Canada PM says he is disappointed as Trump orders tariff hike
(Reuters) -Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was disappointed after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to raise tariffs on Canadian goods to 35% from 25% on products outside the scope of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
The move, which Washington linked in part to what it said was Canada's failure to stop fentanyl smuggling, is the latest salvo in Trump's months-long tariff war initiated soon after taking power.
US duties and tariffs will heavily affect lumber, steel, aluminum, and automobiles, Carney said in a post on X, vowing action to protect Canadian jobs, buy its goods, invest in industrial competitiveness and diversify export markets.
To justify its step, the U.S. has cited the cross-border flow of fentanyl, even though Canada accounts for just 1% of U.S. fentanyl imports and has been working intensively to further reduce the volumes, Carney added.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
37 minutes ago
- The Star
Mali ex-prime minister to stand trial over social media post, lawyer says
BAMAKO (Reuters) -A Malian court has detained and charged former Prime Minister Moussa Mara over a social media post criticising shrinking democratic space under military rule in the West African nation, his lawyer said late Friday. Mara is one of few public figures in the country who has been willing to openly question moves taken this year to dissolve political parties and grant the military government, led by Assimi Goita, a five-year mandate without elections. Last month, authorities formally approved Goita's five-year term and said it could be renewed as many times as necessary as Mali struggles to respond to a long-running jihadist insurgency. Goita assumed power after military coups in 2020 and 2021. Mara had been summoned several times for questioning this month over a social media post dated July 4 expressing solidarity with government critics who have been jailed. On July 21, his lawyer, Mountaga Tall, posted on social media site X that Mara had been barred from boarding a flight to Senegal to participate in a regional conference on peace and security. On Friday, Mara was summoned by a judicial cybercrimes unit, and a prosecutor charged him with offences including undermining the credibility of the state and spreading false information, Tall said in a statement. Mara's trial has been scheduled for September 29, Tall said. A government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The case against Mara comes amid worsening insecurity in Mali. The past few months have seen a surge of deadly attacks by Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-linked group that also operates in Burkina Faso and Niger. Analysts say the group's battlefield tactics have grown increasingly sophisticated and that it has amassed substantial resources through raids on military posts, cattle rustling, hijacking of goods, kidnappings and taxes on local communities. On Friday, the group said it had ambushed a convoy of Malian soldiers and Russian mercenaries in the Tenenkou locality in central Mali. Mali's army confirmed the ambush in a statement on X. Neither statement gave a death toll. (Reporting by Mali newsroomWriting by Robbie Corey-Boulet; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Free Malaysia Today
39 minutes ago
- Free Malaysia Today
Proposed Canada-US trade deal could still be weeks away
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney said US tariffs have upended decades-old trading and security ties. (AP pic) OTTAWA : A proposed US-Canada trade deal could still be weeks away, Ottawa's chief negotiator said on Friday, a day after US President Donald Trump imposed higher tariffs on imports from Canada. Trump – who had set an Aug 1 deadline for an agreement – signed an executive order increasing tariffs on Canadian goods to 35% from 25% on all products not covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Prime minister Mark Carney insisted on the talks to reset bilateral relations, saying Trump's tariffs have upended decades-old trading and security ties. The negotiations, though, have so far produced little. Although over 90% of Canadian exports enter the US without duties, the tariffs apply to crucial sectors such as steel, aluminum and automobiles. Federal cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc, in charge of US trade relations, said Canada had always made clear it would only accept a good deal. 'At the end of business yesterday that agreement was not yet in sight … there remain sectors the Americans are targeting which are essential for the Canadian economy,' he told public broadcaster Radio-Canada. 'Over the coming weeks we will … continue talks with the Americans in an attempt to find a deal that would put us in a better position.' Separately, LeBlanc told reporters in Washington that he would speak to US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick next week and hoped to meet him in August. 'The doors aren't closed, the doors are open, the conversations are ongoing,' he said. The White House cited what it said was Canada's failure to stop fentanyl smuggling and address US concerns about trade barriers. Washington is also unhappy about Canada's refusal to drop its own countermeasures, which were first imposed by former prime minister Justin Trudeau. He resigned in March to be replaced by Carney, who won an April election promising to stand up to Trump. In June, Carney had threatened to ramp up counter tariffs in July unless there was progress on the deal. A statement he issued on Friday did not mention retaliation. Brian Clow, who was in charge of US relations inside Trudeau's office for several years, noted Trump had announced deals with nations that declined to impose counter tariffs. 'Unfortunately, Canada stands on its own right now, along with China, because many other countries … refused to stand up to this president,' he said by phone. 'So I'm not sure that further retaliation is the way to go.' Carney's talk about standing up to Trump cannot hide the divisions between those advocating for a hard line and those who worry about the potential economic damage. Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada lobby group, said Canada was struggling at the talks and urged a new approach. 'As someone said to me, Canada is playing chess, but there's nobody playing chess with it at the other end,' he said. 'We've got to make sure that we are thinking through: 'What have we been doing and what do we need to do?',' he told CBC News. 'We've got to move with greater urgency, because our own economy is very fragile.'
