Trump in new tariff threat after Canada says it will recognise Palestinian state

Irish Independent

4 days ago

Trump is set to impose a 35% tariff on all Canadian goods not covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement if the two countries do not reach an agreement by the deadline.
"Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them," Trump said on Truth Social.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney previously said tariff negotiations with Washington had been constructive, but the talks may not conclude by the deadline. Talks between the two countries were at an intense phase, he added, but a deal that would remove all U.S. tariffs was unlikely.
Canada is the second-largest U.S. trading partner after Mexico, and the largest buyer of U.S. exports. It bought $349.4 billion of U.S. goods last year and exported $412.7 billion to the U.S., according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Canada is also the top supplier of steel and aluminium to the United States, and faces tariffs on both metals as well as on vehicle exports.
Last month, Carney's government scrapped a planned digital services tax targeting U.S. technology firms after Trump abruptly called off trade talks saying the tax was a "blatant attack'.
Carney followed France and Britain as he said on Wednesday that his country was planning to recognize the State of Palestine at a meeting of the United Nations in September.
In announcing the decision, Carney spoke of the reality on the ground, including starvation in Gaza.
"Canada condemns the fact that the Israeli government has allowed a catastrophe to unfold in Gaza," he said.
Israel and the United States, Israel's closest ally, both rejected Carney's comments.
Canada said it planned to recognize the State of Palestine at a meeting of the United Nations in September, ratcheting up pressure on Israel as starvation spreads in Gaza.
The announcement came after France said last week it would recognize a Palestinian state and a day after Britain said it would recognize the state at September's U.N. General Assembly meeting if the fighting in Gaza, part of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, had not stopped by then.
Carney said the planned recognition was based in part on repeated assurances from the Palestinian Authority, which represents the State of Palestine at the U.N., that it was reforming its governance and is willing to hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas "can play no part."
The announcements by some of Israel's closest allies reflect growing international outrage over Israel's restrictions on food and other aid to Gaza in its war against Hamas militants, and the dire humanitarian crisis there. A global hunger monitor has warned that a worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding in the enclave.
The Gaza health ministry reported seven more hunger-related deaths on Wednesday, including a two-year-old girl with an existing health condition. The Hamas-run government media office in Gaza said the Israeli military killed at least 50 people within three hours on Wednesday as they tried to get food from U.N. aid trucks coming into the northern Gaza Strip.
Israel and its closest ally, the U.S., both rejected Carney's statements.
"The change in the position of the Canadian government at this time is a reward for Hamas and harms the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a framework for the release of the hostages," the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made similar comments after the French and British announcements.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said President Donald Trump also sees recognition of the State of Palestine as wrongly "rewarding Hamas."
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to travel to Israel on Thursday to discuss Gaza. Trump said this week he expected centers to be set up to feed more people in the enclave.
The State of Palestine has been a non-member observer state of the U.N. General Assembly since 2012, recognized by more than three-quarters of the assembly's 193 member states.
Jonathan Panikoff, former deputy U.S. national intelligence officer on the Middle East, said recognition of Palestine is intended "to increase pressure on Israel to compel it to return to a two-state paradigm." But he said Canada's announcement is "unlikely to be anything more than symbolic and risks undermining their relationship with a longtime ally in Israel."
French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke with Carney before Canada's announcement, said the recognition of Palestine will "revive a prospect of peace in the region."
POSSIBLE ULTIMATUM TO HAMAS
Israeli security cabinet member Zeev Elkin said on Wednesday that Israel could threaten to annex parts of Gaza to increase pressure on Hamas, eroding Palestinian hopes of statehood on land Israel now occupies.
Mediation efforts to secure a 60-day ceasefire and the release of remaining hostages held by Hamas ground to a halt last week.
In Gaza, resident Saed al-Akhras said the recognition of Palestine by major powers marked a "real shift in how Western countries view the Palestinian cause."
"Enough!" he said. "Palestinians have lived for more than 70 years under killing, destruction and occupation, while the world watches in silence."
Families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza appealed for no recognition of a Palestinian state to come before their loved ones were returned.
"Such recognition is not a step toward peace but rather a clear violation of international law and a dangerous moral and political failure that legitimizes horrific war crimes," the Hostages Family Forum said.
Netanyahu said this month he wanted peace with Palestinians but described any future independent state as a potential platform to destroy Israel, so control of security must remain with Israel.
His cabinet includes far-right members who openly demand the annexation of all Palestinian land. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday that reestablishing Jewish settlements in Gaza was "closer than ever," calling Gaza "an inseparable part of the Land of Israel."
AID GOING IN, BUT NOT ENOUGH
A 2-year-old girl being treated for a build-up of brain fluid died overnight of hunger, her father told Reuters on Wednesday.
"Doctors said the baby has to be fed a certain type of milk," Salah al-Gharably said by phone from Deir Al-Balah. "But there is no milk. She starved. We stood helpless."
The deaths from starvation and malnutrition overnight raised the toll from such causes to 154, according to the Gaza health ministry, including at least 89 children, since the war's start, most of them in recent weeks.
Israel said on Sunday it would halt military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of Gaza and designate secure routes for convoys delivering food and medicine.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the United Nations and its partners had been able to bring more food into Gaza in the first two days of pauses, but the volume was "still far from enough."
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led attacks on communities and military bases in southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed, including more than 700 civilians, and another 251 taken as hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 60,000 people and laid waste to much of the territory, the Gaza health ministry says.