Canada Will Impose Steel Safeguards

By Jorge Valencia
Published: Monday, October 15, 2018 - 5:00am
Updated: Monday, October 15, 2018 - 12:20pm
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Canada announced last Thursday it will impose new tariffs on steel imports, as the U.S., Canada, and Mexico continue to disagree on how to trade this important construction material.

The U.S., Mexico and Canada reached a preliminary deal on trade barely two weeks ago. They just couldn't agree on steel. So why would they leave out something that's used in everything from sewing needles to oil tankers?

Shannon O'Neil is with the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank. She says that with tariffs U.S. officials placed on their own steel imports this year, they failed to make an agreement before the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal was informally agreed upon at the end of September.

"They couldn't have everything that they had before and in the end, these tariffs that were put in place last summer were kept separate because they were so controversial," O’Neil said.

The U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum could risk as many as 6 million jobs in related sectors, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution. It would especially impact states were with manufacturing or port presence such as Missouri and Louisiana.

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