Trump threatens new tariffs on Canada, including 250% tax on dairy

Donald Trump: In Canada, you know, we find that, uh, they’re charging us over 200% for dairy products. You know about that. And when I left, we had that well taken care of, but under Biden, they just kept raising it. Very difficult to deal with, uh, the Canadian, uh, representatives, 250% for dairy products tariff. So where do you hear that?

You don’t hear that. Uh, they have, uh, a tremendously high tariff. I’ll give you the exact numbers in a little while coming out on lumber. So they sell this number. They have a, a tremendous, they make it impossible for us to sell Nu Lumber or dairy products into Canada, but our numbers are a tiny fraction of that, almost non-existent.

And what we’re doing is freeing up our forests from the environmental nonsense that they put on ’em, where you can’t cut down a tree. And we have to cut down trees in order to build the firewalls, and those trees are sold, but we’re gonna, we’re freeing it up on an emergency basis because, uh, Canada has been ripping us off for years on tariffs for lumber and for dairy products.

Uh, 250%. Nobody ever talks about that 250% tariff, which is taking advantage of our farmers. So that’s not gonna happen anymore. Uh, we’re gonna be, they’ll be met with the exact same tariff. Unless they drop it. And that’s what reciprocal means. And we may do it as early as today, or we’ll wait till Monday or Tuesday, but that’s what we’re gonna do.

We’re gonna charge the same thing. It’s not fair. Never has been fair.

News Anchor: Matt, where exactly are we with tariffs? What’s the status, uh, of these tariffs today?

Matt Egan: Yeah, it, it’s incredibly confusing. It feels like every hour almost, there’s a new tariff that is threatened or dialed back or delayed. I haven’t looked at my phone in 90 seconds, so I might have missed another tariff threat on truth social.

But look, 20% tariffs on China. That did kick in on Tuesday. There’s also 25% tariff on Canada. Mexico, excluding autos and products that are compliant with the U-S-M-C-A trade agreement, 10% tariff on Canadian energy and potash, which is a compound used to make fertilizer that American farmers need. But look, there’s more tariffs that are on the way.

Maybe. I mean, the president has threatened to impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Next week, uh, early April, there’s tariffs that loom potentially on. Products from the European Union on autos, there’s the reciprocal tariffs. And then later on this year, potentially tariffs on copper and lumber, timber, semiconductors.

You mentioned the new tariffs that were just threatened today on Canadian dairy products as well. Uh, we’ve seen trade policy uncertainty just go through the roof. There’s an index that tracks that it’s the highest it’s ever been going back to 1960, and so right now we just. Everyone’s trying to make sense of it all right?

It’s a lot of uncertainty and chaos for investors, for CEOs, and for small business owners to try to make sense of Boris.

News Anchor: Matt Egan, thank you so much for that update. Let’s bring in Vanessa Kovich. Now, Vanessa, obviously markets don’t like volatility, even though Trump says he’s not watching the markets.

Vanessa Yurkevich: Well, certainly, uh, a lot of people are watching the markets though, and what we’ve seen most of the day is that markets were down on the news of this sort of weaker than expected jobs report. But if we look at the numbers now, they’re up again. And this is just though a moment, a snapshot in what has been a very volatile week on Wall Street and Pot.

And potentially why they are up right now is because the Fed chair, Jerome Powell was at an event earlier today and he said that despite these levels of. Uncertainty, the US economy is actually in a good place and that we just need to wait and see. So when you have the Fed chair making a comment like that, that the economy is still working well, it is still doing well, that might have calmed some nerves on Wall Street.

But of course this has been an up and down week. There are more obviously losses than gains. This. Week and next week is a brand new week where we might hear about new tariffs, and certainly the market will react to that. But as it stands right now, you have the Dow s and p and Nasdaq all just slightly up at this moment.

News Anchor: It’s gotta also be difficult to be a business owner when you have trade policy going topsy-turvy like this. What have business leaders that you’ve been talking to shared about what their planning is like?

Vanessa Yurkevich: Yeah, I’ve been speaking to business owners all week in Mexico, in the US and Canada, and the way they describe it is that it’s a logistical nightmare.

I spoke to one Canadian flower company that imports to the US and they said that they initially, on Tuesday, put a tariff tax in place and then they had to remove it. Two days later and Boris, that involved having to refund customers and also having to explain to customers what was going on while having to pay credit card fees in the process.

For many businesses, they like planning at least two weeks out and this day to day, hour to hour flip-flopping, they’ve told me that this is just simply exhausting right now.

News Anchor: Vanessa Kovich. Thank you so much for that. Brianna. Let’s talk more about what this means for jobs in the economy with Ben Bergman.

