Trump imposes new tariffs on dozens of countries, including Canada

Open this photo in gallery:Cargo shipping containers on ships at the Port of Los Angeles.PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/Getty ImagesU.S. President Donald Trump will impose tariffs of between 10 and 12.5 per cent on dozens of countries Friday in his latest effort to maintain a baseline levy on nearly all of America’s trading partners.Canada will face a tariff of 10 per cent with exemptions for goods traded under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as well as for all oil and gas, meaning most Canadian and Mexican goods will not be subject to the levy.The latest round of tariffs is being imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, ostensibly because the U.S. says other countries are not taking sufficient action to crack down on goods produced by forced labour.The levies represent Mr. Trump’s latest attempt to fulfill his 2024 campaign promise of instituting across-the-board tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturers from foreign imports. They replace a temporary 10-per-cent tariff Mr. Trump put in place in February after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his attempt to use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to institute a global baseline tariff. The court ruled that Mr. Trump did not have the power to implement the tariffs under that law.The Section 301 tariffs are separate from a suite of sectoral tariffs Mr. Trump imposed last year on autos, steel and aluminum that have hit Canada and Mexico particularly hard. They were imposed under a separate authority, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.The new tariffs are also separate from another suite of levies the Trump administration announced earlier this week, which will see 50-per-cent tariffs imposed starting Aug. 19 on US$20-billion worth of Canadian products – from alcohol to dairy to electronics. Those tariffs, under Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, are meant to punish Canada for retaliating against Mr. Trump’s other tariffs.Both the Section 232 and Section 338 tariffs apply to goods traded under USMCA, unlike the Section 301 tariffs.