As a deadline for Canada and the United States to reach a trade deal approaches, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is remaining silent on both tariffs and a request to restock American alcohol at provincial liquor stores.
Under Ford, Ontario was the first province to remove American booze from circulation in retaliation for tariffs from United States President Donald Trump in March 2025.
Since removing alcohol from the LCBO more than a year ago, Ford has been a fiery advocate for the booze ban, arguing it has been effective retaliation against the American tariffs.
He has repeatedly said the LCBO won’t put American alcohol back on the shelves of provincial liquor stores until tariffs introduced last year are removed.
As recently as last month, the Ontario premier defiantly said he wouldn’t “back down” on the booze ban in a social media post.
“We won’t back down. The fastest and only way to get U.S. alcohol back on Ontario shelves is for the U.S. to drop its illegal tariffs on Canada,” a July 8 post from Ford reads.
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But the boycott is proving to be a major trade irritant for Trump.
The president called it a “discriminatory” measure when he announced fresh tariffs on Canada last month, which were delayed until Saturday while both sides work on a trade deal.
As trade talks advance, other premiers have said that Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked them to restock American alcohol.
Ford has remained silent.
Questions from Global News sent to both the premier’s office and the Ministry of Finance have gone unanswered. He has not held a news conference since Aug. 13, when he appeared in Guelph to talk about data centres.
The silence is in contrast to Ford’s previously vocal stance on both the Canadian approach to tariffs and the booze ban.
On March 4, 2025, American alcohol was officially removed from the shelves of Ontario liquor stores in retaliation for the first round of tariffs levied by Trump.
Ontario imported roughly $965 million worth of booze from the U.S. before the ban. That meant that roughly $2 million worth of U.S. products have either expired or will expire in the next few months.
Most of those products, according to the government, included beer, ready-to-drink beverages and wine.
When meeting with U.S. officials in June, Ford said that American booze will be available for sale once the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement, or CUSMA, is renewed.
“I just want to get this deal done,” Ford told reporters on June 9 in Washington, D.C., where he was meeting with U.S. officials.
“And I can assure you once that deal’s done, I’m going to be sitting down and bringing all the booze back on shelves in Ontario, and everyone’s going to be kumbaya. It’s going to be good.”
–with files from Global News’ Adriana Fallico and Uday Rana
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