Canada ready for Trump tariff fight as country's leaders threaten retaliation: 'dollar-for-dollar'

OTTAWA — On his first day of office as the 47th President, Donald Trump put Canadian leaders in panic mode that evening while signing executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in the presence of journalists.

Responding to reporters’ questions, Trump reiterated his plan to slap a 25% tariff on both Mexico and Canada “because they’re allowing vast numbers of people… and fentanyl to come in,” and said, “I think we’ll do it on Feb. 1.”

Trump signed the executive order called the America First Trade Policy that includes a provision to “assess the unlawful migration and fentanyl flows” from Canada, Mexico and China “and recommend appropriate trade and national security measures to resolve that emergency” by April 1.

Whether the tariffs come next week or in the spring, Canadian leaders are ready to retaliate.

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“Two things will happen,” outgoing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday about Trump’s tariff threat. 

“One, Canada will have a strong, robust response,” he said. “And two, prices for American consumers on just about everything will go up, and we don’t think he wants that.”

Trudeau, who leaves office on March 9 when his successor as Liberal Party leader and prime minister is named, also addressed Trump’s border beef with Canada.

He said that less than 1% of both illegal drugs and migrants enter the U.S. from Canada, noting that his government invested about $904 million to strengthen border security and Canada’s immigration system.

Canadian government officials have drafted a plan to impose counter-tariffs worth about $26 billion on the U.S. if the Trump administration proceeds with his tariff measures.

Canada’s response will be “dollar-for-dollar, tariff-for-tariff,” Doug Ford, premier of Canada’s most populous province of Ontario, said in an interview.

Had Trump imposed the tariffs against Canada on his Jan. 20 return to the White House, the Canadian government reportedly was ready to tack on tariffs to several U.S. products, such as orange juice from the president’s state of residence, Florida, and bourbon from Kentucky, home to Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul.

In Ontario, Ford ordered the province’s Liquor Control Board to clear the shelves of U.S. alcohol should the tariffs arrive.

At a Friday news conference, the premier said that he would call an election next week that would send Ontarians to the polls on Feb. 27. Ford seeks “a strong mandate” to “fight against Donald Trump’s tariffs” and his “attack” against the province’s families, businesses and communities.

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Ford has two trips planned to Washington, D.C., next month.

On Wednesday, he and his fellow provincial and territorial premiers held a virtual meeting with Trudeau in which an informal “Buy Canadian” campaign was discussed to promote homegrown rather than American-made products.

At a news conference on the day before, David Eby, premier of the western Canadian province of British Columbia, went even further in responding to the arrival of “catastrophic” tariffs coming from south of the border. 

“We will not spend money in a country that wants to do economic harm to Canadians,” he said.

However, in Trump’s view, it’s the other way around.

In a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Trump said the U.S. has between a $200 billion and $250 billion trade deficit with Canada. “We don’t need their gas,” he said of the country.

According to a TD Economics report released this month, the U.S. is on track to record a trade deficit with Canada of $45 billion, all of which involved Canadian energy exports to the U.S.

“If you take energy off the table, the U.S. has a surplus when it comes to trade,” said Ford, who spent 20 years working in the U.S. through a family business and who has a family home in Florida.

On the U.S. podcast “Standpoint,” former Canadian Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper said that “it’s actually Canada that subsidizes the United States in this regard” and “maybe Canadians,” he offered, “should be looking at selling their oil and gas to other people.”

Hartford, Connecticut-born Canadian Green Party Leader Elizabeth May — who earlier this month joked that Canada could welcome the states of Washington, Oregon and California in response to Trump’s musings about annexing Canada as the 51st state — believes the president has inadvertently promoted Canadian unity.

“Canada is stronger now than I’ve ever seen it,” she said in an interview. 

“All Canadians are concerned about protecting Canada against Trump.”