Canada may raise counter-tariffs on US metals as trade talks continue

Canada could increase its counter-tariffs on US-produced steel and aluminium if it does not reach a broader trade agreement with the United States within 30 days, Prime Minister
Mark Carney
said on Thursday.
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump raised import duties on steel and aluminium from 25 per cent to 50 per cent, leading to calls from the metals industry in Canada for a formal response. Canada is the largest exporter of steel and aluminium to the US.
Carney said he and Trump had agreed to aim for a new economic and security agreement by 21 July, according to Reuters.
'Canada will adjust its existing counter-tariffs on US steel and aluminium products on 21 July to levels consistent with progress made in the broader trading agreement with the United States,' Carney told a press conference.
Procurement rules, market stabilisation measures announced
Rather than immediately matching the US tariff hike, Carney said he would wait to see how the ongoing discussions progressed.
Canada had earlier imposed 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs on steel products worth C$12.6 billion and aluminium products worth C$3 billion on 13 March.
Carney also announced new procurement rules. Under these, Canadian producers and trading partners with reciprocal tariff-free access will be eligible to compete for federal steel and aluminium contracts.
Canada will introduce tariff-rate quotas equivalent to 100 per cent of 2024 import levels on steel products from countries without free trade agreements. Carney said this was to 'stabilise the domestic market and prevent harmful trade diversion.'
According to the Royal Bank of Canada, Canada exports over 90 per cent of its steel and aluminium to the US, while it imports around 20 per cent of US steel exports and 50 per cent of its aluminium exports.
Carney said the federal government would prioritise the use of Canadian steel and aluminium in public projects, including defence, pipelines and housing.
'We are united in working on all forms of support for the industry... that starts with buying Canadian steel and aluminium for federal projects,' Carney said.
The government also plans to support the use of Canadian metals in domestically manufactured products and will establish a task force to monitor developments in the steel and aluminium markets under the current tariff regime.

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Mint

24 minutes ago

• Mint

A corporate deal that protected the Amazon from soy farming starts to show cracks

