Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies
BY JOSH BOAK, ROB GILLIES AND MICHELLE PRICE
Updated 12:16 PM EDT, March 11, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will double his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% for Canada, escalating a trade war with the United States’ northern neighbor and showing an indifference to recent stock market turmoil and rising recession risks.
Trump said on social media that the increase of the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday is a response to the price increases that the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to 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,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.
After a brutal stock market selloff on Monday and further jitters Tuesday, Trump faces increased pressure to show he has a legitimate plan to grow the economy instead of perhaps pushing it into a recession. But so far the president is doubling down on the tariffs he talked up repeatedly during the 2024 campaign and throwing a once stable economy into utter turmoil as investors expected him to lead with deregulation and tax cuts instead of colossal tax hikes.
The U.S. president has given a variety of explanations for his antagonism of Canada, saying that his separate 25% tariffs are about fentanyl smuggling and voicing objections to Canada putting high taxes on dairy imports that penalize U.S. farmers. But he continued to call for Canada to become part of the United States as a solution, a form of taunting that has infuriated Canadian leaders.
“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump posted on Tuesday. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, after responding to Trump by raising electricity prices, said Tuesday on MSNBC that the U.S. people and its business leaders needed to speak up against the “chaos” caused by Trump’s launching of a trade war.
“If we go into a recession it’s self made by one person. It’s called President Trump’s recession,” Ford said. “It shouldn’t be this way. We should be booming, both countries.”
The U.S. president condemned the use of electricity “as a bargaining chip and threat,” saying in a separate social media post on Tuesday that Canada “will pay a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in History Books for many years to come!”
Trump was set to deliver a Tuesday afternoon address to the Business Roundtable, a trade association of CEOs that during the 2024 campaign he wooed with the promise of lower corporate tax rates for domestic manufacturers. But his tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, steel, aluminum — with plans for more to possibly come on Europe, Brazil, South Korea, pharmaceutical drugs, copper, lumber and computer chips — would amount to a massive tax hike.