Ontario Premier Doug Ford on March 11 said he would suspend the 25% tariff on electricity exports to the U.S., issued the day before, after speaking with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and receiving threats of additional tariffs by President Donald Trump. (See Ontario Premier Ford Slaps 25% Tariffs on Power Exports to US.)
In a post on X, Ford and Lutnick said they would meet in D.C. on March 13 “to discuss a renewed” United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The two said they “had a productive conversation about the economic relationship between the United States and Canada.”
The statement came several hours after Trump posted a rambling message on his own social media site, Truth Social, saying he had instructed Lutnick to impose an additional 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports from Canada in retaliation to Ford’s action, on top of a blanket 25% tariff on all such imports set to go into effect at midnight March 12.
Trump made a series of other threats, such as “declaring a National Emergency on electricity within the threatened area” and increasing a tariff on imported vehicles April 2.
“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished 51 state,” the president wrote. “The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear, and we will have the safest and most beautiful nation anywhere in the world — and your brilliant anthem, ‘O Canada,’ will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest nation that the world has ever seen!”
Later, Trump posted another, shorter message, asking, “Why would our country allow another country to supply us with electricity, even for a small area? Who made these decisions, and why? And can you imagine Canada stooping so low as to use ELECTRICITY, that so affects the life of innocent people, as a bargaining chip and threat? They will pay a financial price for this so big that it will be read about in history books for many years to come!”
Asked on MSNBC about his reaction to Trump’s threats, Ford said, “We will not back down; we will be relentless. I apologize to the American people that President Trump decided to have an unprovoked attack on our country … but we need the American people to speak up. We need those CEOs to get actually get a backbone and stand in front of him and tell him this is going to be a disaster. It’s mass chaos right now.”
Later that day, Trump backed off his threat to up the steel and aluminum tariff for Canada, according to White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai. “President Trump has once again used the leverage of the American economy, which is the best and biggest in the world, to deliver a win for the American people,” he said, adding that the blanket tariff was still scheduled to go into effect.
