Canada must be ‘first in line for exemptions’ when more tariffs go into effect on April 2: Ford

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is shown speaking with reporters at Queen's Park on March 18.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says that U.S. trade representatives indicated behind closed doors that they are planning to slap a “global tariff” on trading partners as of April 2, creating a need for Canada to shift its focus to making sure it is “first in line for exemptions.”

Ford made the comment to reporters at Queen’s Park on Tuesday as he discussed a meeting held in Washington, D.C. last week with federal government officials and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Ford’s office later clarified that the premier expects the “global tariff” to come in the form of the “reciprocal” tariffs on trading partners that Trump has been threatening for months now.

“I can tell you what they want. They are going to put a global tariff on the whole world on (April 2). What we are working at is making sure we are first in line for exemptions and we told the administration very clearly how we feel these tariffs are going to hurt the American people,” Ford said. “Yes, it is going to hurt Canada but it is going to hurt the American people.”

Ford secured the meeting with Lutnick last week after agreeing to put a 25 per cent surcharge on the electricity that Ontario supplies to three U.S. states on hold.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Ford insisted that if he hadn’t been willing to slap the tax on electricity the “meeting would have never happened” and “we would have been going back and forth, tit for tat” in a perpetual cycle of escalation.

“We left there knowing what the U.S. wants,” he said of the meeting, which was also attended by federal cabinet ministers Dominic LeBlanc and François-Philippe Champagne.

‘We look forward to working through this’

The U.S. has vowed to introduce “reciprocal” tariffs on trading partners on April 2, though it has provided few specifics on what form those may take.

It has also not indicated whether the 25 per cent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods that was put on hold for a month will be reinstated.

Speaking with reporters, Ford said that he believes that the U.S. is poised to introduce tariffs “right across the board” and not just on Canada and Mexico. But he expressed hope that there may be an opportunity for Canada to eventually win exemptions through continued diplomacy.

“We look forward to working through this and we want to be in the tier one level, per se, of countries that they turn to when they realize they can’t produce the aluminum they need or they can’t produce the high-grade nickel and other critical minerals and autos and so on and so forth,” Ford said.

Trump has previously criticized Ford for targeting energy amid the trade war, telling reporters in the Oval Office last week that “you shouldn’t be playing with electricity.”

Lutnick has also taken issue with the move.

In an interview with CBS last week, he defended Trump’s initial move to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum as necessary to “break some guy in Ontario who said he was going to tax American energy 25 per cent.”

Ford said that Lutnick did attempt to turn down the temperature during the meeting last week, making clear that “he is not invading Canada and all this other nonsense.”

The premier also said that he has “held back” as well after daily U.S. television appearances for weeks.

“I think he (Lutnick) has totally toned it down. I haven’t seen him do an interview since we had our meeting and I have kind of held back as well,” Ford said. “I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize our talks and negotiations. I want to make sure when we get through this we are on the tier one level of being a supplier and a good supplier to the U.S.”

Ford said that officials from both the U.S. and Canada have committed to continued discussions, with Ontario’s representative in Washington, D.C., David Patterson speaking with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as recently as Monday night.

The premier, however, said that retaliation remains on the table should the U.S. follow through with additional tariffs on April 2.

“We will retaliate dollar for dollar and tariff for tariff. It is going to hurt the Americans, it is going to hurt us, but we can’t roll over. We have to make sure we stay strong and we stay united as a country and we have to continue on fighting,” Ford said.