The White House announced late Tuesday that it has banned dairy products, alcoholic beverages and motorcycles from Canada as the trade war between the two longtime allies escalates.
A senior White House official said the ban will go into effect in three weeks and is in response to Canada’s imposing $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports earlier Tuesday. The U.S. ban will take effect at 12.01 am on Sept. 29.
“Canada set this precedent of banning things,” the official said. “It’s really just Canada and China who thought ‘I’m not going to do tariffs. I’m going to start banning stuff.’”
The administration will also slap an additional 50% tariff on cheese products, steel and aluminum, and bamboo furniture from Canada starting next Tuesday. Some existing tariffs on toilet paper, cement, and fishing rod parts were terminated after more government research on the tariffs’ impacts, the official said.
The announcement came shortly after President Trump directed federal agencies to prohibit the purchase of Canadian-origin products and barred Canadian firms from being eligible for federal contracts.
Both the U.S. and Canada have long fought over trade, but this is believed to be the first time Washington has banned products from Canada.
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Canada is the U.S.’s second largest trade partner with an estimated $872.3 billion in goods last year, according to data from the United States Trade Representative. The U.S. imported roughly $426 billion in goods from Canada in 2025.
It is the latest move in the increasingly contentious trade war between Washington and Ottawa. The war hit a new peak this week as Canada rolled out retaliatory tariffs of 15% to 50% on American products – including steel, dairy, appliances, farm equipment and electronics – after Mr. Trump slapped a 50% duty on a swath of Canadian goods.
The escalation has soared since negotiations between the two neighbors collapsed in late August.
In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said barring Canada from earning government contracts was necessary to end what he called “a Canadian Trade Scam.” He noted that Canada has already banned U.S. companies from their government procurement market while Ottawa still had access to the U.S. market at the expense of domestic companies.
Mr. Trump said he directed the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to enforce the ban.
“From now on, no reciprocity – no access! I am hereby directing the GSA, working with the USTR, to take all necessary steps to remove Canadian-origin products from GSA’s Multiple Awards Schedules unless Canada restores full and fair reciprocity for American Farmers and Companies,” Mr. Trump wrote.
A senior administration official told reporters that the move was in response to Canada’s retaliation to Mr. Trump’s tariffs by imposing their own duties on U.S. goods.
“President Trump is doing this to make sure, again, that we keep a level playing field, deter retaliation, and, of course, protect American production,” the official said on a conference call with reporters.
The official declined to discuss the scale of the action, saying it’s roughly in the single-digit billions. In total, the U.S. government procurement market totals $50 billion.
Under the president’s directive, Canadian goods will be removed from the “Multiple Award Schedules,” which connect federal, state and local government agencies with suppliers of a wide variety of products.
Canada last year imposed a “Buy Canadian” policy that pushed government agencies to prioritize homemade products rather than imports from the U.S. and abroad.
Earlier Tuesday, Canada imposed tariffs ranging from 15% to 50% on roughly $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, which accounts for roughly 6% of U.S. exports to its northern neighbor. The tariffs cover a wide variety of products, including electronics, appliances, and dairy products, and were imposed in response to Mr. Trump’s latest levies, which were imposed in late August, on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods.
Mr. Trump’s action Tuesday is a change of pace from increasing more levies on Canada, which could have increased further retaliation by Ottawa that would have hit industries in border states like Michigan, New Hampshire and Maine, all of which have competitive midterm Senate races.
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