Hadriana Lowenkron and Jeff Mason
Bloomberg News (TNS)
President Donald Trump floated hitting goods imported from the European Union with fresh tariffs or even cutting off some trade if he determined that a push to make Canada a potential associate of the bloc was harmful to the U.S.
“If they do that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things,” Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked about the proposal.
“If Europe does that with a bad intention — if it’s a good intention, that’s fine — if it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe,” he added.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed Canada becoming the first associate member of the European Union, saying she would like to work with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the idea. She offered the invitation during her state of the union address in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday, with Carney in attendance.
Responding to Trump’s comments, European Commission spokesman Olof Gill said the proposed E.U.-Canada partnership was “not against anyone else,” pointing to Ursula von der Leyen’s European Parliament speech.
“As our President made clear yesterday, the proposed strengthening of our partnership with Canada is not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” he said in a statement.
Carney’s speech
Trump’s comments risk further inflaming a simmering trade war between the U.S. and Canada, two longtime allies whose economies are closely linked. After trade talks collapsed last month, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion of goods imported from Canada, and Carney retaliated with roughly equal levies on U.S.-made products.
In an address to the European Parliament on Thursday, Carney returned to many of the themes in his famous speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier in the year. Some nations are using trade and supply chains as weapons of pressure and coercion, he said, while global institutions have been weakened.
Countries that share values must work together more closely, the prime minister added. “This combination is a ferocious storm. A single tree will come down in it. A forest will not.”
Asked later at a news conference about Trump’s remarks, Carney said: “No one is going to dictate our culture or with whom we can strike agreements internationally.”
The U.S. president on Wednesday slapped yet another escalation on the U.S.’s northern neighbor by making good on a threat to restrict Canadian goods from federal government purchases.
Canada’s government has made clear it is eager to boost economic ties with the rest of the world, including the E.U., in a multi-year strategic shift to reorient trade flows more to the east and west, rather than being primarily focused southbound toward the U.S.
Yet there is much uncertainty over the offer to make the country an “associate member” of the E.U., including what that would entail. Negotiations could also take years.
And the move, as Trump’s comments indicate, could draw blowback from the U.S., which Carney has said sought greater input over Ottawa’s trade deals with other economies.
Trump over the weekend had expressed optimism about resolving the trade fight between the U.S. and its northern neighbor, saying he saw a deal coming “fairly soon,” even as he offered no details on any resumption of formal talks between the two countries. It’s unclear what legal authority Trump would use to impose his fresh threat of penalties.
“I think it’s laughable,” Trump said Wednesday of the E.U.’s invite to Canada. “Canada has been a terrible trade partner,” he added.
—With assistance from Laura Curtis, Suzanne Lynch and Derek Decloet.
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Tags: Canada, Canada tariffs, economy, Europe, european union, inflation, Small Business, tariffs, trade, trump
