Ontario Stops Electricity Hikes After Trump Threatens Double Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum
Trump made the move after Ontario Premier Doug Ford placed 25% tariffs on electricity that flows to three states.
*UPDATE* Ontario Premier Doug Ford backed off the electricity hikes. From The Associated Press:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on Tuesday afternoon that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called him and Ford agreed to remove the surcharge. He said he was confident that the U.S. president would also stand down on his own plans for 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.
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President Donald Trump has ordered Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum since the country added 25% tariffs on electricity to the U.S.
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on “Electricity” coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. This will go into effect TOMORROW MORNING, March 12th. Also, Canada must immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250% to 390% on various U.S. dairy products, which has long been considered outrageous. I will shortly be declaring a National Emergency on Electricity within the threatened area. This will allow the U.S to quickly do what has to be done to alleviate this abusive threat from Canada. If other egregious, long time Tariffs are not likewise dropped by Canada, I will substantially increase, on April 2nd, the Tariffs on Cars coming into the U.S. which will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada. Those cars can easily be made in the USA! Also, Canada pays very little for National Security, relying on the United States for military protection. We are subsidizing Canada to the tune of more than 200 Billion Dollars a year. WHY??? This cannot continue. The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians’ taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that. The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World — And your brilliant anthem, “O Canada,” will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!
Trump added an hour later:
Why would our Country allow another Country to supply us with electricity, even for a small area? Who made these decisions, and why? And can you imagine Canada stooping so low as to use ELECTRICITY, that so affects the life of innocent people, as a bargaining chip and threat? They will pay a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in History Books for many years to come!
The 25% tariffs from Canada will affect cities in upstate New York the most: Buffalo, Ogdensburg, and Rochester.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford also threatened Minnesota and Michigan.
The tariffs don’t appear to affect Arizona, California, Maine, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Dakota, or Vermont.
“I don’t start a tariff war, but we’re going to win this tariff war. If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything—including cut off their energy with a smile on my face, and I’m encouraging every other province to do the same,” said Ford.
Ford declared: “They rely on our energy. They need to feel the pain.”
The tariffs could affect 1.5 million homes and businesses.
“I will not hesitate to increase this charge. If the United States escalates, I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely,” threatened Ford.
Failed Democrat vice president candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz tried to make it a big deal because Orange Man Bad:
But…Walz backtracked a few hours later. From The Associated Press:
In a brief press availability later Monday, Walz acknowledged that Minnesota doesn’t get a lot of electricity from Ontario, but he’s worried about Manitoba following suit.
“So look, even if it were one megawatt, this is totally unnecessary. And the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t impact Donald Trump one bit. It impacts ratepayers in Minnesota. For what? These are our friends,” he said.
Walz said he’s even more worried about the impact on Minnesota if Canadian potash fertilizer gets caught up in the trade war. “If it starts with this, the one that I’m really worried about is potash, when it comes behind it. If they do potash, that’s a big one on agriculture,” he said.
Walz said he discussed these concerns last week when he spoke with the premiers of Ontario and Manitoba. He said they told him the dispute is broader than just their trading relations with Minnesota.
“They were very clear that it’s not Minnesota — we’re huge trading partners.”
Minnesota Power, the main electrical utility serving the part of Minnesota that borders Ontario, gets only a “very small” proportion of its power from the province, company spokesperson Amy Rutledge said.
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Comments
Canada fa, now I get to fo. They are 30 times more dependent on trade with then we are with them. This is not a war they can win
To find the American who will give a dam about Canada should our economy go down you will need to hire a very good detective.
And, less than a day later, the Canadians have also figured out what I just said. This is not a war they can win. Trudeau managed to figure that out somehow, apparently this new retard whose name I can’t remember because he’s really not that important also managed to figure it out.
51st state??
With all the liberals living there, we might have to rename it “Canafornia”.
It’s simple. We take everything but Quebec.
Take alberta, Maybe saskatchewan. Leave the rest. Those two provinces are the only productive ones they have
Yeah, I was just going to write that we already have enough nutbags here, we don’t need Canada’s!
How many mothballed coal plants are available? Are there any located where prevailing wind would send them the exhaust?
Trump can subsidize rates back down using tariff income to ease the burden. I don’t know if he will though or if it can be made net zero.
Ford sounds like Walz’s brother. Playing with electricity is definitely dumb and cruel. What if someone dies as a result. Sleep well, Ford.
Doug Ford’s real brother is Rob Ford. Rob Ford was the knucklehead mayor of Toronto with an alcohol and crack cocaine addiction. He refused to resign but was essentially stripped of his authority. He ended up taking a sabbatical to enter rehab,
It sounds to me like Doug found his brother’s stash and has been imbibing.
What I hadn’t realised is that some of the tariffs whacked on to US produce is astronomical! 300% on US dairy entering Canada! How has that been allowed to happen until now?!?
