Canada’s disenchantment for Donald Trump’s America may increase. The President of the United States again targeted his northern neighbor on Thursday by imposing 35 % surcharge, one of the highest rates announced since the start of the week.
“Instead of working with the United States, Canada has retaliated with its own customs rights. From August 1, 2025, we will apply 35 % customs duties in Canada to Canadian products exported to the United States, “the American president wrote in a revenge letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and shared on his Truth Social platform. “These customs duties can be changed, up or down, depending on our relationship with your country,” he threatened.
The EU soon fixed
Mark Carney said Thursday evening on X that “during current commercial negotiations with the United States, the Canadian government [défendait] Relentlessly our workers and our companies ”. “We will continue to do so while we are working for the revised deadline on August 1,” he added. As with each letter sent to more than twenty countries since Monday, the American president said that these customs duties will be added to those imposed on specific activity sectors, such as steel and aluminum or automobile.
These are two of the main Canadian exports to the United States, Ottawa’s first trading partner. A little earlier in the evening, Donald Trump announced during a telephone interview with NBC that he intended to send a missive of the same order to the European Union (EU) “today or tomorrow”. “I chat with the EU which corresponds, as you know, to several countries, as well as with Canada. We should send them [les courriers]in the coming hours ”.
A floor surcharration of 15 to 20 %
He also assured that countries which have not been notified of specific customs duties would be imposed on a planning surcharge of 15 to 20 %, without specifying whether this surcharge would be added to the so-called 10 % basic customs duties which have been targeting most of the products entering the United States since April. Canada was, with Mexico, the first target of customs duties, Donald Trump accusing the two countries of not fighting enough against the passage of migrants or even fentanyl traffic, a powerful opioid responsible for a serious health crisis in the United States.
He imposed 25 % on products imported from these two neighbors from the United States, before suspending a good part. Since then, Ottawa and Washington have been trying to negotiate a trade agreement, but discussions are tense between the two neighbors who do not want to give the feeling of giving in negotiations considered on both sovereignty.
Canadian exports at the lowest
Latest stage, Canada announced at the end of June to give up its tax on digital services, decided in 2024 and which was to come into force on July 1, after Donald Trump broke the discussions, qualifying this tax as “direct and obvious” brought to the United States.
But these trade tensions have an impact on exchanges between the two countries, the United States in Canadian exports having increased in May to 68.3 %, “one of the lowest proportions ever recorded”, according to Canadian authorities.
