Ontario’s Prime Minister Doug Ford, warns that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, could choose to “take out the United States carpet” by opening the trade agreement that his administration negotiated with Canada during his first term.
He said Ottawa needs to prepare for this to happen.
Ford made the comments after the ministers and the country’s prime minister Mark Carney gathered privately for the first time since Trump intensified his commercial war by hitting Canada with a base rate of 35 percent last week.
The new tariff, which entered into force on Friday after the two countries did not reach a deadline on August 1 to ensure a new commercial agreement, is applied only to goods not covered by the United States and Mexico of Canada’s agreement on free trade, better known as Cusma.
Ford said Trump will probably not expect the scheduled review of the agreement next year.
“He is not waiting until 2026. At any time, President Trump is not that he even follows the rules, he can take the carpet from under us in Cusma tomorrow with a firm,” Ford told Queen’s Park journalists in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon while requested a quick action to reinforce the economy.
“So we are prepared. I think he will arrive in November. He will come to us with double barrels, so it is better to be ready and throw everything and the sink of the kitchen in this.”
‘They understand strength, not weakness’: Ford
Ontario disagrees with Saskatchewan about Canada’s response to the growing commercial war. Ford has asked for immediate reprisals, while Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is urging Ottawa to reduce his retaliation rates.
“Perhaps it is time for Canada to not even add additional counter-to-to-open in this space, but even to consider eliminating some of the counter-tarifas that are harmful to Canadian companies and the companies of Saskatchewan today,” MOE said during an early radio interview on Wednesday, and added that the country is currently “protected” to a large extent under the Cusma trade pact.
A user on Tiktok asked us: why don’t the United States-Mexico (Cusma) agreement of Canada be maintained? Katie Simpson from CBC was live, taking her questions about the United Canadian trade.
Before the meeting with Carney, Ford said he is frustrated by the impacts of the high US tariffs on the economy of his province and called the retaliation rates again.
“You cannot have tariffs on one side and not in the other. I still maintain what I say: dollar per dollar, rate for the rate. They understand strength, not the weakness, and we should never turn around and be weak,” Ford told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday in Thornhill, Ont.
Ford said he told Carney and the prime ministers that if Ottawa chooses not to walk the tariffs in his response, the threshold in which the steel products are subject to rates must be reduced.
“If people are worried about returning the setback, well, then there is the other alternative. Lower the quota for companies. When they enter, they receive rates immediately,” Ford said after the meeting with Carney.
Moe said his province is working to protect industries that are being affected by tariffs, including the steel sector.
“What we have done is to achieve a significant amount, 10 years, in reality, of Crown’s acquisition to support the steel industries here in Saskatchewan,” he said.
Moe gave Carney credit for the efforts of his government to strengthen commercial ties with other countries, including Mexico, particularly while Canada remains subject to oil tariffs and Canola meals of China.
When he was asked to explain why his government ended up putting the American liquor on the shelves and returning to its standard acquisition processes, MOE said the government already prioritizes Saskatchewan companies.
“We need to reach that space in a more solid way with our largest commercial partner, the United States of America, and someone will have to take the first steps,” he said, noting that Alberta has also changed his policies.
Ford wants to cut interest rates
Alberta’s prime minister’s office, Danielle Smith, said he would not issue any statement before the meeting.
Ford also requested large industrial projects that could lift national morals and use Canadian steel, something in
The scale of building “an aircraft carrier.”
He asked Ottawa to reduce taxes and said the Bank of Canada should reduce its interest rate.
“We have to make the governor of the Bank of Canada decrease those damn interest rates of 2.75,” he said. “Brink them. Build trust.”
“Let’s work together to get rid of HST in housing buyers, and not just the first (time). Let’s stimulate the market and do the same if the federal government does.”
Ford also said Wednesday that he had a “good conversation” with the United States Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, on Tuesday that he was “positive”, and believes that “the prime minister is doing everything in his power to obtain a fair trade agreement with the United States”
Carney, who did not make himself available to Wednesday in the media, said Tuesday at a press conference in BC that he has not talked to Trump in recent days, but he would talk to him “when it makes sense.”
The prime minister added that approximately 85 percent trade with the US.
The specific rates of the sector, such as the 50 percent duty on steel, aluminum and copper, remain in place.
Carney also suggested that he can lift the buttresses of the buttresses if that helps Canada in the ongoing commercial dispute.
“We observe what we can do for our industry that is more effective. In some cases, that will be to eliminate tariffs,” he said Tuesday.
With the meeting of cabinet ministers with the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, Power & Politics listening to Juan Carlos Baker, former commercial negotiator of Cusma and former Vice Minister of International Trade in Mexico about the relationship between the two countries.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, and Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne were in Mexico City on Wednesday, part of a two-day mission to meet with Mexican officials and businesses in commerce.
Opposition conservatives are raising funds on Carney’s response to the growing commercial war.
“He made his entire campaign in elbows,” said a Tory fund collection email on Wednesday. “But their elbows fell faster than temperatures in a Canadian winter, while Trump put rates.”