As it was explained to me, it’s not a tariff on 100% of the transferred goods. The first so-much produce goes into Canada at a very nominal tariff rate, then when the quota is reached, anything beyond that gets hit by the confiscatory tariffs. It’s just a clever and legal way of implementing a quota without implementing a quota.
Sounds like a tariff to me
Which is worse, a tariff or a quota? Hint: the answer is “quota” – essentially an infinite tariff.
Yep thats how i heard too. But the US negotiated auto protections. So the whole deal needs to be assessed together for fairness as both sides had special carveouts that were important to them.
Being in control of your food supply seems to be a big deal. Imagine the chaos in canada if the us supplied a significant portion of their food and they slapped a high tariff on it. Its kind of an intolerable position for canada.
The latest crap propaganda the left is trying to spew to protect Canada is, ‘yeah they have insane tariffs but AKSHUALLY they never kick in because they don’t kick in until after this limit!’
Yeah, they don’t go over BECAUSE OF THE TARIFF. It basically functions as a hard limit for how much you are allowed to export to Canada, and nobody will go over it because its impossible to make money over that limit.
Yet they think claiming that nobody goes over the limit is some kind of ‘own’ against Trump.
Nobody in this country gives a dam about Canada they care that Trump just took out a huge chunk of their savings today.
They care that these are the tariffs TRUMP agreed to in his first term trade agreement with Canada.
They care that Trump appears to be just imposing Tariffs for 19th century economics instead of for trying to get concessions from Canada.
What do you think would be effective with Canada
“WE ARE IMPOSSING MUH TARIFFS!!!!!!51stSTATE!!!!!!!”
Or
“We are simply requesting tariff levels be reciprocal and I would like to publicly sign such an agreement and will be raising tariffs to be exactly equal to what Canada does if it will not do that”
I agree with Trump on nearly everything but when it comes to tariffs
Do you have any idea how dependent the American economy is on other nations servicing our debts?
Trust me there isn’t a single person in Japan who believes strongly in protecting American Social Security or expanding American healthcare spending.
If the economy goes down it will not be Trump alone who gets the blame it will be ALL Republicans who take the blame so yes it will impact the next presidential election.
Danny, none of that happened.
I imagined the stock market plunge today? I do not think I did.
The stock market is the savings of ordinary Americans and it took a big plunge.
A trade war with Canada kills both countries economies and you will need Sherlock Holmes himself to find an American who would be comforted by the fact that the Canadian economy goes down with the American one.
OMG!. Now we are basing our future on the stock market? I’d rather go to Las Vegas and at least enjoy losing. You are wrong about a trade war, Canada would be crushed but the US would carry on just fine.
Please. The stock market was a correction of over valued tech stock based mainly on the AI nonsense.
Did you actually just lose a, checks notes, huge chunk of your savings?
Answer: no
Only the intellectually stunted, or the easily manipulated, believe that just happened.
The real question is which one are you little d?
“Trump appears to be just imposing Tariffs for 19th century economics instead of for trying to get concessions from Canada.”
Meanwhile, Ontario is melting our savings accounts with their Amazing Anti-Trump Laser Death Ray Gun…. wait.
Nah. They conceded.
Dude – you’ve got 46+ months to go. Either load up on Xanax or lay off the news.
I have no idea why assholes feel purity tests are good, or even remotely acceptable in our society.
Keep being an asshole on the internet, just remember very few people appreciate being told if you only agree 95% of the time you aren’t a member of tribe………….stop being an asshole.
The American economy would be destroyed by a tariff regime, unless of course you could find a single Japanese person who wants to service American social security.
Oh look, an asshole on the internet is accusing other people of being assholes on the internet. That’s adorable, troll.
I never said anything about you failing the purity test or needing to join The Borg. Hive minds are for idiots. You clearly do not have a hive mind. But the inability for so many people to talk about Donald Trump without hyperventaling is so beyond my understanding. I have never seen anything like it in my life.
I bet I disagree with Trump more than you do – dead serious. The difference between you and me is I don’t go ape shit over it and worry my bank account is gonna be flushed down the toilet, or that he’s gonna start WW3, or that he makes Adolf Hitler look like Spongebob Squarepants.
You were proven wrong before you even typed your comment because Ontario had already caved. Do not blame me for your inability to reconcile with that.
If you get this worked up about GD politics and the internet, step back from both and get a life. Take it from someone who knows and is much better off for it.
Take the L Danny and put down the shovel.
What you said was
“Dude – you’ve got 46+ months to go. Either load up on Xanax or lay off the news.”
Implying if you are not down for trade wars and tariffs and the economic downturn and stock market crash that comes with it you are a Democrat.
Trump’s first term was good economics, this is just a back to as Milhouse correctly said the 18th century (his history is correct I shouldn’t have said 19th).
