Canada launches ‘tariffs are a tax’ advertisements in U.S. to push again on Trump – National | USAEMALL.com

The federal government on Friday launched a new ad campaign in the U.S. to remind Americans of the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods in the latest salvo in the deepening trade war.

The digital billboards read “Tariffs are a tax on hardworking Americans” and will be installed in Washington, D.C., and cities like Miami, Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta that Ottawa says would be “hardest hit” by the tariffs “due to their heavy reliance on trade with Canada.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly told CNN on Friday the “huge billboards” will be erected along major highways in 12 U.S. states overall, with a particular focus on “red” Republican-led states.

“We need to send a message to the American people for them to understand what’s at stake,” she said. “This is really going to hurt their livelihoods and have an impact on their wallets.

“My message to hardworking Americans is please, talk to your senators, talk to your House representatives, to your mayors, to your governors: send a message that you don’t want these tariffs, because no one will win in this approach coming out of the White House.”

Polling suggests Trump’s tariffs on Canada are not popular with the American people.

Leger found this week that more than half of Americans surveyed believe tariffs will negatively impact the U.S. economy, while 72 per cent said they are worried about higher grocery prices due to the tariffs.

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A majority of Americans, meanwhile, believe Trump’s economic moves have been too “erratic,” according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week amid turmoil in the U.S. financial markets blamed on new and threatened tariffs.

A February report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, with lower 10 per cent levies on Canadian energy, would cost the typical American household over US$1,200 a year.

Trump has since exempted auto parts and other goods traded under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement from those tariffs after they took effect on March 4, as well as lowered duties on Canadian potash to 10 per cent.

Trump and the White House have dismissed the idea that tariffs on foreign imports will see costs passed on to consumers. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed earlier this month that tariffs amount to a “tax cut for Americans,” claiming they will ultimately make American-made products cheaper as domestic production increases.

Canada’s embassy in the U.S. has been promoting facts on the economic benefits of the two countries working together for weeks on social media since Trump’s tariffs took effect.

A separate social media ad campaign that launched Friday in Canada “will aim to unify and rally Canadians to be loud and proud in their patriotism, and choose Canada in everything they do,” a government statement said.

“The more we choose to stand up as our most flag-flying, maple leaf-buying, local adventuring selves, the more we are the true north, unbreakable, strong and free,” the English-language ad voiced by Rick Mercer says. The French-language ad is voiced by actor Remi-Pierre Paquin, and both versions contain music from Vancouver band Japandroids.

The ads were launched as Canada continues to push for the Trump administration to drop its March 4 tariffs on most exports to the U.S., which Trump has said are meant to pressure Ottawa to combat fentanyl and improve border security, as well as 25 per cent duties on steel and aluminum.

Trump has vowed to impose additional, “reciprocal” tariffs globally on April 2, which will match tariffs set by foreign trading partners. Canada is readying additional retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods for that date, even as Canadian officials negotiate with the Trump administration on potential exemptions.

The federal government is also seeking to rally Canadians against Trump’s ongoing threats to annex Canada and make it the 51st U.S. state, which Trump repeated again this week.

“When I say they should be a state, I mean that,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, repeating familiar grievances on trade and military spending. “I really mean that, because we can’t be expected to carry a country that is right next to us on our border.”

He also once again called the Canada-U.S. border an “artificial line” and mused that removing it would create a “beautiful land-mass.”

Earlier this week, in an interview with Fox News, Trump called Canada “one of the nastiest countries to deal with” in trade negotiations under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, and again said Canada is “meant to be our 51st state.”

Joly told CNN that Trump’s annexation talk is “absurd” and further harms average Americans.

“Who are the first impacted by all this rhetoric and all this nastiness? It’s ultimately American people themselves,” she said.

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