NIAGARA FALLS, CANADA - FEBRUARY 04: A Canadian flag flies next to the American one at the Lewiston-Queenston border crossing bridge on February 04, 2025 in Niagara Falls, Canada. U.S. President Donald Trump risked starting a trade war after threatening a 25 percent tariff on many goods shipped from Canada into the United States. Yesterday, before the tariffs were enacted, it was announced that there would be a 30-day pause on the tariffs. Joe Raedle/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
OTTAWA: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has allocated C$6.5bil or about US$4.5bil to help exporters reach new markets for Canadian products as the country’s business sector navigates US president Donald Trump’s tariff war.
A C$5bil programme will help exporters address challenges including losses from non-payment, currency fluctuations, lack of access to cash flows and barriers to expansion, government ministers announced.
The government is also providing C$1bil in new financing through Farm Credit Canada to help the Canadian agriculture and food industry.
“Favourably priced loans” of C$500mil will be made available through the Business Development Bank of Canada to support businesses in sectors that are directly targeted by tariffs, as well as companies in their supply chains.
“These measures will provide stability to our sectors at a time of great unrest and uncertainty and more than anything else, they will help keep more workers in their jobs, more businesses running and more factory floors humming,” Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said at a news conference.
“We know that uncertainty in many ways is worse than the proposals themselves because businesses are frozen in their investment decisions,” he added. “So we want to make sure that they have the comfort knowing that we have this backstop in place.”
The government is also making changes to a programme that provides benefits to employees who agree with their employers to work reduced hours, due to a decrease in business activity.
Canada will “customise” its response depending on how the tariff situation evolves, MacKinnon said at a news conference. The funding announced last Friday will not be paid for through retaliatory tariffs, officials said.
Trump said he may implement reciprocal tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy products as soon this Friday.
His comments capped a tumultuous week that saw him impose 25% tariffs on most of what the US imports from Mexico and Canada last Tuesday, before announcing last Thursday that he would delay that move on goods compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, until April 2.
Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said she heard about the threatened lumber and dairy tariffs as she was walking into the news conference last Friday. “These tariffs, if imposed in that order of magnitude, are completely unjustified,” she said.
She added that Trump’s claim that Canada has been “ripping off” the United States for years on lumber and dairy is “simply not true”. American lumber producers have alleged that the Canadian lumber system amounts to a subsidy – a charge Canadians deny – and the countries have fought over tariffs on those products for decades. — Bloomberg
