As Canada braces for Trump tariffs, ‘there is still hope,’ Joly says – National | Globalnews.ca
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly says “there is still hope” that incoming U.S.-president elect Donald Trump backtracks on his threat to impose tariffs, but Canadians “have to be ready.”
Joly is in Washington, D.C., for a bilateral visit, during which she met with both Republicans and Democrats in an effort to prevent U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods.
“We’re taking these tariff threats very, very seriously because we know that the impacts on Canadians would be really, really, really difficult,” Joly said during a virtual news conference Friday from the Canadian embassy in Washington.
Trump has threatened to impose a sweeping 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian goods coming into the United States unless Canada tightens border security. Ottawa has sought to address those demands with a plan officials first outlined in the fall economic statement and again detailed on Wednesday, but Trump has not backed down from the threat.
If Trump, who is set to be inaugurated on Monday, goes ahead with his plan, Joly said that would start the “biggest trade war between Canada and U.S. in decades.” But she said her focus right now was to prevent that outcome.
“I think that there is still hope that if we use our levers well that we can make sure that Americans backtrack,” Joly said.
On Thursday, Joly had meetings with outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Idaho Sen. James Risch.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was chairing a meeting of the council on Canada-U.S. relations on Friday.
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He reiterated that Canada will retaliate against U.S. tariffs, but said he hopes “we can avoid that outcome.”
“As I’ve said, consistently, if the incoming American administration moves forward with tariffs, we will not hesitate to act, we will respond, and I will say it again, everything is on the table now,” he said in his opening remarks before the council meeting on Friday.
“We’re going to be true Canadians in this: strong, polite, looking for the right ways to do things that we can get win-wins out of it, but if push comes to shove, we will be strong and unequivocal in our defence of Canada and Canadians.”
Both Joly and Trudeau stressed that the proposed tariffs would hurt not only Canadians but Americans as well, putting jobs at risk and raising prices for consumers.
The World Bank is forecasting that the global economy will plateau over the next two years, expanding by 2.7 per cent, the same pace as last year.
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson was also in Washington this week and said on Thursday that the plan for Trump’s tariffs is unclear, even among Republican senators and congresspeople.
Trudeau met with premiers on Wednesday to discuss Canada’s response to Trump’s tariff threat.
On Friday he said: “Almost all the premiers are entirely united on, knowing that this is a moment to stand up for Canada, stand up for our sovereignty and be there to protect not just Canadians, but to protect the most successful economic trading relationship in the world in history between Canada and the United States.”
–with files from The Canadian Press
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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