* Brazilian farmers are pushing soy crops deeper into Amazon * Powerful farm lobby attacks Amazon Soy Moratorium * Regrown rainforest does not get the same protection SANTAREM, Brazil, June 20 (Reuters) - Brazilian soy farmers are pushing further into the Amazon rainforest to plant more of their crops, putting pressure on a landmark deal signed two decades ago aimed at slowing deforestation. Many are taking advantage of a loophole in the Amazon Soy Moratorium, a voluntary agreement signed by the world's top grain traders in 2006 that they would not buy soy grown on land deforested after 2008. protects old-growth rainforest that has never before been cleared, but excludes many other kinds of vegetation and forests that have regrown on previously cleared land, known as secondary forests. While this land is also important for preserving the fragile Amazon biome, farmers can raze it and plant soy without violating the terms of the Moratorium and could even market it as deforestation-free. The most recent official annual report on the Moratorium, which covers the crop year 2022-2023, showed that soy planted on virgin forest has almost tripled between 2018 and 2023 to reach 250,000 hectares, or 3.4% of all soy in the Amazon. Its study area is limited to municipalities that grow over 5,000 hectares of soy. However, Xiaopeng Song, a professor at the geographical sciences department of the University of Maryland who has tracked the expansion of soy over the past two decades, found more than four times that forest loss. Satellite data he analyzed exclusively for Reuters shows 16% of Brazilian Amazon land under production for soy, or about 1.04 million hectares, is planted where trees have been cleared since 2008, the cutoff date agreed in the Moratorium. "I would like to see secondary forest and recovered forest included in the Moratorium," said Song. "It creates loopholes if we only limit it to primary forest." Abiove, the soy industry body overseeing the Moratorium, said in a statement that the agreement aims to rein in deforestation of old-growth forests while other methodologies have broader criteria that could lead to "inflated interpretations." Reuters was unable to make a detailed comparison because Abiove declined to share granular data. Data in the Moratorium report comes from Brazil's National Institute of Space Research, and its assessments are recognized internationally and monitored independently. Abiove said it was aware that some soy was planted in areas where regrown forests had been cut. The discrepancy over how to define a forest has huge implications for conservation. Deforestation, drought and heat driven by climate change bring the rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which it starts an irreversible transformation into a savannah. Most scientists are calling not only for a halt to all deforestation but also for increased efforts to reforest. Viola Heinrich, a post-doctoral researcher at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, who has extensively studied secondary forests in the Amazon, said these were "crucial" in limiting global warming even if initially less biodiverse. "We cannot achieve the goals of the without actively increasing the carbon sink," she said, referring to regenerating ecosystems that rapidly Secondary forests absorb carbon at a faster rate than old-growth forests, but store less of it. On a scorching afternoon late last year, on the outskirts of Santarem, a port city by the Amazon River, farmers were in the last stages of clearing land. Felled trees were neatly stacked up in rows, ready to be burnt. Some of these trees were around three decades old, part of a secondary forest on land that was once razed to make way for cattle but later abandoned, satellite images showed. "What can be stolen once, can be stolen again," said Gilson Rego, of the Pastoral Land Commission, a church-affiliated group working with locals affected by deforestation, as he pointed to surrounding areas where soy had been planted. In the last five years, Rego saw the area dedicated to the crop soar. More than a dozen soy and subsistence farmers who spoke to Reuters said the main draw was the nearby Cargill terminal from where soy is shipped worldwide because it reduces costs for logistics. Cargill did not respond to requests for comment. The boom helped Brazil overtake the United States in 2020 as the world's largest soy exporter. About two thirds of it ships to China, whose largest buyer, Cofco, has signed up to the Moratorium and said earlier this year that it was committed to it. Nearly all of it is used to fatten animals for meat production. Still, Song estimated an additional 6 million hectares of the rainforest would have been lost to soy in Brazil without the Moratorium and related conservation efforts, considering the pace of expansion elsewhere. Neighboring Bolivia, he said, had become a deforestation hot spot. Brazilian farmers have always opposed the Moratorium and complained that even a small amount of deforestation can lead traders to block purchases from entire farms, a policy that Abiove is considering changing. Thousands of properties that cover some 10% of soy's footprint in the region are currently blocked. Adelino Avelino Noimann, the vice president of the soy farmers association in Para state, where Santarem is located, said the soy boom was creating opportunities in a poor country. "It's not fair that other countries in Europe could deforest and grow, and now we are held back by laws that are not even ours," said Noimann. LEGAL ATTACKS Farming groups allied with right-wing politicians, once a fringe movement, have launched lawsuits and legislative attacks on the Moratorium in the capital Brasilia, and half a dozen major agricultural states, seeking to weaken its provisions. At the end of April, a justice from Brazil's Supreme Court said it would allow the country's biggest farming state, Mato Grosso, to withdraw tax incentives from signatories of the Moratorium. The ruling still needs to be confirmed by the full court. Andre Nassar, the president of Abiove, the soy industry body that oversees the Moratorium, has already hinted that it could weaken rules to appease farmers. "The solution is not ending the Moratorium or keeping it as it is," Nassar told senators in April. "Something needs to be done." Global traders including ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Cofco and Louis Dreyfus Company had all signed up back in 2006. Abiove and the grain traders it represents have declined to publicly discuss details but environmental group Greenpeace, which is part of some discussions, said last year that behind closed doors there was a push from traders to weaken it. Environmentalists like Andre Guimaraes, an executive director at IPAM, another nonprofit that monitors the agreement, said that even with its faults it was important. "We still see the expansion of soy in the Amazon," he said. "But it could be worse." Other environmentalists said it should be reinforced by closing loopholes. Abundant water and nutrient-rich soil are the main reasons farmers from other parts of the country, including the soy heartland Mato Grosso, have moved to Para. "Here, we can have as many as three harvests," said Edno Valmor Cortezia, the president of the local farmers union, adding that farmers there can grow soy, corn and wheat on the same plot in a single year. In the municipality Belterra near Santarem, soy expansion stopped short only at a local cemetery and school. Raimundo Edilberto Sousa Freitas, the principal, showed Reuters court records and supporting evidence for two instances when 80 children and teachers had symptoms of pesticide intoxication last year. One farmer was later fined, the records showed, but the crop continues to claim more of the area every year. Occasionally, a few imposing trees that are protected by law are left in sprawling fields of soy, the last reminder of the lush biome that was once there. (Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher in Santarem, Brazil; additional reporting by Ana Mano in Sao Paulo; editing by Manuela Andreoni, Brad Haynes and Claudia Parsons)

