Trending 
United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing new 50 percent tariffs on a broad range of Canadian imports, accusing Ottawa of maintaining discriminatory trade practices against American products.
According to a White House fact sheet released on Monday, the tariffs will take effect in 30 days and apply to products including wine, hockey sticks and cement.
The administration said the move was prompted by what it described as Canada’s unfair treatment of US alcohol, automobile and dairy products.
Trump invoked Section 338 of the US Tariff Act of 1930, a rarely used provision that allows the government to impose trade measures against countries deemed to be discriminating against American commerce.
The White House said the new tariffs would not apply to energy products, potash or goods already subject to sector-specific duties.
However, the measures will affect products traded under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
While Trump has slapped sweeping duties on US trading partners since returning to the presidency last year, these have generally come with broad exemptions for goods entering his country under the North American free trade pact.
The latest trade action is expected to further strain relations between Washington and Ottawa and comes days after Trump threatened Canada with additional tariffs over wildfire smoke drifting into the United States.
