Ontario Sus­pends Sur­charge On Ener­gy to Amer­i­ca

On Tues­day, the Cana­di­an province of Ontario backed away from its threat to impose a sur­charge on elec­tric­i­ty to three Amer­i­can states. Ontario had announced a 25 per­cent sur­charge on elec­tric­i­ty exports to Michi­gan, New York, and Min­neso­ta.

Ontario Pre­mier Doug Ford and U.S. Com­merce Sec­re­tary Howard Lut­nick issued a joint state­ment, indi­cat­ing that they had a “pro­duc­tive con­ver­sa­tion” and indi­cat­ing that they will meet Thurs­day in Wash­ing­ton to dis­cuss issues fur­ther. 

The sus­pen­sion of the sur­charge was con­firmed by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in com­ments to reporters. 

“As you know, there’s a very strong man in Cana­da who said he was going to charge a sur­charge or a tar­iff on elec­tric­i­ty com­ing into our coun­try,” the pres­i­dent stat­ed, con­tin­u­ing, “He has called, and he said he’s not going to do that.”

Ear­li­er on Tues­day, Trump had threat­ened to increase tar­iffs on Cana­di­an steel and alu­mini­um to 50 per­cent in response to Ford’s ener­gy sur­charge. Trump has since indi­cat­ed that he will back away from the deci­sion in response to Ford’s cav­ing on the elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge. 

“We have both agreed, let cool­er heads pre­vail,” Ford told reporters on his agree­ment with Lut­nick.

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