Alec Salloum
Regina Leader-Post
It’s a new week and with it comes a new round of threats from the U.S. to impose tariffs on Canadian products.
Over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a plan to enact 25-per-cent tariffs on steel and aluminum imported into the country, which was anticipated to start Monday.
The new threat came less than a week after Trump announced a 30-day pause on his plan to impose a 25-per-cent tariff on all Canadian imports and 10 per cent on energy, following a commitment from Ottawa to bolster border security.
The newly planned tariffs were announced Sunday as Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe was travelling to Washington, D.C. as part of a Council of the Federation (COF) trade mission. No tariffs had been officially enacted as of Monday afternoon, but the Government of Saskatchewan said it was already in contact with Evraz Regina that morning to see what impact the tariffs could have on the steel mill.
In 2024, Saskatchewan sent $413 million worth of steel, iron and aluminum exports to the United States.
“Tariffs are the very reason Premier Scott Moe is in Washington D.C. this week,” the province said in an emailed statement. “We know tariffs will hurt all of us by driving up prices for people on both sides of the border.”
Speaking in Regina on Monday, NDP Leader Carla Beck did not mince words. She repeated calls for Moe to recall the legislature while also calling for retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum, the creation of an energy corridor in Canada and a decreased reliance on America as a trading partner.
“We need a pipeline going east. Period,” she said, adding that money from retaliatory tariffs “has to be directed back into those affected industries.”
And while Moe has said he doesn’t take the rhetoric of Trump’s 51st state threats too seriously, Beck does.
“This s**t isn’t funny,” said Beck.
Keith Willoughby, dean of the Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan, said the threat of Trump tariffs has lead to considerable uncertainty across the continent.
“This has the risk of really challenging impacts to the bottom line for every day Canadians, whether we see a recession, whether we see continued escalations with inflation, if we see a weakening of a Canadian dollar,” he said on Monday.
The latest tariff threat is a real curveball to the Canadian economy, notes Willoughby, and while provincial and federal politicians make overtures about decoupling from the American economy, it’s tough for Canada to pivot away from its almost half a trillion dollar trading partner.
“This uncertainty is challenging, and the future, if things don’t materialize correctly, could look somewhat bleak for Canadian business,” he said.
In anticipation of Trump’s tariffs, the United Steelworkers (USW) union — which represents workers at Evraz in Regina — condemned the new levies.
“We’ve been through this before and we know these kinds of reckless trade measures don’t work and hurt workers, destabilize industries and create uncertainty across the economy on both sides of the border,” said Marty Warren, USW national director for Canada in a news release issued Monday.
— with files from The Canadian Press
alsalloum@postmedia.com
