# Canada readies retaliation after Trump’s new tariff order
Justin Trudeau said the response would hit U.S. goods and warned that the trade move will carry costs for consumers and workers.
Canada moved quickly on event date 2025-02-01 after President Donald Trump signed executive orders imposing tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China. According to the packet’s NBC News report, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would answer with a 25% tariff on U.S. goods, making clear that one of America’s closest trading partners was prepared to respond in kind.
The dispute began with Trump’s decision to levy a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada, excluding Canadian energy products, which would face a 10% tariff. NBC News reported that the White House said the measures would begin collecting most duties on Tuesday and remain in place until the crisis was alleviated. The administration justified the move by citing fentanyl and undocumented immigration.
Trudeau’s response turned what might have been a technical trade measure into a direct political confrontation. NBC said he announced a 25% tariff against $155 billion Canadian worth of U.S. goods, with $30 billion in immediate tariffs and the rest arriving roughly three weeks later. He also said the Canadian response would include everyday consumer products and major household items, signaling that the government intended to make the retaliation visible to American shoppers as well as exporters.
The economic stakes are obvious. The NBC report said Mexico, Canada and China together accounted for more than 40% of total U.S. imports last year. That means a tariff fight among those economies is not an isolated diplomatic quarrel but a shock to the price of food, electronics, vehicles and other goods moving through North American supply chains.
Trudeau also used the announcement to argue that the relationship between the two countries should be collaborative rather than punitive. NBC quoted him saying that if Trump wanted a new golden age for the United States, the better path was partnership with Canada. He told Americans the tariffs would have real consequences for them and urged Canadians to think about buying Canadian-made goods and changing vacation plans to stay in Canada.
The White House did not immediately respond to Trudeau’s announcement, according to NBC. For now, the immediate development is not merely that tariffs were imposed, but that Canada rapidly signaled a countermeasure large enough to keep the dispute moving. The result is a trade fight with potential implications for prices, border commerce and the political relationship between Washington and Ottawa.
