U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he will soon bring in new tariffs on Canadian dairy and lumber that match the “tremendously high” duties he says Canada charges for shipping those products to the U.S.
The new tariffs could start as soon as Friday or early next week, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“Canada has been ripping us off for years on tariffs for lumber and dairy products,” he said.
“They’ll be met with the exact same tariff unless they drop it. That’s what reciprocal means. And we may do it as early as today or we’ll wait until Monday or Tuesday. But that’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to charge the same thing. It’s not fair.”
The tariffs, if approved, appear to be separate from the so-called reciprocal tariffs Trump is planning to start imposing on April 2, which will match all tariffs on products sold by other countries to the U.S.
They would also be on top of sweeping 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods and 10 per cent duties on Canadian energy that began on Tuesday.
Trump exempted certain products traded under North American free trade rules on Thursday.
The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) — which Trump re-negotiated to replace NAFTA during his first term — narrowly expanded U.S. access to Canada’s dairy market, which is protected under supply management rules.
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The rules, established in the 1970s, set production quotas for Canadian farmers, guarantee minimum prices and maintain import and quality controls.
Under CUSMA, the U.S. gets access to less than five per cent of the market. But the U.S. has launched multiple disputes claiming Canada is intentionally bottlenecking those U.S. imports through tariff rate quotas, which put limits on how many exporters qualify for the cheaper duties.
Trump and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have railed against the supply management rules for dairy. In recent days, including on Friday, Trump has claimed Canada charges tariffs as high as 250 per cent on U.S. dairy products.
“Those facts are just not true,” International Trade Minister Mary Ng told reporters in Ottawa when asked about Trump’s claims.
The federal government has said higher duties only kick in on exporters that exceed agreed-upon levels of product.
Under the original NAFTA, foreign dairy exporters to Canada faced tariffs of over 200 per cent on some products.
After a CUSMA dispute panel sided with Canada in the latest tiff over market access in 2023, the U.S. Dairy Export Council said the decision “weakens (CUSMA’s) value to the U.S. dairy industry.”
The trade pact is up for scheduled review next year. Trump, on his first day in office, launched consultations with American businesses and producers on CUSMA’s impacts with reports due back April 2.
Lutnick said last month he wanted to see American dairy farmers treated more fairly in those upcoming trade talks.
As for lumber, provinces have long set stumpage fees for lumber harvested on Crown land, which the U.S. calls unfair. Even with those fees, American governments for decades have accused Canada of undercutting market prices and subsidizing its industry.
The U.S. has responded by imposing anti-dumping fees to shore up its own domestic production.
The Trump administration announced this week it was nearly tripling the anti-dumping duties to 20.07 per cent, which would be on top of an existing 6.74 per cent countervailing duty — as well as the new 25 per cent tariffs that began Tuesday.
Just as the U.S. has repeatedly launched complaints about dairy market access, Canada has long disputed the anti-dumping duties for lumber.
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the new rate a “massive threat” to the province’s forestry industry, which has already been facing pressures from U.S. duties and seen multiple mills close in recent years.
“I don’t know how you can rip off Americans on lumber when they’ve been putting tariffs on for lo these many years,” Employment Minister Steven MacKinnon said at the Ottawa press conference alongside Ng.
Trump directed his administration over the weekend to “rapidly” increase domestic timber production, including cutting production and environmental regulations.
He is also teasing a separate executive order to free up U.S. forests so more trees can be cut down.
Ng said she hadn’t been aware of the threat of new tariffs on dairy and lumber until she heard about them from media reports.
“We hear many things every day, and what would be terrific is to have a modality for working together on issues of concern so we can address them together,” she said.
“Whatever comes from the president, we do take seriously, we must take seriously, no matter which way we learn of them.”
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