- Cuts expected for energy, fertilizer, USMCA products.
- Carney says that made progress with fentanyl will protect Canadians.
- Trump says he can consider, depending on fentanyl streams.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States would introduce a 35% duty on Canada imports next month and planned to introduce blanket rates of 15% or 20% on most other trading partners.
In a letter released on his social media platform, Trump told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that the new rate would take effect on August 1 and would go up if Canada reciprocated.
In a post of X late on Thursday, Carney said his government will continue to defend Canadian workers and businesses in their negotiations with the United States as they work towards this deadline.
The 35% tariff is an increase from the current 25% rate that Trump had assigned to Canada and is a blow to Carney who sought to agree on a trade pact with Washington.
An exclusion of goods covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade was expected to remain in place, and 10% duty on energy and fertilizer was also not set to change, although Trump had not made a final decision on these issues, a management employee said.
Trump complained in his letter about what he referred to as the flow of Fentanyl from Canada as well as the country’s customs and non-customs trading barriers that harm us dairy products and others. He said the trade deficit was a threat to the US economy and national security.
“If Canada works with me to stop the flow of Fentanyl, we might consider an adaptation to this letter,” Trump wrote.
Canadian officials say a small amount of fentanyl derives from Canada, but they have taken measures to strengthen the border.
“Canada has made important progress to stop the scourge of fentanyl in North America. We are obliged to continue working with the United States to save lives and protect communities in both our countries,” Carney added in his X -post late Tuesday.
The prime minister said last month that he and Trump agreed to wrap up a new financial and security agreement within 30 days.
Trump has expanded his trade war in recent days and set new tariffs in a number of countries, including allied Japan and South Korea, along with a 50% duty on copper.
In an interview with NBC News published on Thursday, Trump said that other trading partners who had not yet received such letters would probably face carpet taverns.
“Not everyone should get a letter. You know that. We just put our customs rates,” Trump said in the interview.
“We just want to say that all the remaining countries will pay, whether it is 20% or 15%. We are working on it now,” Trump was quoted as saying by the network.
Canada is the second largest US trading partner after Mexico and the largest buyer of US exports. It bought $ 349.4 billion of US goods last year and exported $ 412.7 billion to the United States, according to US Census Bureau data.
Carney, who led his liberal party to a comeback -choice victory earlier this year with a promise to tackle trade challenges with the United States, aimed to negotiate a trade agreement with its most important trading partner by July 21.
In his letter, Trump did not specifically deal with how trade negotiations continued, but he said “customs can be changed, upwards or down, depending on our relationship with your country.”
Last month, the Carney government scraped a scheduled tax company for digital service that targeted US technology companies after Trump suddenly interrupted the trade negotiations and said the treasure was a “obvious attack.”
