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Tag Archives: Tariffs
Carney says Canada is “not for sale, it won’t be for sale, ever” in Oval Office meeting with Trump
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said emphatically Tuesday that Canada is “not for sale” and “won’t be for sale, ever” in an Oval Office meeting with President Trump, moments after Mr. Trump called the border between the U.S. and Canada “artificial” and romanticized the idea of Canada joining the U.S.
Mr. Trump said he and Carney wouldn’t be discussing the U.S. acquiring Canada unless “somebody wants to discuss it,” but said there would be “tremendous” benefits to Canada in the event of a “wonderful marriage” between the two countries. The president has repeatedly floated the idea of acquiring Canada, despite Canada’s repeated rejection of the concept. Tuesday’s meeting at the White House was the first one the two leaders have had since Carney’s Liberal Party was victorious in last week’s federal election.
“As a real estate developer, you know, I’m a real estate developer at heart,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “When you get rid of that artificially drawn line … when you look at that beautiful formation when it’s together, I’m a very artistic person.”
Carney interjected, adopting language he believed Mr. Trump would understand.
“As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale,” Carney said. “We’re sitting in one right now, Buckingham Palace that you visited, as well. And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it’s not for sale, it won’t be for sale, ever. But the opportunity is in the partnership and what we can build together.”
Asked if Carney’s rejection of the idea makes trade and other negotiations more difficult, Mr. Trump insisted, “no, not at all.” But the U.S. president isn’t giving up on the idea, despite a lack of buy-in from Canada’s leadership and people. “But I say, ‘never say never,'” Mr. Trump said.
Carney, who has pledged to stand firm against the U.S. president, despite tensions on trade and borders, told reporters after the meeting that he asked Mr. Trump to stop calling Canada the 51st state.
Mr. Trump began their meeting in the Oval Office by congratulating Carney on his victory, saying, “I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him.”
“We’re gonna be friends with Canada,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “Regardless of anything, we’re going to be friends with Canada.”
On trade, Mr. Trump insisted there is nothing Carney could say Tuesday to lift U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods. Carney called that a “bigger discussion.”
After the White House meeting concluded, Carney told reporters at a press conference at the Canadian embassy in Washington that trade discussions will continue, and he cautioned not to expect confirmation of areas of progress until a deal is reached. Carney said Canada and the U.S. are having very “complex” negotiations about a “wide range of issues.”
“We had what I would describe as wide-ranging, and as I said a moment ago, very constructive discussions,” Carney told reporters. “We agreed to have further conversations in the coming weeks and we are looking forward to meeting in person at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta. Now, while that’s going on, in Canada, we will focus on what we can control.”
The Canadian prime minister said Canadians have more work to do in making the case that the Trump administration’s tariffs aren’t good for American jobs, or the American economy.
The Canadian prime minister, without going into detail, said the two leaders also discussed global issues of common concern, which he called the sign of a “healthy” relationship.
Mr. Trump described the meeting later as a “very good meeting.”
But U.S.-Canada relations have been strained by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and his comments about making Canada the 51st state.
Carney said in his victory speech that Canada’s previous relationship with the U.S., “based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over.” He also said Canadians must “fundamentally reimagine our economy” in light of Mr. Trump’s tariff regime.
Ahead of the meeting, Carney told the BBC last week that Canada would only enter trade and security talks with the Trump administration “on our terms.” Carney, a member of the Liberal Party, was elected party leader in March and became the prime minister soon after.
A 25% import tariff on goods from Canada not covered by the USMCA trade agreement went into effect March 4. Mr. Trump said that tariff was to punish Canada for the entrance of fentanyl and migrants into the U.S. Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border, while over 21,000 pounds of the drug was seized at the southern border. Canada retaliated against the U.S. with tariffs on many U.S. goods.
“We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media ahead of Carney’s arrival. “They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us!”
Over the weekend, Mr. Trump said he’d talk about making Canada the 51st state, although he said he doesn’t expect to use military force. “I don’t see it with Canada. I just don’t see it,” the president said in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Tariffs force U.S. bicycle company to halt imports from China
The Kamler family, owner of Fairfield, New Jersey-based Kent International, has been in the bicycle business for four generations.
“When I joined the company in 1972, we had six employees, including both my parents and myself,” former Kent International CEO Arnold Kamler told CBS News. “And as of a few months ago we had over 200 employees.”
Arnold took over Kent International from his father. Now his son, Scott Kamler, is CEO. They sell about two million bikes per year in the U.S. and they’re one of Walmart’s biggest suppliers. But President Trump’s plan for tariffs is throwing a wrench into their American dream.
