Trump says 25% tariff on most Canadian goods will take effect March 4
Commitment comes after week of chaotic messaging from U.S. president
U.S. President Donald Trump says he will end a month-long pause and slap a 25 per cent tariff on most Canadian goods as of March 4, claiming he needs to take action because "drugs are still pouring into our country" despite evidence that a crackdown at the border is working.
Trump said in a social media post Thursday that fentanyl imports are killing people and the U.S. "cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA" and he will levy a 25 per cent tariff on Canada "until it stops, or is seriously limited."
He also says his threatened reciprocal tariffs on specific goods set to come into effect in April "will remain in full force and effect."
The commitment comes after a week of chaotic messaging from the president.
Trump told reporters Monday that the tariff pause he negotiated with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be lifted next week and the 25 per cent levy on Canadian goods will go into effect because the country is supposedly ripping off the U.S.
Then, on Tuesday, White House staff told reporters the president was referring to other promised trade action in those remarks and the 25 per cent universal tariff (or 10 per cent on energy products) is still subject to some negotiations.
Trump was definitive on Thursday — and he's back to linking this trade action to drugs.
"Proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled," he said.
Trudeau vows to hit back
Trudeau said Canada is preparing to strike back at Trump if he goes ahead with these "unjustified tariffs."
"Canada will have an immediate and extremely strong response, as Canadians expect," Trudeau told reporters at an unrelated news conference.
Canada is expected to revive its plan to retaliate against Trump by slapping levies on $150 billion worth of American goods the moment the president's threatened tariffs take effect.
"If tariffs get brought in it's going to be hard on Canadians and Canadian businesses — it will also be hard on Americans and American businesses, which is a point we're busy making south of the border every chance we get," Trudeau said.
Significant decrease in seizures
Despite Trump's claims, data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released earlier this month shows there has been a significant decrease in fentanyl seizures coming from Canada.
The CBP registered a 97 per cent drop in January compared to December 2024 — evidence, the Canadian government says, that its $1.3-billion border security package is already bearing fruit.
The CBSA reported on Thursday that it and its law enforcement partners have made significant seizures at the border as part of "Operation Blizzard," pulling in fentanyl and fentanyl pills, including busting two U.S. citizens at the Windsor-Detroit tunnel earlier this month who were carrying enough of the deadly drug to kill an estimated 10,000 people.
Even before these new efforts, Canada represented less than one per cent of all seized fentanyl imports into the U.S., according to federal data.
Still, to satisfy Trump's stated concerns, the federal government appointed a fentanyl czar, Kevin Brosseau, to lead Canada's efforts to staunch the flow.
Brosseau, Public Safety Minister David McGuinty, CBSA president Erin O'Gorman and RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme are in Washington today to meet with American lawmakers and officials to present what they are calling Canada's "major successes" at the border after two months of a more concerted effort to rein in drugs and migrants.
"We are quite convinced that the efforts we've made thus far should satisfy the U.S. administration," McGuinty told reporters in D.C., a comment that was made at roughly the same time Trump fired off his missive promising to go ahead with tariff action next week.
"The message is getting through," McGuinty said. "We do know that we're making enormous progress. We're communicating to different folks here in the administration and they are telling us it's enormous progress. A strong border is being made stronger."
- What are your questions or concerns about Trump's promise of tariffs on Canadian goods starting March 4? Write to us at ask@cbc.ca.
And it's not just at the border — police are reporting progress in the countrywide fentanyl crackdown.
On Wednesday, the RCMP said that over a recent six-week period, Canadian law enforcement has reported "489 occurrences related to fentanyl and synthetic opioids," resulting in 524 arrests and the seizure of "large quantities of drugs and other commodities."
Police hauled in 46 kilograms of fentanyl and 15,765 pills of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, like oxycodone.
In an interview with CBC News last week, Kirsten Hillman, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., said illegal migration from Canada into the U.S. has declined by 90 per cent in recent months — and the president's advisers have been "pleased" with the progress.
It's not clear that Trump himself is all that pleased, however. He blamed Canada, Mexico and China in his social media post for the "distribution of these dangerous and highly addictive POISONS."
While Trump says he's concerned about Canada's supposedly lax approach to fentanyl and migrants, border data shows Canada has a reason to worry about what's pouring in from the U.S.
A CBC News analysis of border data shows Canada actually seized more drugs coming in last year than what the Americans captured on their side of the 49th parallel.
CBSA officials seized some eight million grams of drugs compared to five million taken by U.S. Customs and Border Protection last year, government data shows.
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