Canada’s Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney said that the country will keep its retaliatory tariffs against the US in place as long as US President Donald Trump continues with the trade war. The former Bank of Canada governor’s remarks came after winning the race to lead Canada’s federal Liberal Party, which was led by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“The Canadian government is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs,” Carney said during his victory speech on Sunday. “My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect — and make credible, reliable commitments to free and fair trade,” he added. Carney won the party leader race with 86 per cent vote and will be replacing Trudeau soon.
A trade war between Canada and the US started brewing after the Trump administration put 25 per cent tariffs on most Canadian and Mexican products last week. In response to this, Canada imposed its own 25 per cent levies on C$30 billion ($20.9 billion) worth of items. This included products like orange juice, coffee and fruit.
The Candian government threatened to expand high tariffs to include an additional C$125 billion in US-produced goods, including cars and trucks, steel and other food items. Meanwhile, Trump has delayed imposing new duties on several products, but there’s still a threat that it can happen in April.
‘Trump wants to destroy our way of life’: Carney
In his victory speech, the 59-year-old hurled criticisms at Trump, calling him a “threat” intent on “attacking Canadian families, workers, businesses”. “They want our resources, our water, our land, our country… If they succeeded, they would destroy our way of life,” he averred.
Carney proposed that he would seek to shift the country away from trade with the US and look for other “reliable” partners. The former banker also took potshots at Trump’s repeated calls to absorb Canada as the US “ 51st state”.
Content retrieved from: https://www.firstpost.com/world/mark-carney-says-canadas-tariffs-on-us-will-stay-until-trump-shows-respect-13870197.html.
