US Imposes 50% Tariffs on $20 Billion in Canadian Goods After Trade Talks Collapse

The United States imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods early on Saturday after last-minute trade negotiations with Ottawa collapsed late Friday.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded by suspending the talks and directing his negotiators to return home. He said Canada would match the new American duties dollar for dollar, with retaliatory tariffs set to take effect on September 8.

The American measures cover about 5 percent of Canadian exports to the United States. Affected products include wine, furniture, dairy, cement, clothing, fishing rods and hockey equipment. These duties sit outside the protections of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement that had shielded most bilateral trade in recent years.

Carney told a news conference on Parliament Hill that last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair and uneconomic. He said the shifts called into question the reliability of any deal. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer countered that Canadian negotiators introduced new demands and walked back earlier commitments, upsetting the balance reached over days of talks.

The breakdown comes after President Donald Trump had paused the original August 19 deadline earlier in the week, saying the sides were close to an agreement. Talks resumed in Washington but failed to produce a final text before the new midnight Eastern deadline.

Canada’s retaliatory list will hit American steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics. Carney said the measures aim to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families and businesses. He later met virtually with provincial and territorial premiers to coordinate the response and discuss further support for affected sectors.

Bilateral goods and services trade between the two countries totaled nearly $900 billion last year. The new tariffs raise the prospect of higher prices for consumers on both sides of the border and add pressure on supply chains that have long treated the Canada-US border as largely frictionless.

No further negotiating sessions are scheduled. Both governments have framed the dispute as a test of whether long-standing commercial integration can survive successive rounds of unilateral trade actions.