Canada has fixed the day its counter-tariffs start and not the goods they land on, and the day is the Tuesday after Labour Day
The readout gives a holiday, not a date.
Canada will bring in dollar for dollar counter-tariffs against the United States, the Prime Minister's office says, and they come into force the Tuesday after Labour Day. Labour Day in Canada is the first Monday in September, which this year is 7 September, so the duties attach on 8 September. That is sixteen days from this morning. The document does not print the date and leaves the reader to count.
Mark Carney met the provincial and territorial premiers virtually on 22 August to discuss the suspension of trade negotiations with the United States. The readout says he outlined the counter-tariffs and further measures to support Canadian workers and businesses affected by American tariffs. Then one sentence closes the subject. Details will be released in the coming days.
What was suspended, and by whom
The negotiations, on Friday evening, by Canada.
Carney's statement of 21 August says he decided to suspend the talks and directed Canada's negotiators to return to Ottawa. It gives a reason: late changes to the American terms were, in his words, unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal. The same statement sets out what was about to happen on the other side of the border. At midnight tonight, it reads, the United States intends to impose a 50 percent tariff on roughly $28 billion of Canadian goods, and Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar.
The statement does not say whether that $28 billion is Canadian or American money. It is a Canadian document, which is a reason to suppose it means Canadian dollars, and supposing is not knowing.
The American duties are already running
This publication covered them on 20 August and again on 22 August. They come from three proclamations signed on 20 July under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, numbered 11046, 11047 and 11048 and reaching alcoholic beverages, dairy and motor vehicles. A three day suspension granted on 18 August, since numbered Proclamation 11056, expired by its own terms at one minute past midnight eastern on 22 August, and the additional 50 percent duties attached at that moment.
So the order of events on the record is narrow. The talks were suspended on Friday evening. The duties attached in the early hours of Saturday. The Canadian answer was put to the premiers later on Saturday and will not be felt for another two weeks.
What dollar for dollar does not settle
Which goods.
Value is the only thing the phrase fixes. It says the Canadian measures will be sized against the American ones and says nothing at all about what an American exporter will find on the list, and as of this morning there is no list to find anything on. The Government of Canada news feed carries no item on the counter-tariffs, and the newest thing in it is a Saturday evening arts funding announcement from Canadian Heritage. The Department of Finance Canada's own feed has published once this month, on 21 August, about a visit by India's finance minister. Canada Gazette Part II has issued nothing since 12 August, so no surtax order has appeared there either.
The Friday statement also promised further support for Canadian workers and businesses, building on what it describes as nearly $25 billion provided over the past 18 months. That figure is the government's own, and the statement does not break it down.
