Canada matches US tariffs dollar for dollar on $20 billion of goods

Canada will put 15, 25 and 50 percent tariffs on about 700 American products from 8 September, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said on Tuesday. The duties cover C$27.6 billion, or about $20 billion, of US goods and are designed to match, dollar for dollar, the 50 percent US tariffs that took effect on 22 August after talks collapsed.

A Canadian official briefed reporters on the rate split. Steel, aluminium, furniture and clothing face 50 percent. Cheese, appliances and some seafood face 25 percent. Electronics and tools face 15 percent. The list runs from hockey sticks and smoked lobster to toilet paper and ornamental fish. Only goods that originate in the United States are in scope.

Prime Minister Mark Carney had promised a dollar-for-dollar reply on Saturday, hours after Washington’s new duties landed on roughly $20 billion of Canadian exports. “We got attacked,” Carney said then. Champagne told the Tuesday briefing that Canada remained “masters of our own home.”

How the talks broke

Negotiators spent three days last week trying to stop the US list. Each side later said the other had added last-minute demands it could not accept. The new American tariffs sit on top of earlier Section 232 metals duties and do not give Canadian goods the shelter they had under the three-country trade deal that has covered most northbound exports for the past 18 months.

On Monday Trump said 50 percent tariffs on Canadian autos, steel and aluminium would take effect on 1 January 2027. That date is separate from the August list Canada is now matching. The White House and the US Trade Representative did not immediately answer Reuters on Tuesday.

The C$7.5 billion cushion

Ottawa also announced a C$7.5 billion package for firms and workers hit by the US duties. The Business Development Bank of Canada will offer interest-free loans of C$2.5 million to C$5 million. The government said the new money sits on top of nearly C$25 billion already spent since the first round of US tariffs. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said the product list also aims at particular US states.

The design is familiar from earlier Canada-US fights: tax the goods that matter in swing districts, protect the firms that employ voters at home, and keep the legal door open for a later deal. What is new is the size of the matched slice. Five percent of Canadian exports to the United States were singled out this time. Carney chose to hit an equal dollar amount rather than an equal share of US output.

Steel and aluminium now carry 50 percent on both sides of the border. That rate will show up in construction bids, auto parts and appliance prices before it shows up in a trade-balance table. Dairy and seafood sit at 25 percent. Canadian processors that buy US inputs will pay more even as Canadian exporters of those same categories lose US shelves.

The tariffs start on 8 September. Importers have two weeks to pull forward cargo or reroute it. After that date the price of an American dishwasher, a steel coil or a cotton shirt in a Canadian warehouse will include the new line item. Whether Washington answers with a third list is the next fact to watch, not the speeches in Ottawa.