U.S. says possible duty increase for Canada in case of retaliatory measures

US President Donald Trump may increase the size of duties against Canada if Ottawa takes retaliatory measures. This was reported by the White House press office on February 1.

"If Canada takes retaliatory measures against the United States in the form of import duties on American exports to Canada or similar measures, in response to this action, the President may increase or expand the scale of duties," TASS quoted the press service as saying.

It is specified that at the moment the duties on Canadian goods amount to 25%, and on energy resources - 10%.

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Earlier in the day, Trump signed an executive order imposing trade tariffs on goods from Canada, China and Mexico.

On plans to impose 25 percent duties on imports of goods from Canada and Mexico from February 1, Trump announced the day before. Later this decision was confirmed by White House press secretary Caroline Levitt.

As the American president pointed out, at the moment China, Canada and Mexico will not be able to do anything to prevent the impending imposition of duties. According to him, Canada is responsible for significant amounts of drug smuggling into the United States.

In response, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that the country has an equal, strong and reasonable response to Trump's imposition of duties. He specified that the Canadian side does not want to impose retaliatory measures against the US, while if the American side "takes this step", Canada will be forced to act.

Later, Chinese economist Andrew Leung told Izvestia that the tariffs imposed by Trump on imports of goods from China and Mexico will lead to an increase in consumer prices in the United States itself.