If U.S. President Donald Trump moves forward with imposing a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian-made goods, B.C. would respond in kind Finance Minister Brenda Bailey said on Monday.
While she did not give details about specific products B.C. might target, Bailey said “Everything is on the table.”
She referenced Premier David Eby’s press conference last week where he mentioned products including U.S. wine sold in B.C. liquor stores, Florida orange juice sold in B.C. grocery stores and Harley Davidson motorcycles sold in B.C.
“Of note, focusing on products that are particularly in red states where they will have impact and the potential to influence the people within Trump’s own party,” Bailey said.
“So I’ll state again that nothing would be off the table.”
Bailey said the B.C. government will have time to make its case directly to the U.S. administration and decision-makers.
Last week, Bailey said at a press conference that tariffs would be “unprecedented in modern times.”
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In B.C., wood, pulp and paper, metallic minerals and energy producers are all major exports to the U.S.
For elected officials, whether or not Trump’s tariff threats will come to fruition remains a source of anxiety on Trump’s inauguration day.
“We will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families,” Trump said in his speech.
“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
He did not specify what these tariffs would consist of.
“It seems like the first step will be a review of tariffs for Canada and Mexico and China and a broader review of the environment for those three countries, so there is room to continue the discussion and to push the argument forward that Canada is an indispensable trading partner for the United States,” said Stewart Prest, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia.
If the tariffs are put in place, it would mean a loss of $69 billion for B.C.’s economy by 2028, Bailey said last week.
It would mean 124,000 fewer jobs by 2028.
Investment would decline, with corporate profits falling by billions in 2025 and 2026, Bailey said.
The unemployment rate would increase to 6.7 per cent in 2025 and could increase to 7.1 per cent in 2026.
“The fact that the Trump administration is taking a step back here and offering a study as the first step suggests that the door is wide open to a range of possibilities, and so we might see a very targetted tariff supply to specific industries and that’s something that we really did experience in the first Trump administration on things like steel,” Prest added.
Federal cabinet ministers are also meeting for the next two days in Quebec.
