00:00CTV's chief political correspondent Michael Couture was on the call listening to U.S. officials
00:04outline the new tariffs. Okay, Mike, why are the Americans doing this? And what products
00:09are we talking about? I listed off some of them. Tell us some more.
00:14Yeah, essentially, Sandy, you have U.S. officials that continue to say the only two countries that
00:18ever really did retaliate them against them with their own tariffs were Canada and China. And
00:23they're saying that, look, because of those unfair tariffs that Canada put on the U.S.,
00:29and because, as you had mentioned, those other three areas where they believe that trade
00:33practices are not being followed by Canada, they are applying 50% tariffs on a number of items. Now,
00:40it's an exhaustive list. I'll just give you a few, as you had mentioned as well. Milk products,
00:44wine and liquor. They also have plywood, hockey skates, cut flowers and bulbs, clothing, and also
00:51diaries and notebooks. And to your point, this is something that they're doing because of that
00:56alcohol ban by a number of provinces, also because of Canada's supply-managed dairy sector,
01:02and because of a tariff that Canada puts on cars that are not USMCA compliant because some of their
01:10parts are not fully made in the United States. Those are cars that are coming back into Canada.
01:15So they are basically saying, the U.S. is, is that they are just applying this because Canada
01:21is not respecting CUSMA. All right, everyone I'm sure is talking about this in Ottawa. The
01:27premiers are going to be meeting in Charlottetown tomorrow. Mike, this is going to affect that
01:31gathering quite significantly, isn't it? Yeah, well, I mean, you can imagine this will be a topic
01:38of conversation, specifically because you've had Premier Doug Ford of Ontario, who has basically
01:43led this booze band of American alcohol. And of course, Wob Canoe has gone along as well with it.
01:49The U.S. actually saying that, look, there's only two provinces in Canada that have not gone along
01:53with it. You have to wonder whether Prime Minister Carney is going to have to have some hard
01:57conversations with premiers around that table if he wants any movement on these other tariffs that
02:03could come into effect in just 30 days. Now, Mike, I have to ask you, because Donald Trump has been
02:09complaining about the smoke wafting down over the United States from Canadian wildfires, and he
02:14threatened, right, that we'd have to pay damages. Did that have anything to do with what we're
02:19hearing now? The senior U.S. officials that were on that call said that that is not these tariffs.
02:26These are not the so-called wildfire tariffs. Although the U.S. president has asked his Commerce
02:32Secretary and the United States Trade Representative for options that he could use in case he does want
02:38to apply those types of tariffs on Canada.
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