Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lashed out at United States plans to impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium for “national security” reasons, saying his soldiers had fought and died with American troops in Afghanistan.
The remarks came after finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrialised countries (G7) expressed outrage over US-imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum and called on Washington to reverse course.
“One of the things that I have to admit I’m having a lot of trouble getting around is the idea that this entire thing is coming about because the president and the administration have decided that Canada and Canadian steel and aluminum is a national security threat to the United States,” Trudeau said in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
Trudeau called the reasoning “frankly insulting and unacceptable”.
“The idea that our soldiers who have fought and died together in the mountains of Afghanistan and stood shoulder to shoulder, somehow this is insulting to them,” he said.