USA

Canadian officials hope diplomacy can stave off the tariffs, while also planning retaliation.

TORONTO — Roughly $900 billion in annual trade between Canada and the United States — and with it, traditionally chummy bilateral ties — is on the brink of upheaval, with President Donald Trump threatening to impose sweeping tariffs on Canada as early as this weekend.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said Wednesday she is “cautiously optimistic” that a year-long diplomatic effort to stave off the levies could still yield results. But the U.S. president is “the ultimate decision-maker,” she added, and can be unpredictable.

The fallout for Canada could be profound. Here’s what to know.

An unguarded, black chain-link fence erected in B.C. along the U.S.-Canada border is now the subject of an international investigation and could be in violation of a more than 200-year-old treaty, according to one immigration lawyer.

The fence, roughly 30 metres long, was put up at the end of English Bluff Road in Tsawwassen, a community within the Metro Vancouver suburb of Delta, B.C., on Jan. 16. That side of the border adjoins a park in the Washington state community of Point Roberts.

The International Boundary Commission, a bi-national organization responsible for regulating construction close to the Canada-U.S. border, confirmed to CBC News Wednesday that it did not authorize the fence and is now investigating the matter.

Someone you know used to smuggle cigarettes and tobacco here in another life.

From the moment Donald Trump lowered the boom on Canada after he won the U.S. presidential election, Canada has stood alone.

Weeks after his victory, he announced that goods from both Canada and Mexico would be subject to 25-per-cent tariffs, which he framed as punishment for allowing drugs and people to flow across the northern and southern U.S. borders. It was a spurious claim in Canada’s case (at least in terms of a problem flowing north to south at the border), but Canada’s fact-check fell on deaf ears. It was a lonely protest.

My bet is they hate Trudeau and won’t lend a hand.

The looming tariffs against Canadian and Mexican exports to the United States are not just another round of trade skirmishes. They may well signify the beginning of the end for Bretton Woods-era multilateralism, the rules-based global trade order that has underpinned international commerce since 1944.

Days before tariffs that have the potential to cripple Canada’s economy are expected to come into effect, Canadian politicians are pushing the message that the country is cracking down on one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s main concerns.

Since his re-election in November, Trump has repeatedly said he would hit Canada and others with tariffs of up to 25 per cent. On his first day back in the Oval Office, Trump suggested tariffs on Canadian goods could be coming on Saturday.

While he’s shifted back and forth on his irritants, one concern Trump has cited is drugs — such as fentanyl — entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico.

Trump’s tariff threats have provoked an existential crisis along with a cacophony of reactions from coast-to-coast on how best to deal with it. Aside from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (and now Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe), the assumption that retaliatory action is required is going unchallenged among politicians. This consensus view draws from the successes of Canada’s approach last time around – but the problem is that the approach that worked the last time likely won’t work today.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Commerce Department, Howard Lutnick, said on Wednesday that Canada and Mexico can avoid Trump’s threatened 25-per-cent import tariffs if they swiftly act to stop allowing fentanyl and illegal immigrants into the U.S.

Lutnick told a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing that the tariffs were separate from a broad effort by the Commerce Department, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office and the U.S. Treasury to review trading relationships and tariffs by April 1.

The U.S. is threatening a two-stage tariff plan in which Canada and Mexico could get hit with initial trade penalties within days then face broader penalties this spring.

In summary it’s: Maybe tariffs now, and maybe more tariffs later.

The details emerged Wednesday at the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for the person chosen to lead President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, Howard Lutnick.