Canada’s government expected to swiftly respond to Trump’s tariffs

Canadian officials said they were notified Saturday by the U.S. government that the country’s goods will be subject to a 25% tariff, and a 10% rate for Canadian oil, starting Tuesday.

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is planning to respond to the tariffs Saturday evening, according to two senior Canadian government officials with direct knowledge of the notification. They spoke on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivities of the international negotiations.

Businesses and officials in Canada, Mexico and China were bracing for more details Saturday on promised tariffs after days of trying to persuade President Donald Trump not to go ahead with them.

White House officials said Friday that Trump would order a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada, along with a 10% tariff on Chinese products, beginning Saturday.

Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said he would impose the levies as punishment for Canada, Mexico and China allowing drugs and migrants to flood into the United States. He insisted that the tariffs would not fuel inflation and suggested that he would move ahead with them regardless of any last-minute concessions from the other nations.

Trump is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and had no public events listed on his schedule Saturday.

The president is expected to sign an executive order putting the tariffs into effect and could do so retroactively. But the lack of clarity surrounding what, exactly, Trump planned to impose created even more uncertainty for global businesses.

Experts believe the tariffs could have broad impacts on the U.S., Canadian and Mexican economies, driving up prices for consumers and affecting jobs, although there was little doubt that pain would be felt more in Canada’s and Mexico’s smaller economies.

Over the past few weeks, Mexican and Canadian officials have mounted major efforts to avert the tariffs: Canada has reinforced its border with more staff, drones and Black Hawk helicopters, and Canadian officials have been traversing the United States trying to lobby key Republicans against the tariffs. Mexico has helped in aspects of Trump’s immigration crackdown by taking in thousands of deported migrants.

But officials in both nations have also been working on retaliation plans, gearing up for what might quickly become a North American trade war.

U.S. stock markets closed lower Friday amid anxiety among investors about the fallout from the tariffs.

Lobbying groups for industries such as retail and agriculture, which could be among the hardest hit by retaliation from America’s trading partners, were scrambling for information about the levies but remained in the dark.

Democrats were poised Saturday to point to the tariffs as an early example of Trump’s mismanagement of the economy, arguing that he was already taking steps that would raise prices on consumers.

A new analysis from the Budget Lab of Yale University estimated that the proposed tariffs could raise annual costs on households by roughly $1,300.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.