US Reignites Trade War Against Canada & CDs Are Making a Comeback

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Today, the US is putting more tariffs on Canada, but waited until Bieber performed at the World Cup.

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Just two days ago, the US and Canada were joint hosting the World Cup together in a show of intercontinental unity. Less than 48 hours later, they might be back in a bitter trade war. Yesterday, the Trump administration announced 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods set to go into effect in 30 days. Those include milk and cream, alcohol, and hockey equipment, which the White House says is retaliation for unfair treatment of American goods like cars, dairy, and alcohol. Crucially, some of Canada's biggest exports, like auto, steel, and energy, will be spared, the 50% tariffs. But the renewed threat will certainly reignite tensions and resentment between the US and its neighbor to the north, America's second largest trading partner after Mexico. Now, whenever Trump imposes tariffs, it's important to look at which law he's invoking to do that, since the majority of his tariffs were deemed illegal earlier this year by the Supreme Court. The 50% Canada tariffs are being applied under the obscure Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act introduced during the New Deal. However, this law has never been used before to levy tariffs on a trading partner and almost certainly will be challenged in court again. For now, Canadian leaders seem to be shrugging off the tariff threat, alluding to all the other times Trump has threatened to impose tariffs only to back off at the last second. Canada's Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said, I'm not going to react to that. We've seen this sort of thing before. Still, when there's Canadian smoke, there could be fire.

**Toby Howell** (3:55)
Yeah. One of the reasons they might be shrugging is the fact that the US imported $383 billion of goods from Canada in 2025 These new tariffs would affect approximately $20 billion of those imports. So it's a relatively small slice of the goods that are coming across the border. One reason why you could be scared though, is that these new tariffs also apply to USMCA, which is the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement that Trump actually negotiated in his previous term. Those goods are usually protected from tariffs like this, but this new round escalates that in targets goods under USMCA compliance. So that is why some are pretty nervous about not just what this broadcast to Canada, but to other trading partners.