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Isa Soares Tonight
Canada Announces Retaliatory Tariffs on Hundreds of American Goods. Aired 2-2:07p ET
Aired August 25, 2026 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
MAX FOSTER, HOST, ISA SOARES TONIGHT: A very warm welcome to the show, everyone, I'm Max Foster in for Isa Soares. Tonight, the trade war
escalates. Canada announces retaliatory tariffs on hundreds of American goods, we'll unpack how the move could hurt the U.S. economy.
Then an unannounced visit to Moscow. A source tells CNN that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled overnight to meet with Russian officials. We'll
bring you the details. And it's a murder trial that's captured attention far beyond the Boston suburb where three children lost their lives.
That comes next in the -- what comes next in the Lindsay Clancy trial as the jury hears from the final witnesses. Much more on top of that, just
ahead. But first, dollar-for-dollar, rate-for-rate. Canada now says it will match the tariffs announced by the U.S. and President Trump on about $20
billion worth of goods.
Trade deal negotiations between the two countries broke down a few days ago, and the situation has since spiraled out of control, even to the point
of possibly changing the name of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes.
Mr. Trump says the U.S. is considering naming it Lake America instead. Just a few hours ago, Canadian officials argued they're standing up for workers
and businesses after the U.S. asks for too much and offered too little.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCOIS-PHILLIPPE CHAMPAGNE, FINANCE MINISTER, CANADA: Canada must respond, and today we are in a proportionate, targeted and strategic way.
Today, I'm announcing that Canada will match the United States tariffs dollar-for-dollar, rate-for-rate.
Effective September 8th, Canada will impose country tariffs of up to 15, 25 or 50 percent on 27.6 billion in imports from the United States of America.
For each product, our tariff would match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Let's get into this with Anna Stewart, who is keeping tabs on the economic side of things. Betsy Klein, who is in Washington. Anna, if we
start away from the politics, this is a trade war and trade wars mostly are damaging always, aren't they, for both sides?
ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, everyone knows that nobody wins in a trade war. Canada is very aware of that. And in that press conference
today, they made clear that they didn't start this, not to sort of use a toddler phrase, but they are retaliating.
And they promised it would be dollar-for-dollar, and so it is. We have a very big chunky list of items that will face tariffs. It's more targeted in
a way than the tariff is responding to. It's the same amount, $20 billion worth of goods.
But there's a 15, 25 and 50 percent-level tariff when it comes to some of the big sort of sectors for U.S. and Canada in terms of their trade
relationships. Canada is doubling the current tariff on steel and aluminum, taking up to 50 percent. So, that is the same as the U.S. That's really
significant.
And then new tariffs on various items, you know, 25 percent on things like appliances, dairy products, that's a massive one, cheese, fish, seafood,
and actually, you know, there are some irony here, because for the last week or two weeks and many months actually, Donald Trump has been wailing
against how unfair trade has been for American dairy farmers, well, it's about to get a lot less fair now.
Although, Canada would argue, this is a level-playing field given where we're at with tariffs. There was also an announcement for a $5.4 billion
support package, but Canadian businesses and workers to help them through this.
Because as you say, you know, this will be very painful. The only thing we don't have right now is a response for the latest threat from the U.S.
side, to increase auto tariffs for Canada to 20 -- sorry, to 50 percent from 25 percent.
That is still a threat, so perhaps Canada is waiting for that to be made concrete as ever with these trade wars, you have to wait for things to
really actually be enacted rather than just threats. How much of this will be a trade war? How much of this will be threats? Will we see this go to
sort of China-USA trade war levels triple-digit tariffs. Who knows at this point? Max.
FOSTER: Yes, Betsy, that's the question, isn't it? So, you know, it's become tit-for-tat, America probably wasn't expecting Canada to come back
so hard. But now, they're in the midst of this trade war, as Anna intimidated.
[14:05:00]
They've done it with China before, they eventually gave up, I mean, what are you hearing?
BETSY KLEIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As well, Max, President Trump thinks that he is a great negotiator, and we have seen him throughout the course,
particularly of his second term in office use both tariffs and the threat of tariffs as a negotiation tactic.
But right now, what we are witnessing is major tensions between these two countries who are key trading partners, and no signs from President Trump
that he has any plans to deescalate this. The U.S. announcing that it was going to put those tariffs on Canada after those talks collapsed.
And we heard from Canada's Foreign -- Finance Ministry saying in a statement they were -- that the U.S. was basically asking too much of
Canada and offering too little in return. So, the President planning to increase tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel to 50
percent, starting on January 1st of next year.
Then Canada responding with those retaliatory tariffs as Anna so well laid out. But the rhetoric is also escalating. We heard the President refer to
Lake Ontario as Lake America --
FOSTER: OK --
KLEIN: That's a threat he's made in the past. Max.
FOSTER: We're going to come back to this, but we have just had some breaking news coming in to CNN, and it's very sad --
KLEIN: Sorry --
FOSTER: News. We are learning that the country music icon, Dolly Parton has died, 80 years old. Her death was announced by her nephew just a short
while ago. She had been dealing with some health issues in recent months.
But let's go to our colleagues at CNN U.S. for more.
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