King Charles was briefly hospitalized Thursday after experiencing “temporary” side effects from his cancer treatment, according to reports.

The 76-year-old monarch, however, was back at his Clarence House residence by Thursday night, the UK Sun reported. His Friday events were canceled. -- MORE...

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Mark Carney says Canada ‘won’t back down,’ promises billions in counter-tariffs following Trump’s auto tariffs

“There is no silver bullet, there is no quick fix,” said the prime minister, adding Trump reached out to book a call after the U.S. president announced 25 per cent auto tariffs will take effect next week.

Updated 25 mins agoMarch 27, 2025

OTTAWA — Canada will retaliate forcefully next week against U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent auto tariffs and other threatened penalties to come, as Prime Minister Mark Carney warned the coming trade war will be painful as the “old relationship” between the two countries is “over.”

“The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military co-operation is over. What exactly the United States does next is unclear, but what is clear is that we as Canadians have agency, we have power.”

Carney, who said he wants a “strong mandate” to take on the Trump administration, said the president reached out to him to schedule a call after Trump announced Wednesday 25 per cent auto tariffs will take effect next week.

He expects they’ll speak for the first time in the next day or two. But Carney added a comprehensive approach to abiding by, or resetting, free and fair bilateral trade rules is not on Trump’s agenda.

The U.S. president is determined to use tariffs as an ongoing strategy to repatriate to the U.S. investment in autos, pharmaceutical, semiconductor chip, dairy, steel and aluminum sectors and to punish allies and competitors alike, Carney said.

Canada will “need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States, we will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere, and we will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven’t seen in generations” to become more productive, “and therefore more competitive,” he said.

“I don’t want to set unreasonable expectations. The road ahead will be long. There is no silver bullet, there is no quick fix,” Carney said.

He rebuffed Trump’s warning that retaliation co-ordination between Canada and Europe would be punished with more tariff escalation, saying Ottawa will calibrate its response to the 25 per cent auto tariffs and to “reciprocal” tariffs the U.S. threatens are coming next week, regardless of Trump’s threats.

“We choose our own allies in Canada,” said Carney. “We choose how we engage those allies. We are sovereign. So I take note of the president’s comment. I don’t take direction from him.”

Trump threatened Thursday in a post on Truth Social to further punish Canada and the European Union (which he erroneously called a country) if they work together to “do economic harm to the USA” saying that “large scale tariffs, far larger than currently planned, will be placed on them both in order to protect the best friend that each of those two countries has ever had!”

“We will fight the U.S. tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impacts here in Canada,” Carney said. “We won’t back down. We will respond forcefully,” he said.

Carney did not rule out export tariffs on Canadian commodities like oil, gas, potash or uranium, but did not reveal exactly what countermeasures he would use — a strategy that Flavio Volpe, head of the Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, agreed with.

Volpe said it’s important not to “say what we’re going to do right now because you might have to change it, or Trump might change his path.”

Canada has previously levied two phases of counter-duties on a total of $60 billion worth of American imports in response to Trump’s tariff threats to date. And Ottawa identified other countermeasures against $65 million worth of U.S. imports — duties that would be paid by Canadian importers — representing a total package against $155 billion worth of products.

Carney said Canada stands to not be hit as hard by the 25 per cent auto and auto part tariffs as European, Japanese or Korean automakers. That’s because many of the autos and parts made here already have a higher amount of American content.

Brian Kingston, head of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, said in an interview the association’s understanding of Trump’s order is that a vehicle produced in Canada with U.S. content will be exposed to a tariff “only on the non-U.S. components in that vehicle.”

“That is an advantage for Canada because we have high levels of U.S. parts and components in the vehicles we build here, over 50 per cent in many instances. If you compare that to other countries that will be facing these tariffs, where they have very little U.S. inputs, they will have the full force of the 25 per cent tariff to deal with, whereas in Canada it will be a lower level.”

That jibes with what Premier Doug Ford says he understood after a 25-minute call with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick late Wednesday night: that vehicles assembled in Canada with more than 50 per cent American parts content will not face tariffs.

“To give you a quick breakdown on a very, very high level, a lot of the automobiles that are manufactured here in Ontario have 50, 60 per cent parts from the U.S.,” Ford told reporters, noting tariffs on vehicles with parts percentages below that “could vary” depending on the percentage of American components in them.

“The good news for auto part manufacturers, they aren’t going to be touched (by tariffs), which is very, very important, as he knows how integrated the auto trade is,” the premier added, allaying fears that shipments of automobile components — which often cross the border several times on their way to completion — would be hit with the levies in addition to finished vehicles.

Lutnick suggested to Ford that should ease concerns of widespread plant shutdowns and layoffs, but Ford said he doesn’t believe it.

A first ministers meeting is scheduled Friday between Carney and the premiers to discuss retaliation measures against the U.S.

Carney has said there is a limit to how far Canadian counter-tariffs can go but has not ruled out nontariff measures like “Buy Canadian” procurement decisions.

Officials have suggested the overall tariff package could go beyond $155 billion. One official said no decision had yet been made on energy export tariffs, which they called “the ace.”

Kingston was relieved that Ottawa did not immediately act to slap on counter-tariffs. “There is still an opportunity to work with the Americans and find a mutually agreeable ramp here.”

Carney paused his election campaign briefly, returning to Ottawa Thursday for a cabinet meeting. But adopting a prime ministerial stance at the podium, he stumped for a majority government, saying this is “the biggest crisis in our lifetimes. And the government is going to need to act and the stronger the mandate is, the more effective we are going to be getting the best deal for Canada with respect to the Americans.”

All major political leaders on the federal election campaign trail endorsed strong retaliatory action against the 25 per cent auto tariffs, with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh opting not to criticize Carney or the Liberals’ approach to handling Trump’s tariffs.

“I want Canada to win, so I’m not going to be critical about the approach when it comes to fighting back against Donald Trump. I think we all need to be united on that front,” Singh told reporters in Windsor, where he was meeting with autoworkers in the border city.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said, “we can once again be friends with the United States if the president reverses course on these disastrous tariffs. threats.”

Otherwise, he said, “we’ll fight back, and we will build back. Within four years of a new strong Conservative government, Canada will be completely rebuilt. We will rebuild our economy. We will not be reliant on the U.S. anymore, and the Americans will have lost the greatest trading partner and friend they ever had.”

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