The U.S. announced the removal of aluminum tariffs it slapped on Canada last month, after being threatened with retaliatory duties.
The 10 percent tariff on non-alloyed, unwrought aluminum was lifted a month after the Trump administration reimposed them on Canada, citing a “surge” of imports coming from the country. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had previously expressed concern about recent struggles by American aluminum producers.
While the USTR announced the removal of the tariff, it said it “expects” shipments from Canada will be no greater than 83,000 tons in September and November and no greater than 70,000 tons in October and December, effectively signaling a quota. But Canada has not yet made a commitment to a volume limit.
Click here to read the full report from Joe Deaux, Jenny Leonard and Kait Bolongaro from Bloomberg, courtesy of Yahoo Finance.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told journalists in a press conference that Canada would drop the counter tariffs it threatened as retaliation, but left the door open for future measures if the U.S. imposed duties. USTR said it would reimpose the 10 percent tariff retroactively if actual shipments exceed 105 percent of the expected volume for any of the months.
“Should tariffs be reimposed on our aluminum exports in the future, Canada will retaliate with perfectly reciprocal dollar-for-dollar tariffs as we have done in the past,” Freeland said. “We will always stand up for our workers and our industry.”
