A day after offering Canada a one-month reprieve on punishing, virtually across-the-board 25% tariffs, President Donald Trump has threatened new tariffs as soon as Friday on Canadian lumber and dairy products. It’s yet another twist in a serpentine trade policy that seems to shift on an hourly basis.
“Canada has been ripping us off for years on lumber and on dairy products,” Trump said in an Oval Office address Friday, citing Canada’s roughly 250% tariff on US dairy exports to the country. Trump said America would match those tariffs dollar-for-dollar.
“We may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait until Monday or Tuesday,” Trump said. “We’re going to charge the same thing. It’s not fair. It never has been fair, and they’ve treated our farmers badly.”
Stocks, which were lower to start the day after a mixed bag of a jobs report, initially fell after Trump’s tariff threat but pared their losses. The Dow was up about 45 points, or 0.1%. The broader S&P 500 fell 0.1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was down another 0.1% after falling into correction territory Thursday — a 10% decline from its most recent high.
Trump’s announcement gave investors, businesses and consumers another strong dose of whiplash. Just one day earlier, on Thursday, Trump announced a one-month pause on all tariffs on Canada and Mexico on products that comply with the US-Mexico-Canada free trade treaty, known as the USMCA. That had given many industries, especially autos and agriculture, a major sigh of relief.
But Trump’s threat on Friday added more uncertainty into an economy that has shown cracks in its foundation and could be in danger of slipping if businesses and consumers grow nervous about the administration’s economic policy. Layoffs are mounting, hiring is slowing, consumer confidence is eroding and inflation is picking up again.
Tariffs could worsen all of those factors.
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