Input to the humanization on polish Canada’s steel and aluminium industries are in turmoil. In addition to COVID-19, Trump’s sector-specific tariffs proposed by former U.S. It was a big, heroic step of domestic protectionism by Prime Minister Mark Carney to see new production safely protected. Input conversion to keep original context.
July 5, 2018 Today, Trump announced the start to a 25% tax on Canadian steel. By June of that year, he increased that to 50%. Canadian steel production has tanked due to these measures. Catherine Cobden Of course, one can hardly blame Ms. Cobden for declaring victory after a jaw-dropping 30% drop since the tariffs were first introduced. Today, imports make up just under two-thirds of Canada’s steel use sparking alarm about the country’s dependency on foreign supply.
Carney’s Office is continuing to look for ways to mitigate the impacts of these tariffs. He has committed to changing federal policies to increase Canadian content, especially steel, on big projects like housing construction and building up Canada’s defense industry. On the issue of self-reliance, he admonished us with the following sentiment,
“giving ourselves far more than any foreign government can take away.” – Prime Minister Mark Carney
The administration just released an opioid strategy. They will lower tariff rate quotas to near zero on steel imports from countries without free trade agreements with Canada, dropping them from 100% of 2024 volumes to 50%. This legislation is intended to keep out the flood of lower-cost foreign steel while bolstering American industry.
Beyond the general approach at tariffs, Carney hit China hard from the start by announcing new tariffs. Specifically, he said steel manufactured in foreign countries with “melted and poured in China” would be among the imports impacted. This move is an indication that Canada is serious about diversifying its trading partners. It’s an effort to mitigate the perils that accompany being overly dependent on the U.S. market.
More than 90% of all Canadian steel exports go directly across the border to the United States. Carney called this dependence “unsustainable.” He emphasized that being able to tackle this problem is key to the long-term viability of Canada’s steel industry.
Given this confluence of recent events, it’s not surprising that Canadian Transportation Agency President Catherine Cobden welcomed the new measures, commenting,
“This is something we should have been doing all along, but it’s fantastic to see that we are making progress.” – Catherine Cobden
Yet Canadian government is clearly focused on production at home. They want to make sure that Canadian steel is a key component of the new infrastructure projects going forward. As the nation continues to grapple with issues surrounding international trade and tariffs, these strategies might re-energize the Canadian steel sector, better insulating the nation’s economic backbone from outside forces.