Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies
Pool via AP
President Donald Trump delivers remarks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Friday, March 7, 2025.WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will double his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% for Canada, escalating a trade war with the United States’ northern neighbor and showing an indifference to recent stock market turmoil and rising recession risks.
Trump said on social media that the increase of the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday is a response to the price increases that the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to the United States.
“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.
After a brutal stock market selloff on Monday and further jitters Tuesday, Trump faces increased pressure to show he has a legitimate plan to grow the economy instead of perhaps pushing it into a recession. But so far the president is doubling down on the tariffs he talked up repeatedly during the 2024 campaign and throwing a once stable economy into utter turmoil as investors expected him to lead with deregulation and tax cuts instead of colossal tax hikes.
The U.S. president has given a variety of explanations for his antagonism of Canada, saying that his separate 25% tariffs are about fentanyl smuggling and voicing objections to Canada putting high taxes on dairy imports that penalize U.S. farmers. But he continued to call for Canada to become part of the United States as a solution, a form of taunting that has infuriated Canadian leaders.
“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” Trump posted on Tuesday. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, after responding to Trump by raising electricity prices, said Tuesday on MSNBC that the U.S. people and its business leaders needed to speak up against the “chaos” caused by Trump’s launching of a trade war.
“If we go into a recession it’s self made by one person. It’s called President Trump’s recession,” Ford said. “It shouldn’t be this way. We should be booming, both countries.”
The U.S. president condemned the use of electricity “as a bargaining chip and threat,” saying in a separate social media post on Tuesday that Canada “will pay a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in History Books for many years to come!”
Trump was set to deliver a Tuesday afternoon address to the Business Roundtable, a trade association of CEOs that during the 2024 campaign he wooed with the promise of lower corporate tax rates for domestic manufacturers. But his tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, steel, aluminum — with plans for more to possibly come on Europe, Brazil, South Korea, pharmaceutical drugs, copper, lumber and computer chips — would amount to a massive tax hike.
The stock market’s vote of no confidence over the past two weeks puts the president in a bind between his enthusiasm for taxing imports and his brand as a politician who understands business based on his own experiences in real estate, media and marketing.
Harvard University economist Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary for the Clinton administration, on Monday put the odds of a recession at 50-50.
“All the emphasis on tariffs and all the ambiguity and uncertainty has both chilled demand and caused prices to go up,” Summers posted on X. “We are getting the worst of both worlds – concerns about inflation and an economic downturn and more uncertainty about the future and that slows everything.”
The investment bank Goldman Sachs revised down its growth forecast for this year to 1.7% from 2.2% previously. It modestly increased its recession probability to 20% “because the White House has the option to pull back policy changes if downside risks begin to look more serious.”
Trump has tried to assure the public that his tariffs would cause a bit of a “transition” to the economy, with the taxes prodding more companies to begin the years-long process of relocating factories to the United States to avoid the tariffs. But he set off alarms in an interview broadcast on Sunday in which he didn’t rule out a possible recession.
“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of — it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I don’t — I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great.”
The promise of great things ahead did not eliminate anxiety, with the S&P 500 stock index tumbling 2.7% on Monday in an unmistakable Trump slump that has erased the market gains that greeted his victory in November 2024. The S&P 500 index fell roughly 0.4% in Tuesday morning trading.
Trump has long relied on the stock market as an economic and political gauge to follow, only to seemingly ignore it as he remains determined so far to impose tariffs. When he won the election last year, he proclaimed that he wanted his term to be considered to have started Nov. 6, 2024 on Election Day, rather than his January 20, 2025 inauguration, so that he could be credited for post-election stock market gains.
Trump also repeatedly warned of an economic freefall if he lost the election.
“If I don’t win you will have a 1929 style depression. Enjoy it,” Trump said at an August rally in Pennsylvania.
The White House is no longer treating stocks as a reliable economic indicator. After the markets closed on Monday, the White House highlighted that the tariffs were prompting companies such as Honda, Volkswagen and Volvo to consider new investments in U.S. factories. It issued a statement that Trump’s combination of tariffs, deregulations and increased energy production had led industry leaders to promise to “create thousands of new jobs.”
The significance of thousands of additional jobs was unclear, as the U.S. economy added 2.2 million jobs last year alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Gillies reported from Toronto.
Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies
Tyler Tate, Associated Press
Toronto Maple Leafs right wing Mitch Marner (16) scores the winning goal past Utah Hockey Club goaltender Karel Vejmelka (70) during a shootout in an NHL hockey game Monday, March 10, 2025, in Salt Lake City.SALT LAKE CITY — Mitch Marner scored the deciding goal in the shootout and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Utah Hockey Club 4-3 on Monday night.
William Nylander, Calle Jarnkrok and Steven Lorentz scored in regulation for Toronto, and Joseph Woll finished with 30 saves. The Maple Leafs had lost three straight (0-2-1).
Nick Schmaltz, Barrett Hayton and Michael Carcone scored for Utah, which had won four of it’s previous six games. Karel Vejmelka had 23 saves.
Auston Matthews also scored in the tiebreaker for Toronto, and Clayton Keller tied it for Utah.
Nylander and Jarnkrok scored power-play goals in the first period to give Toronto a 2-0 lead. Lorentz made it 3-0 at 4:48 of the second.
Carcone began Utah’s comeback at 8:14 of the middle period, Schmaltz made it a one-goal game 49 seconds later, and Hayton’s power-play goal tied it with 7:49 leftin the period.
Takeaways
Maple Leafs: It wasn’t pretty, with Toronto scoring just once at even strength, but this was a big two points that pulled the Maple Leafs within two of Atlantic-leading Florida.
Utah: This was a point well earned after Utah fell behind by three against a powerful opponent.
Key moment
The game winner was a nice moment for Marner, who has been through a whirlwind recently because of the trade deadline and his pending free agency. He’s still with Toronto — and put the Maple Leafs in the win column.
Key stat
Toronto was involved in a shootout for only the second time this season, and this was its first win. Carolina (0-2), Boston (0-1) and Edmonton (0-1) are the only remaining teams without a shootout victory.
Up next
Maple Leafs host Florida on Thursday, and Utah hosts Anaheim on Wednesday.
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Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies
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