Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomes withdrawal of U.S. tariff on Canadian aluminium

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce welcomed the US decision of withdrawal the 10% tariff recently imposed on the imports of aluminium from Canada.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Senior Director of International Trade, Mark Agnew, said, “Tariffs were the wrong instrument when they were first imposed in 2018, and they remained the wrong instrument until today. Our members will welcome the announcement today that the United States government is lifting tariffs for the time being on Canadian exports.

It cannot be overstated that Canadian aluminum exports posed no national security threat to the United States, and that any action under Section 232 has always been unjustified and illegal.

However, the United States has not unconditionally lifted its tariffs on Canadian aluminum and continues to seek to restrict market-driven trade flows.

This will provide critical certainty for Canadian and American businesses during this period of great economic uncertainty. At a time when our economies are struggling with the economic fallout of COVID-19, these tariffs only exacerbated disruptions to North American supply chains.”

The US on Tuesday declared that it would no longer impose a 10% tariff on Canadian aluminium imports.

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement: "After consultations with the Canadian government, the United States has determined that trade in non-alloyed, unwrought aluminium is likely to normalise in the last four months of 2020, with imports declining sharply from the surges experienced earlier in the year."

"Accordingly, the United States will modify the terms of the 10% tariff imposed in August."

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