White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says reporting indicating U.S. President Donald Trump intends to delay imposing tariffs on Canada until March 1 is “false.”
“I was just with the president in the Oval Office, and I can confirm that tomorrow, the Feb. 1 deadline that President Trump put into place… continues,” she said.
“The president will be implementing tomorrow a 25 per cent tariff on Mexico, 25 per cent tariffs on Canada, and a 10 per cent tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed to distribute into our country which has killed tens of millions of Americans. These are promises made and promises kept by the president.”
This is a breaking news update. A previous version follows below.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s shifting target for hitting Canada and Mexico with import tariffs, appears to be moving again. According to three sources speaking to Reuters, the president is now expected to announce the tariffs would begin March 1, not February 1 as he vowed just yesterday.
Reuters is reporting that the tariff imposition would include a process for the countries to seek specific exemptions for certain imports, but that no decision was final until Trump makes a public announcement.
According to a senior Canadian government source the federal government has yet to receive any official word or confirmation on a March 1 tariff deadline from the Trump administration.
The sources that spoke to Reuters indicated they did not have final details on a tariff rate, which has widely expected to be 25 per cent, but that exemptions would be “few and far between.”
Speaking earlier on Friday in response to Trump’s Thursday assertion that he was ready to hit Canada with tariffs on Saturday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is ready to respond. Regardless of when the imposition occurs, Trudeau said that the country could be in for hard times.
“I won’t sugar coat it. Our nation could be facing difficult times in the coming days and weeks,” Trudeau said Friday.
“I know Canadians might be anxious and worried. I want them to know the federal government, and indeed, all orders of government have their backs,” Trudeau said, speaking ahead of a meeting of with his Canada-U.S. relations council in Toronto.
Even in making these remarks, the prime minister couched what Canada is expecting, stating that his understanding is Trump “is still committed to placing tariffs on Canada starting as early as tomorrow, possibly.”
Amid the conflicting messages from Trump and his pick for commerce secretary Howard Lutnick in recent days, Trudeau said while Canada still does not know precisely what could be coming, “we’re ready with… a purposeful, forceful but reasonable, immediate response.”
The federal government has a three-round retaliation planned, which would start by singling out a small list of American-made consumer products such as Kentucky bourbon and Florida orange juice.
This targeting would be followed by tariffs on a longer list of U.S. goods worth $37 billion, and then if needed, Canada would hit an additional $110 billion in manufacturing and other products with trade action.
Beyond this, the federal government is also planning a potentially pandemic-sized stimulus package to help businesses, but the scale of that relief would depend on the scope of what Trump dishes out.