The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Trump fires US labor official over data and gets earlier than expected chance to reshape Fed
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Friday fired a top Labor Department official on the heels of a market-shocking weak scorecard of the U.S. job market, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the figures and adding to already growing concerns about the quality of economic data published by the federal government. In a second surprise economic policy development, the door for Trump to make an imprint on a Federal Reserve with which he clashes almost daily for not lowering interest rates opened much earlier than anticipated when Fed Governor Adriana Kugler unexpectedly announced her resignation on Friday afternoon. The two developments further rattled a stock market already reeling from his latest barrage of tariff announcements and the weak jobs data. The benchmark S&P 500 Index sank 1.6% in its largest daily drop in more than two months. Trump accused Erika McEntarfer, appointed by former President Joe Biden, of faking the jobs numbers. There is no evidence to back Trump's claims of data manipulation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the statistical agency that compiles the closely watched employment report as well as consumer and producer price data. A representative for the BLS did not respond to a request for comment. Friday began with BLS reporting the U.S. economy created only 73,000 jobs in July, but more stunning were net downward revisions showing 258,000 fewer jobs had been created in May and June than previously reported. "We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. DATA CONCERNS A Trump administration official who requested anonymity said that while all economic data is noisy, the White House has been dissatisfied with how large the revisions have been in the recent data and issues with lower survey responses. The problem started during COVID and has not been addressed in the years since. "There are these underlying problems that have been festering here for years now that have not been rectified," the person said. "The markets and companies and the government need accurate data, and like, we just weren't getting that," the official said. The BLS has already reduced the sample collection for consumer price data as well as the producer price report, citing resource constraints. The government surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies, representing approximately 631,000 individual worksites for the employment report. The response rate has declined from 80.3% in October 2020 to about 67.1% in July, BLS data shows. A Reuters poll last month found 89 of 100 top policy experts had at least some worries about the quality of U.S. economic data, with most also concerned that authorities are not addressing the issue urgently enough. In addition to the concerns over job market data, headcount reductions at BLS have resulted in it scaling back the scope of data collection for the Consumer Price Index, one of the most important gauges of U.S. inflation, watched by investors and policymakers worldwide. Trump's move fed into concerns that politics may influence data collection and publication. "Politicizing economic statistics is a self-defeating act," said Michael Madowitz, principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute's Roosevelt Forward. "Credibility is far easier to lose than rebuild, and the credibility of America's economic data is the foundation on which we've built the strongest economy in the world. Blinding the public about the state of the economy has a long track record, and it never ends well." FED CHANGE SOONER THAN EXPECTED Meanwhile, Kugler's surprise decision to leave the Fed at the end of next week presents Trump an earlier-than-expected opportunity to install a potential successor to Fed Chair Jerome Powell on the central bank's Board of Governors. Trump has threatened to fire Powell repeatedly because the Fed chief has overseen a policymaking body that has not cut interest rates as Trump has demanded. Powell's term expires next May, although he could remain on the Fed board until January 31, 2028, if he chooses. Trump will now get to select a Fed governor to replace Kugler and finish out her term, which expires on January 31, 2026. A governor filling an unexpired term may then be reappointed to a full 14-year term. Some speculation has centered on the idea Trump might pick a potential future chair to fill that slot as a holding place. Leading candidates for the next Fed chair include Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh and Fed Governor Chris Waller, a Trump appointee who this week dissented with the central bank's decision to keep rates on hold, saying he preferred to start lowering them now. Trump, as he was leaving the White House to spend the weekend at his Bedminster, New Jersey, estate, said he was happy to have the open slot to fill. "I would not read any political motivation into what [Kugler is] doing, although the consequence of what she's doing is she's calling Trump's bluff,"said Derek Tang, an analyst at LH Meyer, a research firm. "She's putting the ball in his court and saying, look, you're putting so much pressure on the Fed, and you want some control over nominees, well, here's a slot." (Additional reporting by Jasper Ward and Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Daniel Burns; Editing by Chris Reese and Nia Williams and Anna Driver)
