"Canada, what they've done to our dairy farm workers, it's a disgrace", Trump said.
The United States will impose preliminary anti-subsidy duties averaging 20 percent on imports of Canadian softwood lumber, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday, escalating a long-running trade dispute between the two neighbors. Those tariffs are high - 299% on butter, 245% on cheeses such as parmesan, 216% on powdered buttermilk and 295% on cream.
The forest sector in B.C.is a free and fair trader, Horgan said, and past trade disputes have ruled in Canada's favour after lengthy and expensive court cases, which can be avoided.
"Any two countries are going to have issues that will be irritants to the relationship".
Trump appeared confident that countries exporting to the United States would quickly learn his motives for trade policy.
"The Trump administration has been much more focused on enforcement than had been true previously", he said.
So what is the dispute about, and what is the impact of the decision likely to be?
A pile of cut logs sit on Spanish Banks in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on April 26, 2006.
Trump team defends latest trade dispute with Canada
USA industry groups and voters pressed elected officials to avoid retaliation that would have especially hurt their own districts. Liberal Party and NDP battle in the election campaign about the influence of US lumber interests in their campaigns.
USA dairy associations have called the practices unfair and asked for help from the Trump administration.
"The reason we're putting it on is Canada's forests are owned by the various provinces, and the provinces charge very discounted, we believe, very subsidized prices to the lumbermen, which in turn lets them get a subsidized low price coming into the USA", he continued. A spokesperson for Resolute FP Canada, one of the five firms singled out by the tariffs, said that the taxes would ultimately hurt USA consumers and the housing sector while enriching U.S. Carr said that tariffs on Canadian wood will jack up the price of new homes and jeopardize thousands of homebuilding jobs.
Softwood lumber, which comes from pine, fir and spruce trees, is used in home construction.
US President Donald Trump intensified a trade dispute with Canada, slapping tariffs of up to 24% on imported softwood lumber in a move that drew swift criticism from the Canadian government, which vowed to sue if needed.
After a friendly meeting in Washington earlier this year with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump said he was mostly happy with Canadian trade and just wanted to make some tweaks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Ross continued to lash out at NAFTA, saying "This is not our idea of a properly functioning Free Trade Agreement". Canadian loggers argue that the US can't meet demand from the construction industry on its own. They said the measure would cost jobs on both sides of the border, and cause a rise in US house prices. The practice has undercut US mills, which normally get lumber from trees grown on private land.
Besides the cost of raw materials going up for the construction industry, the tariffs could similarly hurt US consumers if Canada decides to tax American goods in turn, which could lead to unemployment numbers rising. Fun!
However, the duties were below the expectations of some analysts. "I think a lot of people were bracing for a higher duty".
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