The Wire

31 minutes ago

• The Wire

India Did Go to the G7, But It is Still Alarmingly Isolated in the World

Now that the G7 summit is done and dusted, we may try to assess whether it has helped India break its disastrous isolation that Operation Sindoor revealed. , prime minister Narendra Modi did get a last-minute invitation to join the G7, but not as a participant – only as an observer. There was jubilation among his lesser-informed fans, fanned also by his multi-million rupee IT cells and the enthralled majority in Indian media. The narrative was that he is too important not to be invited and that India is not isolated, or never was. It is, was and continues to remain the Vishwaguru. Facts, unfortunately, speak otherwise and the drift is just too stark, even for jaundiced eyes to miss. History will surely contrast India's current isolation with the post-colonial decades (1940s to 1960s), when Jawaharlal Nehru and India strode like a colossus among the newly liberated nations. Her draconian Emergency notwithstanding, Indira Gandhi will never be forgotten for giving India its finest hour in 1971 by dismembering Pakistan and forcing 93,000 troops to surrender in Dhaka. These are the stuff of legends – however much we dispute, denigrate or deny. The present 'hyphenation' of India with Pakistan, an almost failed state, is a deliberate insult inflicted on Modi's India to cut to a realistic size and to taunt a drum-beaten narrative that we are almost a superpower. True, India's self respect was salvaged when PM Modi was invited by the new Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney – of Harvard and Oxford, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and then of England, overrode objections from cantankerous Sikh separatists. But to what effect? America, the very fulcrum of G7, disappeared from the scene after Trump gave just a sneering glance and left – to avoid the overtures of the European heads, keen to catch his ear, to drill some sense. Not only could Modi not hug his dear Donald for photo ops, but he had to gulp the ignominy of watching the big man wine and dine his bête noire, the dreadful de facto ruler of Pakistan, Field Marshal Asim Munir. This lunch may have been offered to distance him from Iran, but now that the wily soldier has declared publicly that Trump must get the Nobel Prize for peace, the blonde man is just swooning. All of Modi's efforts to woo him with delirious Indian crowds screaming ' Abki baar, ' at Houston's 'Howdy, Modi' bash has gone down the drain. The bells have been clanging quite cacophonously for India – when, after hyphenating and equating Pak with India, the west-dominated the UN Security Council went a step forward to torpedo India's righteous indignation at Pakistan sponsored terrorism that killed 26 innocents at Pahalgam. India's screams notwithstanding, the UN Security Council declared Munir's Pakistan to be the vice chair of the committee to combat terrorism. "Friend" Russia looked on, with a smirk, as India's recent track record of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds backfired. It hurts all of us and more tragic is the fact that even after two full months, India could neither produce evidence before the international community. Nor could it enforce 'accountability at the highest levels' for the "intelligence failure" at Pahalgam that India's former Army chief, General Shankar Roychowdhury, had openly declared and . The UN Security Council also appointed Pakistan as chair of the Taliban sanctions committee. This is not only ironic, but a repayment with compound interest. In fact, Human Rights Watch, an international organisation that 'new' India reviles for its constant criticism of India's track record over the last 11 years, had boldly recorded Pakistani involvement with the Taliban, long ago. It said: 'Pakistan's army and intelligence services, principally the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), contribute to making the Taliban a highly effective military force'. But, since then, much water has flowed down the Indus, on which India has no tap, despite our current bluster to stop water. We chose not to hear these bells and blame it all on the Trump family's commercial interest in World Liberty Financial's new deal with Pakistan – to make it 'the crypto capital of South Asia" and a "global leader in the digital finance revolution." Back to our theme that India is completely isolated, especially after Operation Sindoor, we sifted through every phrase uttered at the pined-for G7 summit but could find not a word of support for India's justified war on terror. Even the Pahalgam attack was taken up by G7 only after India launched its operation against Pakistan. On the third day of the furious battle of aircrafts, missiles and drones (with no boots on the ground), the G7 did wake to 'strongly condemn the egregious terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22' without pointing fingers. But G7's chief focus was to 'urge maximum restraint from both India and Pakistan' (note how both are equated) and to 'call for immediate de-escalation and …engage in direct dialogue towards a peaceful outcome.' This is when the calculated blunderbuss Trump walked in to claim he pulled apart the two fighting children. To drive home USA's infatuation with Pakistan, the US Central Command chief General Michael Kurilla said that America appreciates Munir's cooperation against the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS‑KP). At the G7 Summit, nations waited for Trump to ramp up pressure on Russia and the Group was ready to lower the price cap on Russian oil from $ 60 to $ 45 dollars per barrel. This would drastically decrease Russia's oil revenues that financed its war in Ukraine. Not only did Trump veto the proposal (rewarding Putin) but he expressed his undisguised annoyance at G7 for dropping Russia from the original G8. Those Indian GDP enthusiasts who swear that high GDP means world power may note that Russia figures nowhere in the list of top 10 GDP countries. These consist of the G7 ones and China, India and Brazil. So, India's fourth GDP rank counts