Canada hits back at the US with $20Bn tariffs on US goods

**Susannah Streeter** (0:01)
The U.S.-Canada trade war intensifies. What do Canadians think?

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (0:06)
I would describe this metaphor as distressing.

**Hannah Malane** (0:08)
Absolutely ridiculous, not necessary.

**Archana Shukla** (0:11)
The word I would choose would be asinine.

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (0:13)
It's simply stupid.

**Ami Daniel** (0:14)
Bringing people together, I would say, on a national scale.

**Susannah Streeter** (0:17)
Trade war, huh? What is it good for? World Business Report from the BBC. Yesterday, we are hearing how Canada is retaliating dollar for dollar, it claims, over the tariff measures announced by Washington on Saturday. We're also trying to get to the bottom of a mystery that has been dictating the global oil price right now. Just how much oil is getting through the Strait of Hormuz?
So let's start with Canada. It has unveiled retaliatory tariffs on hundreds of American imports in the last few hours as their trade war escalates from steel to wood to fish and much more besides. The finance minister François-Philippe Champagne said these would range between 15 and 50% matching US import taxes on Canadian products, dollar for dollar.

**François-Philippe Champagne** (1:15)
Effective September 8, Canada will impose counter tariffs of up to 15, 25 or 50% on 27.6 billion in imports from the United States of America.
For each product, our tariff would match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian good.
Canada's counter tariffs are designed primarily to provide protection for Canadian industry impacted by US tariffs and allow them to compete against US products in the Canadian market.

**Susannah Streeter** (1:50)
Well, the minister also unveiled a multi-billion dollar package of support for businesses hit by US tariffs. Donald Trump has continued his angry rhetoric against his North American neighbour after it walked away from trade negotiations, saying he was considering renaming Lake Ontario Lake America.
Kaitlin Czarkowski is the executive director of the National Aquaculture Association in the US. Hi, Kaitlin. I mean, you're dealing right in seafood products primarily. Is that right? What type of fish and aquaculture products are going to be affected?

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (2:29)
I think that's hard to say right now. In the US, we have a very diverse aquaculture sector.
We have folks that are growing ornamental fish, that are not necessarily going to food products.
We have folks that are growing a wide variety of different food products. So I think it's hard to say right now exactly how the sector will be impacted, just because we do have a lot of different production methods, business models, different markets that we sell to, live market, filet market, there's a lot of varieties.

**Susannah Streeter** (3:02)
But what tariff rates have been named today by the Canadians?

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (3:07)
So we're looking at 25 percent on virtually most aquaculture products and also a lot of wild fishery products.

**Susannah Streeter** (3:17)
That sounds like a big factor, I mean a big number.

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (3:20)
I mean, it's definitely will have an impact on folks. We have very strong relationships with the Canadian sector, the seafood sector, other aquaculture businesses. So we do have folks that will definitely be impacted by this.

**Susannah Streeter** (3:36)
I'm wondering, did you see this coming? I mean, it seems to come as a bit of a shock to everyone when it was first revealed last Friday.

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (3:44)
Yeah, I mean, I think the shock is still being felt through our sector, especially today. Folks are still processing what exactly this will mean for them.
And we're just, I think this is a piece where there are farmers and consumers down the line who will be impacted by this, not just these overall products or overall prices. There are farmers and people at the end of the line.

**Susannah Streeter** (4:10)
Does your industry resent being dragged into a dispute like this? I mean, sometimes a lot of industry people say to me, we feel like we're pawns in a political game.

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (4:21)
I think it can definitely feel like that. It's hard to generalise in our sector because oftentimes tariffs across the board can be a double-edged sword for us because there are so many dynamics in seafood trade. We talk about seafood trade deficit and all of those things. But I think overall, there's definitely a feeling that we can be or may be used as pawns and we don't have a lot of ability to communicate to leaders about the impacts.

**Susannah Streeter** (4:48)
Now, you love being in government, no? I mean, others are.

**François-Philippe Champagne** (4:51)
Yes. What do you say to them?

**Kaitlin Czarkowski** (4:54)
I think we're really just communicating the impacts this has on their constituents, on the farmers, on their livelihoods, and also on consumers and their access to healthy seafood.