President Donald Trump has yet to follow through on his threat to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian imports, four weeks after he halted “all trade negotiations” over an anti-tariff ad the province of Ontario ran during the Major League Baseball World Series.
“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Oct. 25, after announcing two days earlier that he was terminating trade talks over the the ”egregious” ad.
Trump’s announcement had Canadian exporters preparing for a worst-case scenario: a sweeping levy layered on top of existing double-digit duties, which would have been particularly painful for industries like autos, where components cross the border multiple times before reaching their final form.
But to date, the Trump administration hasn’t sent any official documentation ordering U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enforce the new, higher duty, and U.S. importers have not received any new regulatory guidance.
“We monitor the federal registry and follow executive order activity on a regular basis and haven’t seen any changes,” said Flavio Volpe, the president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, which controls over 90 percent of independent parts production in Canada.
The White House did not say whether it still plans to impose the tariff when asked for comment. But a separate U.S. official suggested the Trump administration had opted to hold off on additional duties — which would have sent tariffs on Canadian goods to 45 percent — and instead continue to dangle the threat as the two sides gear up for future talks.
“The Canadians know what’s on the table,” said the official, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Volpe said a personal intervention by Carney in Asia last month may have helped matters, too. “We understand that the prime minister spoke with the president directly about the ads, it may very well be that they settled the matter between them,” he said.
Trump told reporters he had “a very nice” conversation with Carney while the two leaders were in Gyeongju, South Korea, in late October for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and that Carney “apologized for what they did with the commercial.” Carney later confirmed the apology and said he had told Ontario Premier Doug Ford not to air the ad, in the first place.
The spot, which the province spent about $53 million to air during the Toronto Blue Jays’ playoff run, stitched together portions of a 1987 Reagan radio address about the harms of tariffs — a move the Trump administration has seized on to argue the ad misrepresented the former president’s stance.
“Canada was caught, red handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s Speech on Tariffs,” Trump complained in the Oct. 25 post. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD.”
The Ontario government stopped airing the ad soon after.
Speaking to Canadian business leaders in Ottawa on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra continued to blast the Ontario ad. “You do not come into America and start running political ads, government-funded political ads, and expect no consequences or reaction from the United States of America and the Trump administration,” Hoekstra said during remarks at the 2025 National Manufacturing Conference.
Hoekstra said trade talks with Canada will restart eventually, but warned “it’s not going to be easy.” He did not mention the additional 10 percent tariff and whether it was still in the works.
One Canadian official told POLITICO they have not received any documentation from the administration related to the additional tariff.
The U.S. and Canada have a free trade agreement under a deal Trump negotiated during his first term. But the president still hiked tariffs on Canadian imports earlier this year, citing the country’s supposed role in the flow of fentanyl into the United States, and also hit the North American neighbor and other countries with double-digit duties on various sectors including steel, aluminum, autos and lumber. The administration, however, has exempted shipments that meet the terms of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement — the trade deal the president negotiated in his first term — which covers the vast majority of goods now being exported from Canada to the U.S.
Carney and Trump projected optimism about the state of talks to lower those duties when the prime minister visited the White House in October. But administration officials have privately complained that Carney’s government is slow-walking the negotiations and refusing to make concessions. The White House has taken particular umbrage at Canadian efforts to secure exemptions from the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs.
Canada U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters in Montreal last week he’s willing to go back to the negotiating table when Trump is ready, in order to get a deal that’s good for both Canadian and American workers.
“We remain ready and willing to do that work, but we’re not going to wait around and look at our phones and turn up the notifications to make sure we don’t miss a ding because somebody sent us a text message at 9:30 at night,” LeBlanc said.
A month later, Trump has yet to follow through on Canada tariff threat
Source: Viral Showbiz Pinay
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