for so little in the Game of Thrones. Salt on wounds do not seem to stop as Trump is even reported to have suggested inclusion of China into a new G9. Wasn't he at Xi Jinping's throat – until the latter kicked his anatomy where it hurts the most? India's foreign office must surely have noted Trump's penchant for kissing those who behave the worst. Remember how passionately he had wooed the terribly unreliable Kim Jongun of North Korea? But not even mentioning India to expand it to G 10 is a diabolical outrage, meant to wake us up to play rugger the way he does. Incidentally, this G7 summit was among the rarest – from which no joint communique could be issued – so fragmented are the big boys. It is time for India to assiduously befriend just two of the European four and try to strengthen positive relations with Japan to the next level. If China and Türkiye can stand rock-like behind Pakistan, India can not be so hopelessly isolated that not one major country comes out boldly, as an all-weather friend. Well, PM Modi did get a day's rest in Canada when the leaders of G7 huddled together, without the other 'invitees'. He figured not in the actual G7 photo, but in that of the extended group – standing somewhere on the second row, looking lost as others were busy networking. It goes, however, to a dignified, erudite Canadian PM's credit that he kept the few handful of Sikh agitators at bay and took positive steps to normalise relations with India. And, surely, PM Modi must have held bilateral talks with most – and one sincerely hopes that they begin to matter. After all, his visit to a record total of 74 countries so far could not persuade even one country– even Guyana or Fiji or Papua New Guinea would do, to begin with – to come out and say that they condemn Pakistan's terrorists and support India's retaliation. Also read: Rousing Rhetoric for Diaspora, Tourist Spot Visits, Courting Domestic Voter Base: What MPs Did Abroad The hyper-publicised seven 'all party' delegations are back home after visiting 32 countries. My former colleagues in parliament must all be tired. But the 31 political leaders from the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) must now be happy that Modi has finally cast his benevolent gaze at them – after excluding most, for years together, from either importance or power. The 20 politicians from 'other parties' are also grateful for this unique world tour and one of them weaponised it against the detractors in his party. Fine, but it is doubtful if even one of the 32 countries visited would stand up for India. But politics is politics and neither performance nor results matter – something else does. That's why I left it. We have taken the PM and his prickly, ultra-pontificating foreign minister to task in the earlier piece for landing us in such a friendless world. But we also have to admit that there is surely a strong malicious tinge in this west's disaffirmation of India's indisputable economic elevation. India's manufactured superpower narrative is also hot air, because economic growth is only one factor. History shows that no nation has ever been conferred a place on the high table without facing initial scorn, condescension and trial by fire. England, for instance, was just pooh-poohed as a nation of shopkeepers until Poseidon (or Varun) intervened with unruly storms in 1588, for Francis Drake to defeat the invincible Spanish Armada. But, England continued to face ridicule from the continental powers that dominated land warfare and its conquests in India and elsewhere attributed to a cocktail of fluke and bribery. It was only after Wellington managed to defeat Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, with dollops of timely assistance from Field Marshal Blucher and his merciless Prussian cavalry that England mattered. If we look intently at each one of the other nations of G7, we will understand how much blood and gore they have gone through in the past centuries. In fact, the dropped-out eighth nation, Russia, alone has witnessed more death and devastation than any other country. What is more relevant is that the entire population of these nations was involved and every village lost her sons. There was, therefore, no time for pampered citizens to indulge in warmongering from air-conditioned homes. Those mercenary TV anchors who won imaginary victories in Pakistan (and their counterparts there) have brought shame to the profession and are now a laughing stock among informed global citizens. India's isolation is a current reality and while we break out of it with all we have in us, we must also realise that 'demeaning an upstart' is left-handed recognition. The rest of the nation's journey up is long, perilous and, hopefully, less violent. Jawhar Sircar is a former Rajya Sabha MP of the Trinamool Congress. He was earlier Secretary, Government of India, and CEO of Prasar Bharati.

Time of India

35 minutes ago

• Time of India

India's forex reserves rise to $698.95 billion, up $2.29 billion as of June 13

India's forex reserves increased by $2.29 billion to $698.95 billion for the week ending June 13, data by the Reserve Bank of India showed on Friday. India's foreign exchange reserves stood at $696.66 billion as of June 6, up $5.17 billion from the previous week. The forex reserves had touched an all-time high of $704.885 billion in end-September 2024. For the week ending on June 13, foreign currency assets, a major component of the reserves, increased $1.73 billion to $589.42 billion, the data released on Friday showed. Expressed in dollar terms, the foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units like the euro, pound and yen held in the foreign exchange reserves. Typically, the RBI, from time to time, intervenes in the market through liquidity management, including through the selling of dollars, with a view to preventing a steep depreciation in the rupee. Live Events The RBI closely monitors the foreign exchange markets and intervenes only to maintain orderly market conditions by containing excessive volatility in the exchange rate, without reference to any pre-determined target level or band.