The US Department of Commerce report on steel and aluminum indicated that the President is required to make a decision on the steel recommendations by April 11, 2018, and on the aluminum recommendations by April 19, 2018. Additionally, there will be varying duty rates according to country and some countries could be excluded. The Department of Commerce also recommended that there be a process for companies to petition to have their products excluded from the tariffs if it can be shown the products are not manufactured or otherwise not available in the U.S.

How does one Canadian suggest we respond? By lowering tariffs on exports of the same goods from other countries, giving them a leg up over the Americans in our market?

We should avoid the urge to levy tit-for-tat tariffs on imports of products from the United States, such as the Europeans are threatening to impose on American motorcycles, blue jeans and bourbon. Trade war is unlike real war in one crucial respect: the guns are pointed inward. The chief victims of any tariffs the Trump administration might impose in the name of protecting the American steel industry are other Americans: the industries that use the suddenly dearer steel, imported or domestic, in production; the consumers of the products they make, those costs having been passed on in higher prices; the workers in still other industries, consumers having that much less income left to spend on other things; and so on.

Continue reading this article in the 5 March 2018 edition of the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.