About 90% of Kent bikes are imported from China. The rest are assembled in the U.S. at their factory in South Carolina with parts from Asia. Kent had been paying 25% tariffs on bikes and bike parts coming from China since the first Trump administration. But under the tariffs implemented by Mr. Trump last month, a recent shipment that was delayed and arrived during the new tariff period forced the company to pay a combined 181.47% in import duties and tariffs.
During the one-month period from March 20 to April 20, Kent Bikes paid $3.1 million in tariffs alone.
Under the new tariffs, a bicycle wheel imported from China that would have previously cost between $10 and $12 increased to about $30, according to Arnold.
He says that makes him feel “really bad” and “angry.”
“China is not paying these tariffs,” Arnold said. “We have an account with U.S. customs where they automatically deduct once a month, the import duty, from our account. And so, it’s not only import duty, but these tariffs are deducted.”
The company cancelled its new orders from China for April, and it doesn’t have any plans to place new orders in May.
Even if tariffs against China are reduced by the Trump administration, there are dozens of other countries facing new tariffs. So trying to find other foreign vendors seems futile.
“We had already shifted some of our business, almost half our business, to several of the countries on that list,” Kramer said. “And we’re getting out of China and now we’re still getting slammed. It’s just completely unfair.”
Arnold indicates that fully manufacturing and assembling their bikes in the U.S. is not financially tenable from a cost-perspective.
“I can’t even calculate that high,” Kramer said about what he thinks a bike would cost to produce here. “I’ll just tell you one quick story. There was a company that came to us a couple years ago. They wanted to make handlebars for us. Now we used to make our own handlebar for about a dollar-and- a-half, and we saved some money by buying it from Asia. And this company took three months to give me the quotation for a simple BMX handlebar. And the price came back at $12. I said, ‘$12? It’s about 80 cents of steel. How could you be?’ ‘Well, there’s a lot of work.’ And I said, ‘OK, thank you, you can lose my number.’ So, you can take that (as) kind of (an) example…I mean, a $100-bicycle here would be a $1,000 if all the parts were made here right now.”
Top Trump officials will meet with China amid trade war
Two Trump administration officials will meet with their Chinese counterparts to discuss trade in the coming days, the administration said Tuesday — a potentially key moment several weeks after the United States and China imposed steep tariffs on each other.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will “meet with his counterpart from the People’s Republic of China to discuss trade matters” during a trip to Switzerland, his office said in a statement.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will also travel to Switzerland this week, where he will meet with China’s “lead representative on economic matters.” The statement didn’t identify who he would speak with, but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a post on X that Bessent will meet with Vice Premier He Lifeng.
In a social media post Tuesday night, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. confirmed the Switzerland meeting, writing that China “has decided to agree to engage with the #US side.”
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Bessent said he will meet with a Chinese team on Saturday and Sunday, and initial discussions will likely be about “de-escalation, not about the big trade deal.” The Treasury secretary said the U.S. and China have “shared interests” because the sky-high tariffs imposed by both countries last month are not “sustainable.”
“The world has been coming to the U.S., and China has been the missing piece,” Bessent said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
Hours before the U.S.-China meetings were announced, Bessent told lawmakers in a hearing that the U.S. had “not engaged in negotiations” with China yet.
China and the United States have been locked in a tense tariff standoff in recent weeks, threatening to upend relations between the world’s two largest economies and imperil more than a half-trillion dollars in annual trade between the two countries.
President Trump hit China with 145% tariffs on many goods last month, part of a wider swath of steep “reciprocal tariffs” on dozens of U.S. trading partners that Mr. Trump has accused of unfair practices. China later retaliated with 125% tariffs on imports from the United States. And while Mr. Trump paused many of his reciprocal tariffs in the hope of striking new trade deals with other countries, he left the China tariffs in place.
The escalating trade war has led to weeks of stock market turbulence, and sparked fears of slower economic growth and higher consumer prices.
Mr. Trump — who has cast his tariff strategy as a way to boost U.S. manufacturing and cut trade deficits — has suggested at various points that he’s open to striking deals with U.S. trading partners, though he said earlier Tuesday, “We don’t have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us.”
In an interview with NBC News last week, Mr. Trump claimed Chinese officials “want to make a deal very badly. We’ll see how that all turns out, but it’s got to be a fair deal.” The president also said he expected to lower tariffs on China “at some point.”
Meanwhile, Chinese officials have said they are open to negotiating with the U.S. on trade, but pushed the Trump administration to drop its “unilateral” tariffs first.
When asked about China’s request to end tariffs before negotiations start, Bessent told Fox News he’s “not going to give away our strategy” but “everything’s on the table.”