seat who worked on Wall Street and helped found an online payment processing company, accused Trump of "manufacturing a recession."
"It makes sense when you realize his goal is to create something like Russia where the economy is run by a few oligarchs loyal to him," Chakrabarti said. "Creating that state is hard in a large, dynamic, powerful economy with too many actors who can oppose him. So he's accelerating concentrating money and power into the hands of his loyalists while he crashes the rest out."
While Trump responded to Friday's jobs report by declaring that "the Golden Age of America has just begun," Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said: "Just one month on the job, warning signs are flashing across the Trump economy. Inflation is rising, consumer confidence is plummeting, business investment is pulling back, and now, the labor market is stalling."
Adding to working-class Americans' fears of the future, while Trump—aided by GOP senators—installs billionaires to lead federal departments that Musk is tearing apart, Republicans who narrowly control Congress are working to send legislation that would cut taxes for the ultrarich by robbing programs that help the poor to the president's desk.
Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote Monday that "while a recession may not be fully baked into the cards at this point, the risk is evident and it's almost entirely coming from Donald Trump's policies."
Baker suggested that Americans should call what lies ahead the "Donald J. Trump Recession."
This article has been updated with comment from Sierra Club.
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Ontario 'Ripping Up' Contract With Musk's Starlink as Canada Targets Trump Allies in Trade War
"Canada didn't start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe we're ready to win it," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said.
Feb 03, 2025
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday that his government will exclude American companies from provincial contracts and cancel a massive deal with Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump's imposition of 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.
"Starting today and until U.S. tariffs are removed, Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts," Ford—who leads the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario—said on social media.
"Every year, the Ontario government and its agencies spend $30 billion on procurement, alongside our $200 billion plan to build Ontario," he continued. "U.S.-based businesses will now lose out on tens of billions of dollars in new revenues."
"They only have President Trump to blame," added Ford, who once professed his "unwavering" support for the Republican during his first White House term. "We're going one step further. We'll be ripping up the province's contract with Starlink. Ontario won't do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy. Canada didn't start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe we're ready to win it."
"I don't care if it's a toothpick. We need to purchase from Canada and Ontario."
Last November, Ontario and Starlink signed a C$100 million (USD$68.6 million) deal to provide high-speed internet service for around 15,000 eligible homes and businesses in remote rural communities in northern parts of the province by June 2025.
However, Ford on Monday accused Musk—who gave Trump's campaign tens of millions of dollars and heads the president's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—of being "part of the Trump team that wants to destroy families, incomes, destroy businesses" by waging a trade war.
"He wants to take food off the table of people, hard-working people, and I'm not going to tolerate it," Ford said of the world's richest person. "We just aren't going to be using American companies."
"And no matter if we are building a hospital, if we're building anything, if we're building a dog house, I want to make sure we are using Ontario steel, Canadian products, Canadian wood, Ontario wood," he added. "I don't care if it's a toothpick. We need to purchase from Canada and Ontario."
Ford also ordered the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) to remove U.S.-imported alcohol products from store shelves in retaliation for the tariffs.
"Every year, LCBO sells nearly $1 billion worth of American wine, beer, spirits, and seltzers," he said on Sunday. "Not anymore."
Musk reacted to the loss of the Starlink contract with Ontario with a two-word post on his X social media platform saying, "Oh well."
Ford's move followed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement Saturday of retaliatory tariffs targeting Republican-led states and Trump allies after the U.S. leader said he would impose levies of 25% on Canadian and Mexican imports and 10% on goods from China.
"Canadians understand that we need to respond to this," explained Trudeau, who is set to resign once his Liberal Party selects a new leader. "We need to respond in a way that is appropriate, that is measured but forceful, that meets the moment."
Trump singled out Canadian energy for a reduced 10% tariff. On Monday, he announced a deal with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to pause U.S. tariffs for one month in exchange for the deployment of 10,000 Mexican troops to the country's northern border to target drug trafficking and, according to Trump, prevent migrants from entering the United States.
Frustration with Trump's policies and actions—which include ongoing calls to make Canada the "51st state"—was on display over the weekend as Canadian fans attending National Basketball Association and National Hockey League games against visiting U.S. rivals loudly booed pregame performances of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
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Charges for Suspect in 'Hate-Motivated' Knife Attack on Canada University Gender Studies Class
A "right-wing culture war and transphobic propaganda is never just about discourse, debate, or the 'potential for violence,'" said one gender studies professor in response to the attack. "It's about actual violence."
Jun 29, 2023
Police in Ontario, Canada on Thursday said the stabbing of multiple people in a University of Waterloo gender studies class was a "hate-motivated incident related to gender expression and gender identity" as they charged the suspect with several crimes.
Geovanny Villalba-Aleman, a 24-year-old former student at the school, was identified by the Waterloo Regional Police Service as the suspect and has been charged with three counts of aggravated assault, four counts of assault with a weapon, and two counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
Villalba-Aleman is accused of stabbing a 38-year-old professor and two students, aged 19 and 20, after entering the classroom of a Philosophy 202: Gender Issues class on Wednesday afternoon and asking the professor "what the class was about," according to The Imprint, the school's student newspaper.
After the professor answered and said she was the instructor of the class, Villalba-Aleman allegedly "closed the door, took out two knives, and began attacking the professor."
A student told The Imprint that the attacker "missed the professor and 'ended up attacking one or two other people.'"
The three victims were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
The stabbing is the latest attack in Canada that was allegedly motivated by gender-related hate.
In 2018, a man killed 10 people in Toronto when he drove a van into a crowd of pedestrians, later saying he had been motivated by his anger over being rejected by women.
Wednesday's attack comes amid a surge in anti-transgender rights legislation in the United States, with right-wing lawmakers passing more than 80 bans this year on gender-affirming healthcare, discussions about LGBTQ+ issues in schools, and students playing sports and using restrooms in accordance with their gender identity.
In the Canadian province of New Brunswick this month, conservatives changed rules for public schools to "recognize the role of parents" regarding the names and pronouns children use. A previous policy, adopted in 2020, stated that teachers should respect all children's chosen names and pronouns.
"It's the first well-documentedinstance of Canada copying U.S. anti-trans policies, which usually focus on solving a problem that doesn't exist through blatantly discriminatory practices," wrote Nate DiCamillo at Quartz.
The attack at University of Waterloo demonstrates that a "right-wing culture war and transphobic propaganda is never just about discourse, debate, or the 'potential for violence,'" said Jeremy Johnston, a gender studies professor at Western University in Ontario. "It's about actual violence."
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