Donald Trump may have blinked Thursday, but Doug Ford didn’t.
The U.S. President said he would pause some tariffs on Canadian goods, but Ford maintained his retaliation was full steam ahead.
Trump issued a new Executive Order on Thursday that walked back some but not all tariffs on Canadian goods. Stock markets have been down, farmers have been angry and auto companies have been burning up Trump’s phone over his tariff moves.
“In order to minimize disruption to the United States automotive industry and automotive workers, it is appropriate to adjust the tariffs imposed on articles of Canada in Executive Order 14193 of February 1, 2025,” Trump’s latest Executive Order states.
He also reduced the tariff on potash, a vital input for farmers looking to fertilize their fields, and on certain energy products. In response, the Trudeau government in Ottawa announced they would also hit the pause button.
“The United States has agreed to suspend tariffs on CUSMA-compliant exports from Canada until April 2nd,” Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in a statement posted to X. “As a result, Canada will not proceed with the second wave of tariffs on $125B of U.S. products until April 2nd, while we continue to work for the removal of all tariffs.”
The Ford government had just announced the imposition of an electricity surcharge on their American customers set to take place next week. Rather than also hit pause, a senior advisor to Ford said the Ontario government will push ahead.
“In our mind, nothing has changed,” the source said. “Until the threat of tariffs is off the table completely, we won’t relent.”
It’s a completely rational position to take.
While Trump is pausing or reducing some tariffs, he isn’t pausing all of them. He’s also still threatening tariffs on steel and aluminum next week and a third, wider set of tariffs on April 2.
“It’s just a modification, short term, because I didn’t want to hurt the American auto companies,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
Trump said he wasn’t looking to pause any other tariffs and went on a tirade against Canada.
“I’ll tell you what’s a high tariff nation, it’s Canada,” Trump said.
Trump complained about Canadian trade practices in areas like dairy and lumber specifically.
“We don’t need trees from Canada, we don’t need cars from Canada, we don’t need energy from Canada, we don’t need anything from Canada,” he said.
Basically, Trump is saying it’s full steam ahead with steel and aluminum next week and everything else on April 2. At best, this can be viewed as a short-term pause based on American interests, not fair trading practices.
In response, Ontario will keep American booze off the shelves, keep the ban on American companies bidding on Ontario government projects and, come next week, add a 25% surcharge on all electricity sold to American companies. Ontario’s electrical grid provides power to 1.5 million homes across New York, Michigan and Minnesota.
Like pulling booze, it’s a move that will get noticed.
The Kentucky Distillers Association, representing most of the bourbon makers in the U.S., issued a statement earlier this week saying the trade battle will have “far-reaching consequences.”
“That means hardworking Americans – corn farmers, truckers, distillery workers, barrel makers, bartenders, servers and the communities and businesses built around Kentucky Bourbon will suffer,” the statement read.
The industry already suffered under a trade war with the European Union and England that ran from 2018 to 2022, and they are trying to rebuild. The association’s website notes there are more than 14 million barrels of bourbon ageing in Kentucky and they need to keep markets open.
Kentucky distillers need to sell, and they can’t do that with products pulled from the shelves. By the way, according to government sources, the booze pulled from the shelves hasn’t been paid for, it was shipped to the LCBO to be sold on consignment.
Ford’s team believes that by keeping these measures in place, Ontario and Canada as a whole will be in a stronger negotiating position to ensure all tariffs are lifted.
At this point, it looks like Ford is on the right path.