Ontario “won’t back down” after U.S. President Donald Trump called for a further tariff hike in response to the province’s 25 per cent export tax on electricity.
Premier Doug Ford delivered that remark in an interview with MSNBC Tuesday morning, within an hour after Trump said he has instructed his commerce security to add an additional 25 per cent tariff to Canadian steel and aluminum, beginning Wednesday.
Those tariffs, which were initially set to be imposed at a rate of 25 per cent, will now be 50 per cent should Trump stay true to his word.
“We will not back down. We will be relentless,” Ford said.
“I apologize to the American people that President Trump decided to have an unprovoked attack on our country, on families, on jobs. It’s unacceptable.”
On Monday, Ford introduced a 25 per cent surcharge on energy exported from Ontario to Michigan, Minnesota and New York, as a response to tariffs on Canadian products brought in by the White House.
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Those surcharges — expected to raise up to $400,000 per day — won’t be the end of the dispute following Trump’s Tuesday post on Truth Social, his social media platform.
Aside from the tariff hike, Trump said he would “permanently shut down” the automobile manufacturing industry in Canada, if Ontario does not back down. He has threatened tariffs on Canada’s auto sector on April 2. He also repeated his threat of making Canada the 51st state of the United States.
The Ontario government, in conjunction with Ottawa and other provinces, has said it will not drop its response to Trump’s tariffs until he no longer threatens them. Trump has been granting reprieves and carve outs since he was sworn in as president in January after first vowing to impose them on all Canadian imports right away.
Ford first caught Trump’s attention back in December when the premier initially threatened to cut off energy exports to 1.5 million Americans living in border states. Trump, then president-elect, told a CNBC reporter on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange it was “fine” if Ford did that.
Since then, Ford has been making multiple appearances on U.S. media, pleading Ontario’s case and warning of its response to the American audience.
Ford has not backed off on that threat, saying Monday he would “not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely.”
To cut off U.S. energy, however, Ontario would have to cut its own energy output. The move would likely mean ramping down the province’s hydro-electric output, energy that is also sold to other jurisdictions in Canada.
Trump said Tuesday he was declaring a “National Emergency on Electricity” within the threatened area to “quickly do what has to be done to alleviate this abusive threat from Canada.”
He followed that up with another post Tuesday, questioning why Canada would even supply the U.S. with electricity in the first place.
“Who made these decisions, and why? And can you imagine Canada stooping so low as to use ELECTRICITY, that so affects the life of innocent people, as a bargaining chip and threat?” he said.
“They will pay a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in History Books for many years to come!”
For his part, Ford told MSNBC “fighting like this does not make sense,” but Ontario would respond “appropriately” if it continues.
“I’m not too sure why he continues to attack his closest friends and allies, but we need the American people to speak up,” he said.
“We need those CEOs to actually get a backbone and stand in front of them and tell him this is going to be a disaster. It’s mass chaos right now, and that’s what we need.”
— with files from Colin D’Mello and Uday Rana
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