He’s a senior correspondent at Business Insider, and Ben, it’s kind of a tariff. Yo-yo. This week, so I’m gonna summarize it. Yes. Tariffs. Wait, not for Mexico. Wait, not for cars. Yes. For Canada. Wait, no, for Canada. Now, just today it’s wait. Yes. For Canadian lumber and Dairy. 250% because they’re doing it to us.

What is the effect of all of that craziness.

Ben Bergman: Well, what do investors and businesses hate? More than anything, it’s uncertainty, and Boris just asked about the effect on businesses. I was just texting with my mother before this. She owns a small parenting magazine called Seattle’s Child. They printed in Canada.

She just got an email from her printer that they’re increasing the prices by 3%. That was on Wednesday. Then President Trump said he’s delaying that by a month yesterday. But they’re not just gonna be able to go back and forth. So I think businesses would really like to just know what is happening. Same with investors.

The uncertainty is very difficult to deal with.

News Anchor: What and what is, you know, bigger picture here, the emerging picture of the Trump economy between these jobs reports, the tariffs and the market reaction to all of it.

Ben Bergman: The emerging picture is one of just tremendous uncertainty. It’s a roller coaster that everyone is on, and I think you see that in the markets, even though we’re session positive right now.

This is the worst week for the market since September, and it seems like a long time ago in the first Trump administration where he would look at the stock market and really care a lot about that and that reassured investors. But this time he doesn’t really seem to care that much about the day-to-day fluctuations of the market.

News Anchor: Yeah, let’s not disparage rollercoasters. Right. I mean, some of those are pretty great. Um, and I, I should know, we’re also expecting to hear from the president next hour. He’s gonna be at this crypto summit after he established a strategic Bitcoin reserve via executive order last night. Explain, explain to us what that means.

Ben Bergman: Yeah, rollercoaster is great to go on at Disneyland, not necessarily what you wanna see your 401k doing. And yeah, this crypto summit is really interesting because it’s something that President Trump announced, but no agenda was announced. No, uh, attendee was. Announced, but one thing he’s probably gonna talk about is this crypto reserve because the US wants a reserve of Bitcoin and four other coins.

I think a lot of investors were hoping that the US will be buying up lots of crypto. Doesn’t seem like they’re gonna do that. He said it’s gonna be revenue neutral, meaning they’re gonna use coins that they already have through asset forfeitures.

News Anchor: The Trump family notably launched their own coins just before he took office.

Does that matter here?

Ben Bergman: Uh, no, I, I don’t think the Trump coin is going to be included in this reserve, but, uh, certainly Trump has built himself as the first crypto president in this summit. Is indicative of that.

News Anchor: Yeah. Alright, we’ll be watching for that. Ben. Great to have you. Thank you so much for taking us through all of that, Boris.

So we’ve discussed the economic impacts. Let’s talk about the political impacts of President Trump’s dramatic policy shifts with White House Correspondent for Reuters. Jeff Mason. Jeff, great to see you as always. Talk to us about the, the logic here, the thinking that’s fueling Trump’s decision making. I imagine he’s hearing from a lot of different folks on these tariffs.

Jeff Mason: Oh, no doubt. He’s hearing from a lot of folks, Boris, and, and good to see you too. I, I think that the, the politics of this is varied. You know, I think that. Um, as your previous guest was saying, the business community certainly like certainty. I don’t think that would be incorrect to say that Republicans on the hill would like a little bit more certainty as well.

Um, which isn’t to say that they’re standing up to President Trump or protesting these things with President Trump, but I think it does make things a little tricky. Democrats certainly. The same, although I don’t think they’re looking for certainty in, in either way from, from this White House. I think they see this as a political weakness, which they will no doubt try to exploit once we get a little closer to the midterms.

But that’s, that’s a ways off for now. I think in general, this president, this White House feels like they have a mandate. This is his style, and so I don’t think that they’re particularly concerned about it hurting him politically. But stay tuned. It might.

News Anchor: I, I do wonder when Trump says that he’s not watching markets.

I think it’s safe to say that that’s not true. Maybe what he means is that he ignores them when they’re not in his favor, but he certainly touted stock market numbers when they’ve been good before.

Jeff Mason: Absolutely, and you and I both covered, um, the, the first term of President Trump. Um, and definitely I remember him coming out into the briefing room when, uh, the stock market, when the Dow or, or one of the major indices had hit in new records.

So, you know, I, I agree with you. I think that he absolutely does care about the market, but I, I also think it’s correct to say that these gyrations. Are not a concern to him because he cares even more about tariffs and he cares even more about, uh, these policies that he’s putting into place than he does about, uh, the back and forth.

But if there were a major, major drop, I, I can’t imagine that that’s not something that would be very high on his radar. And the flip side, if, if there ends up being a major spike again, uh, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would come out and take credit for it.

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