US-Canada trade war escalates amid tit-for-tat tariffs

The US-Canada trade war intensified, with Washington moving to ban a raft of goods from its northern neighbour after Ottawa imposed retaliatory tariffs on its biggest trading partner. The moves follow escalating rhetoric between the pair’s leaders, though a senior Trump administration official said the countries would try to negotiate an offramp from the dispute.

Any truce or deal looks unlikely to permanently repair what was once a close alliance, however: The row is derailing any hope of renewing the USMCA North American trade pact, and Canada is increasingly looking to shift away from its dependence on the US. “When the old path disappears,” one analyst wrote in The Globe and Mail, “the only option is to change direction.”