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U.S. President Donald Trump issued numerous threats aimed at Ontario and Canada on Tuesday after the province imposed a surcharge on electricity flowing south of the border.
In a series of meandering posts to his Truth Social platform, Trump said Ontario “will pay a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in History Books for many years to come!”
He went on to accuse Canada of “stooping so low as to use ELECTRICITY, that so affects the life of innocent people, as a bargaining chip and threat” in the trade war his administration started.
Those comments came shortly after an earlier post in which Trump said he’ll double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum starting Wednesday in response to Ontario’s electricity levy.
“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,” Trump wrote.
He also said he would declare a “National Emergency on Electricity” within the American regions impacted by Ontario’s electricity levity, presumably referring to New York, Michigan and Minnesota — three states that purchase power from the province.
Trump then launched into a lengthy rant about the U.S. annexing Canada to make it “our cherished Fifty First State.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford made the rounds on U.S. cable news Tuesday, saying his province’s surcharge on electricity sold in the U.S. will remain in place until President Donald Trump gets rid of the tariffs completely.
On Monday, Premier Doug Ford announced the province would impose a 25 per cent surcharge on Ontario-generated electricity purchased by American states.
Ontario provides power to roughly 1.5 million U.S.-based customers. The province estimates the levy will generate up to $400,000 per day, depending on the season. That money will be used to reduce power bills for ratepayers in Ontario, according to the Ministry of Energy.
Ontario will ‘respond appropriately,’ Ford says
Ford addressed Trump’s latest threats during a series of interviews with American cable news programs Tuesday morning.
“I will respond appropriately on the electricity, stay tuned,” he told MSNBC.
Ford also said increased tariffs will only hurt U.S. businesses, as a majority of the country’s aluminum is imported from Canada, especially Quebec.
“There was an unprovoked attack on Canada, on families, on jobs, on businesses. For what reason? You know, the market is speaking loud and clear. Consumer confidence is down. The market’s tumbling. You know, there’s going to be plants closed in the U.S., assembly plants will shut down because they won’t have the aluminum or they’ll be paying twice, three times as much,” he said in an interview with CNN.
“This is absolute chaos created by one person and that’s Donald Trump, not the American people,” he said.
CBC’s Lorenda Reddekopp breaks down how Doug Ford’s plan to impose a levy on electricity could affect the U.S.
Ford also repeated his threat to entirely cut off the flow of electricity from Ontario to the U.S., a process that would likely require the province to significantly ramp down its own power generation.
“Is it a tool in our toolkit? One hundred per cent. And as he continues to hurt Canadian families and Ontario families, I won’t hesitate to do that. That is the last thing I want to do,” he told CNBC.
Ford added that he is scheduled to speak to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later Tuesday.
“We’ll be having a good discussion, I hope. But we can’t be going tit for tat, back and forth. We need to sit down at the table, get our differences out and let’s move on,” he said. “Protectionism does not work. We are the two closest allies in the world. As we are duking it out, going back and forth, China is laughing.”
Trump initiated a trade war against Canada shortly after taking office, despite a longstanding economic, cultural and military alliance between the neighbouring nations. His administration has said it will impose 25 per cent tariffs on most Canadian goods and 10 per cent on energy, while offering shifting justifications for doing so.
Amid intensely negative stock market reaction, Trump temporarily paused implementation of the tariffs on Canadian exports “compliant” with the terms of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) until April 2.
The Trump administration’s policy targeting Canadian goods comes despite CUSMA being a free trade agreement that Trump himself spearheaded and, a few years ago, called “the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA.”
Both Ontario and the federal government have said they will move ahead with retaliatory measures until the tariffs are entirely off the table.
In addition to the surcharge, Ontario has taken American booze off LCBO shelves and banned U.S. companies from government procurement contracts, while the federal government has imposed an initial round of retaliatory tariffs on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods.
Ford has also urged other provinces — in particular Alberta, which sends more than four million barrels of oil per day south of the border, and Saskatchewan, which provides potash critical to U.S. agriculture — to look at imposing export taxes on those commodities.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe have thus far refused to consider the move.
Source: cbc
