U.S. President Donald Trump said he will temporarily suspend a 50% tariff on Canadian products. The decision came a day before the tariff was to take effect.
Trump said on the 18th at about 10 p.m. Eastern time on the social media platform Truth Social that he had temporarily suspended for three days the 50% tariff against Canada that had been scheduled to take effect starting tomorrow morning.
Trump added, "This is because Canada and the United States have reached an agreement, subject to finalizing the documents," and said, "The great Keystone XL pipeline, scrapped by 'sleepy' Joe Biden, could rise from the grave."
The Keystone XL project is a 1,931-kilometer pipeline construction project connecting Alberta, Canada, and Nebraska in the United States. President Obama in Nov. 2015 denied the project citing environmental pollution, but President Trump reapproved it by executive order in Jan. 2017. After President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he halted the project immediately, and Keystone pipeline operator TC Energy also pulled out.
Earlier last month, Trump signaled he would impose a 50% tariff on Canadian imports, saying Canada was engaging in trade discrimination in the auto, liquor, and dairy industries. Accordingly, the tariff that had been set to take effect on the 19th was expected to directly affect Canada's exports to the United States worth $20 billion (about 28 trillion won).
Afterward, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was said to have held back-to-back calls with Trump for two consecutive days to dissuade him.