TEHRAN, August 11 - US President Donald Trump has threatened Canada with auto tariffs if Washington and Ottawa cannot reach a trade agreement.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - In what appears to be about efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada, Trump tweeted Friday that a deal with Mexico City is “coming along nicely,” but expressed dissatisfaction with Canada.
On March 8, Trump said that he was moving to impose a 25-percent tariff on steel imports and a 10-percent tariff on aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico and the EU, angering the US' top allies.
Bilateral ties between the US and Canada plunged to their lowest in decades and reached new depths at the 44th G7 summit, held in La Malbaie, Quebec, in June, when Trump abruptly rejected the joint statement and insulted his Canadian host, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Earlier, Trudeau had insisted in a press briefing that Trump's decision to invoke national security to justify US tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum was "insulting" to Canadian veterans who had stood by their US allies in conflicts dating back to World War I.
Later in June, Canada launched a retaliatory trade war against the US by introducing fresh punitive tariffs on American summertime essentials.
Canada’s tariffs deliberately targeted more than 250 American products from those US states where Trump’s Republican Party is fighting hard to hold Congressional seats in the November midterm elections.
Mexico also introduced tariffs on goods and products imported from the United States to respond to Trump’s duties on metals.
A list by the Mexican economy ministry published in the government’s official gazette included a 20 percent tariff on US pork legs and shoulders, apples and potatoes and 20 to 25 percent duties on types of cheeses and bourbon.
Canada and Mexico are among the major providers of steel to the US, which is the world's largest steel importer. The country's total steel imports surpassed $29 billion last year.
Source: Presstv
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