Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that his country will not back down from a fight against the trade war initiated by US President Donald Trump.
Trudeau told a press conference on Tuesday that there is no justification for the trade war Canada and the US are entangled in and Canada will challenge Trump’s moves, Xinhua news agency reported. “So today, the US launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend,” said the Canadian PM, who repeated Canada’s retaliation.
The Canadian government hit back with an initial 30 billion Canadian dollars ($21 billion) in tariffs on US goods, with the promise to add another 125 billion Canadian dollars more in 21 days’ time. Trudeau vowed that American families, and Trump, will soon feel how damaging the tariffs are.
The moment U.S. tariffs came into effect this morning, so did the Canadian response.
Canada will be implementing 25% tariffs against $155 billion of American products.
Starting with $30 billion worth of goods immediately, and the remaining $125 billion in 21 days’ time.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) March 4, 2025
Today, the United States launched a trade war against Canada: their closest partner and ally — their closest friend.
Canadians are reasonable, but we will not back down from a fight.
Not when our country is at stake.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) March 4, 2025
Justin Trudeau is lying.
All Canada has to do is remove ALL Canadian trade tariffs on the United States and President Trump will remove US tariffs on Canada.
That’s what true free trade is all about! pic.twitter.com/897xuNhsOi
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) March 4, 2025
Speaking to the camera, Trudeau addressed Trump directly saying that “This is a very dumb thing to do”. Trudeau accused Trump of wanting to “see a complete collapse of the Canadian economy”, believing that’s the reason Trump is moving ahead so aggressively. “Because that will make it easier to annex us, is the second part of his thought,” said Trudeau, “That is never going to happen.” He called the President’s claims the tariffs are needed because of fentanyl seeping across the border from Canada to the US “unjustified and false excuse”.
Canadian officials made a month-long diplomatic push to avoid tariffs and has responded to Trump’s concerns about the border. Canada named a new “fentanyl czar” and listed Mexican cartels as terrorist groups.
On February 1, Trump signed an executive order to impose a 25 per cent tariff on goods imported from Mexico and Canada, with a 10 per cent tariff increase specifically for Canadian energy products.
On February 3, Trump announced that the additional tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada would be deferred for one month, allowing more time for negotiations. Trump said on Monday that 25 per cent tariffs on Mexico and Canada will take effect on Tuesday, March 4.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by FPJ’s editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)
