U.S. president signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Wednesday
U.S. President Donald Trump is dealing another tariff blow to Canada, signing an executive order on Wednesday that will hit all non-U.S.-made autos with hefty import levies.
Trump said the United States will be applying a 25 per cent tariff on those imports, but it’s not clear when they would apply.
The president said the auto tariffs will kick in on April 2 but suggested they could start at a base rate of 2.5 per cent.
“What we’re going to be doing is a 25 per cent tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. If they’re made in the United States, there is absolutely no tariff. We’ll start off with a 2.5 per cent base, which is what we were at, and we’ll go to 25 per cent,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Autos are the second-largest Canadian export after oil — and by far the most lucrative manufactured product that Canada sells to the world, linked to hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs.
Coverage is confusing AF. Just saw signing declaration, and it appears as though its 25% right away. He’s also subsidizing US made cars with “tax deductible interest” on car loans. He said “these tariffs are permanent 100%”. He seemed to speak for big 3 announcing that they will move “their parts factories to the US”, and they have the spare capacity to do so… but he also said 20 provable lies, so this part is unclear.
Everything depends on automakers actual response, and we can hope that Ontario/Canada pressure for them to make the right choice is done.