Canadian Prime Minister Declares ‘We Got Attacked’ After U.S. Levies 50% Tariffs

A 50% American tariff on Canadian goods is nothing short of an attack, Prime Minister Mark Carney declared Saturday after trade talks between the two nations collapsed.

Carney addressed reporters hours after telling his negotiators to return to Ottawa in the face of failed negotiations to stave off the threatened hefty tariff.

“You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked. U.S. put 50% — we waited until the U.S. decided to actually implement these so-called 338 tariffs. That’s fine,” he said, referring to the Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930.

“We’ve got the reserves, we’ve got the resilience, we’ve got the plan, we’ve got the focus. We’re gonna respond we’re going to focus on what we can control what we’re going to build,” he added.

Canada vowed to match the brutal tariffs on $28 billion worth of goods “dollar for dollar.”

“We cannot accept what they’ve offered and we will not give what they’ve asked,” he said Saturday, at one point declaring the “signature” of the United States throughout the trade ordeal has been “written in pencil.”

He claimed the U.S. repeatedly changed its reasons for the punishing tariffs, from fentanyl, to taxes on tech companies, to certification of aircraft to “our dairy policy” to local decisions about the sale of alcohol during the ongoing trade strife.

Carney issued a blistering statement pinning blame for the failed talks squarely on President Donald Trump’s administration, saying last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”

The punishing U.S. tariffs were originally set to take effect Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. but Trump pushed the deadline to Friday as talks continued.

But the talks ultimately failed between the once friendly countries, which sold $880 billion in goods and services to one another in 2025, according to the Associated Press.

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