(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s provincial premiers are helping to assemble a list of possible retaliatory measures if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on a threat to apply 25% tariffs against all goods the US imports from its northern neighbor.
“We’re going to put our list together, and I’m sure the other provinces will as well,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters. He added: “Depending how far this goes, we will go to the extent of cutting off their energy, going down to Michigan, going down to New York state, and over to Wisconsin.”
Canada is a major exporter of oil, gas and other energy resources to the US.
“We can’t sit back and roll over. We just won’t as a country,” said Ford, who leads Canada’s most populous province.
Provincial leaders “offered strong support for a robust Canadian response,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at a news conference Wednesday. But when asked about Ford’s comments, Freeland said only that premiers gave a number of ideas for pushing back against the tariffs, and that some of them mentioned critical minerals and metals produced in their provinces that are exported to the US.
Trump threatened 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico last month, saying he would bring them in if those countries failed to take stronger action against the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the US.
The amount of fentanyl and the number of migrants intercepted while moving into the US from Canada is a tiny fraction of the numbers coming from Mexico, according to the US government’s own data. Still, Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he will soon unveil a plan for stronger border protection.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.