Trump announces three-day delay to 50% tariffs on Canadian imports, says US and northern neighbor ‘have a DEAL!’
President Trump announced Tuesday evening that he was delaying the planned implementation of 50% tariffs on most imports from Canada for three days — teasing that Washington and Ottawa may have agreed to resurrect the dormant Keystone XL pipeline project.
“I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”
“The great Keystone XL Pipeline, long ago killed by Sleepy Joe Biden, may be awoken from the grave!” added the president, who subseuqently posted an AI-generated image of him yanking a pipeline labeled “Keystone” out of the ground next to a cracked tombstone reading: “Buried by Biden.”
The announcement came fewer than two hours before the new duties were to take effect and followed all-day conversations between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The Keystone XL pipeline, initially announced in 2008, would have moved up to 830,000 barrels (35 million gallons) of crude oil approximately 1,200 miles from Alberta, Canada to Nebraska, where it would connect with other pipelines that feed oil refineries on the Gulf Coast.
The project stalled during the Obama administration under pressure from environmental activists, but Trump revived it near the end of his first term. In January 2021, however, then-President Joe Biden canceled a crucial border-crossing permit for the pipeline, and the energy firm behind the plan — Calgary-based TC Energy — formally pulled the plug that July.
The 50% tariff would apply to some $20 billion worth of Canadian products, about 5% of what the country ships south every year. Wine, hockey sticks, and cement would have been among the affected products, while items such as critical minerals, fish potash and energy products would have been exempt.
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Canada had threatened to retaliate against any new tariffs with levies of its own, aggravating a trade fight between countries that sold each other $880 billion worth of goods and services last year.
In a sign of deepending resentment north of the border, a petition to expel US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, a former Michigan congressman and Trump ally, has collected nearly 218,000 signatures since July 21
″We are negotiating,” Carney told reporters Monday, speaking in French. “The negotiations are very intense and delicate. This is not the time to talk about negotiations in public.”
Trump announced the tariffs last month, shortly after he was spotted chatting with Carney at the World Cup Final between Spain and Argentina, invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930.
That law, enacted at the height of the Great Depression and widely blamed by economists for making the global crisis worse, authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against US businesses.
Trump has claimed that Canada discriminates against American exports of cars, alcohol and cheese. Canada and China were the only countries that issued retaliatory tariffs against the US in response to Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” levies last year.
With Post wires
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