Point out were the hell I went ape shit in the post that offended you so much you declared tariffs to be a purity test issue that makes you a Democrat if you aren’t for them.
18th century. By the 19th century people knew better.
Apparently little Douggie didn’t know better.
The great thing is…he does now
Reminds me of a young lady on X a few days ago complaining we need the Dept of Education because our students can’t read, do math, or pass standardized tests.
Wah? I can’t imagine being that clueless.
We should be demanding equal access to their markets as they get to ours. All countries.
That’s what Trump is doing.
I just checked. I don’t see anything with a “Made in Canada” label anywhere in my house.
We don’t need Canada to be a state, because that is just certain to be a permanently blue state. A territory without voting reps in congress or the senate would be okay. Better still would be one yuge national park.
Trump never believed they would ever become a state and no conservative would want a freeloading country for a state. He did it to show how badly they were being governed and how much better off they would be compared to a US state.
No, no, no! You can’t mine or drill a national park.
I wish he would talk about the civil liberties they killed with the Trucker strike. I suspect there is more to this story than tariffs. Rats will be exposed, just like the EU.
I went to school to be an engineer and spent most of my adulthood in the military. So, the complicated machinations of a trade-war are way out of my wheelhouse. My only advice to Trump is that he do a much better job of communicating to the American public about the kinds of tariffs that Canada has levied on the American economy for decades and that there has NEVER been ‘free trade’ with Mexico or Canada. Instead, we’ve always offered both countries exceptionally better terms than they’ve offered us. I saw the Press Secretary start to highlight this exact point in today’s presser. I think that messaging needs to increase, become ubiquitous.
The CV of the incoming Canadian PM is….strange. The guy is NOT a current member of Parliament. It’s shocking a PM can be chosen when they’re not already in Parliament. While he was born in Canada, he’s spent most of his life outside of Canada and holds citizenship in both Ireland and the UK. He’s lived in the UK since around 2013 where he – get this – has served as the Director of the Bank of England until a few years ago. Since his exit from the Bank of England, he’s worked for the UN…in the UK. He’s the poster child for Global Control.
Interesting. Somebody needs to ask the chick who sang the Candian national anthem before the US-Canada hockey game and attempted to massage the words into something akin to “Canada for Canadians only” what she thinks about the incoming PM.
He is very openly running as a globalist and the trade war just might launch him into winning the election.
When the MSM hands you bad dope, don’t smoke it.
Explain what part is wrong
Is it wrong that he openly calls himself a globalist? I think he does
Is it wrong that he is running as a globalist? I think he is
Is it wrong that the conservatives have gone from leading massively to being behind since Trump started saber rattling towards Canada? I think it has.
The American economy tanking would end the Republican Party power.
The market at this point hates the tariff policy.
The electoral cycle is two years, nobody voted for an economic downturn which.
“short term pain for long term gain”
Congressional term is two years
Presidential term is four years
It is short term pain for nothing
It’s no more bizarre than our rule that the Speaker of the House need not even be a member of the House.
In which case he’d have little enough power in the House, and wouldn’t be considered the leader of the entire county. I know what you’re saying, but it’s apples to macadamia nuts. Our speaker is nowhere near as powerful as their PM.
This, exactly. With respect to foundational principles of government, Canada has a tradition of really making it up as they go along, paying not much attention to their constitution. Of course, that creates all kinds of potential pitfalls, like legislatively installing someone as the Executive who has ZERO electoral experience in any capacity…ever, or like stripping basic human rights from political opponents for the very serious crime of – checks notes – parking their trucks. Canada is a mess, and by mess, I mean the progressive ‘ideal’ where citizens lack real agency and are instead governed by well-connected, entitled autocrats.
That the PM (and all ministers) should be members of parliament is a convention, not actually in the constitution. Normally he would be expected to run for a vacant seat almost immediately, but with a general election coming up soon he can wait until then.
By contrast the Australian constitution requires all ministers (including the prime minister) who are not members of parliament to become members within three months of their appointment, or they can no longer serve.
‘Prime Minister’ doesn’t even appear in the Canadian constitution. Have you ever read it? It’s incredibly – laughably – thin. I’m not sure how a country can invest so much authority in a ministerial position that’s not even codified in their primary governing document. Of course, the UK doesn’t even have a primary governing document, so there’s some cultural tradition in that regard.
Press covers: Trump imposes tariff on country
Press doesn’t cover: Why Trump imposed the tariff.
Press covers: Country imposes larger tariff to counter
Press doesn’t cover: The relative ratio of economic impact is trivial
Press covers: Trump imposes massive tariff to counter
Press doesn’t cover: Country caves, admits Trump was right, takes tariffs away.
That other country is abiding by a trade agreement TRUMP proposed to them in his first term.
The reason appears to be “long term pain for short term gain”
Presidential term is 4 years.