Canadian political and business leaders claimed victory Friday after President Trump announced the U.S. will roll back hefty year-old tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from its NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico.
Ottawa has argued Mr. Trump’s tariffs — justified as a way to protect U.S. national security — were illegal and had brought a case against the U.S. before the World Trade Organization.
Mr. Trump Friday agreed to end the tariffs within two days and U.S. negotiators also quietly abandoned a proposal to replace the tariffs with quotas to limit steel and aluminum exports from Mexico and Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in the midst of a difficult reelection campaign this year, called Friday’s announcement “pure good news” on a visit to an Ontario steel-making plant, while the country’s leading aluminum suppliers also hailed the outcome.
“We think it’s a great victory for Canada, for the industry and the North American industry as a whole.” Jean Simard, spokesman for the Aluminum Association of Canada told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “It’s everything we’ve always asked for.”
Mr. Trudeau reportedly spoke twice directly with Mr. Trump this week, and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was in Washington this week lobbying the administration and Congress for a deal. Ottawa has said it would have trouble ratifying any new free-trade accord with the tariffs still in place.
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Mr. Trudeau in a statement Friday said Canada’s “dollar-for-dollar” retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods — the “strongest retaliation in the world” — helped produce Mr. Trump’s decision.
“We stood firm and would not back down until we achieved today’s outcome,” Mr. Trudeau said.
Mr. Trump did not elaborate on why he had decided to rescind the tariffs, but he faced strong pressure from lawmakers of both parties to resolve the issue before a vote could be made on the president’s updated NAFTA free-trade agreement, a key administration priority this year. Mr. Trudeau said Friday’s deal allowed the three countries to focus now on passing the proposed U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA).
The U.S. is also involved in an intensifying trade war with China.
In lifting the steel and aluminum tariffs, the U.S. said the three countries have agreed on a new monitoring system to guard against a surge of steel and aluminum imports from countries outside the NAFTA market. Canada will also drop its WTO complaint against the Trump administration.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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