US President Donald Trump on Friday railed against what he called tremendously high Canadian tariffs on dairy and timber, and said his administration could impose reciprocal tariffs on Canadian products as early as Friday.
“Canada has been ripping us off on for years on tariffs for lumber and for dairy products,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “They’ll be met with the exact same tariffs, unless they drop it, and … we may do it as early as today or we’ll wait ’til Monday or Tuesday”.
Trump also mentioned India’s high tariff rates, but said India had agreed to lower its import duties.
On Thursday, Trump suspended tariffs of 25 per cent imposed this week on most goods from Canada and Mexico.
In a Fox Business Network interview aired earlier on Friday he said he had wanted to implement the 30-day break for goods compliant with a regional free trade deal to help carmakers. But he added that the reprieve was a short-term measure and tariffs could go up over time.
“I thought it would be a fair thing to do, and so I gave them a little bit of a break for this short period of time,” Trump said in the interview.
