Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she supports Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s response after the United States launched a trade war with Canada early Tuesday.
“Now is the time for us to unite as a province and a country,” Smith said in a statement.
At 12:01 a.m. ET, U.S. President Donald Trump’s promised 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian exports took effect. Canadian energy is being hit with 10 per cent tariffs.
At a news conference in Ottawa on Tuesday, Trudeau said Canada will counter the tariffs by imposing 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs on $30 billion worth of U.S. products, and added that will grow to another $125 billion in U.S. goods in 21 days.
Smith called Trump’s tariffs “an unjustifiable economic attack on Canadians and Albertans.”
“They also represent a clear breach of the trade agreement signed by this same U.S. president during his first term,” she added. “These tariffs will hurt the American people, driving up costs for fuel, food, vehicles, housing and many other products. They will also cost hundreds of thousands of American and Canadian jobs.
“This policy is both foolish and a failure in every regard.”
Trudeau accused the U.S. of economically attacking its “closest ally.”
“At the same, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying murderous dictator,” he said. “Make that make sense.”
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Smith said she believes the tariffs should push Canadian lawmakers to work to “immediately tear down provincial trade barriers and fast-track the construction of dozens of resource projects, from pipelines to LNG facilities to critical minerals projects.”
“We must strengthen our trade ties throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas for all our energy, agricultural and manufactured products,” she said. “We also need to drastically increase military spending to ensure we can protect our nation.
“There is no time to waste on any of these initiatives.”
While speaking to the American media outlet CNBC News, Smith said her government does not currently plan to impose tariffs on Alberta’s energy exports because it is such an essential product for Americans.
Smith and her government have been lobbying U.S. lawmakers to try to avoid tariffs, particularly on Alberta energy. In January, Smith even visited Trump at his Florida home.
Trump has given various reasons for imposing tariffs on Canada, including what he claims is an unfair trade deficit between the two countries. He is also encouraging more manufacturing firms to relocate to the U.S., and says the measures are meant to force Canada and Mexico — which was also hit with tariffs on Tuesday — to do more to secure their countries’ borders with the U.S. to curb the flow of illegal drugs and migrants.
In December, Smith announced Alberta would be investing $29 million to create a new sheriff patrol unit to shore up security at the Canada-U.S. border.
Smith said she will be meeting with her cabinet Tuesday and Wednesday to talk about her provincial government’s response to the tariffs.
“I will have more to say tomorrow,” she said.
More to come…
–With a file from The Canadian Press
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