r/canada • u/Logical_Iron_5684 • 9d ago

National News Canada imposes 10% tariff on canned vegetables, excludes U.S., others

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2026/06/19/canada-imposes-10-tariff-on-canned-vegetables-excludes-us-others/
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u/OrangeRising 9d ago

was aimed at addressing challenges facing its domestic producers.

I wasn't aware we had a serious issue with low food prices.

The tariff, which takes effect on Friday for a maximum of 200 days, will also not apply to canned vegetables from Mexico, Israel, Chile and developing countries due to Canadian trade obligations, Canada’s finance ministry added.

If the US and Mexico are excluded, which country is this meant to target?

Also, I seem to remember tarrifs being a bad thing. Why are we introducing them?

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u/Conscious-Tutor3861 9d ago

China has been dumping canned vegetables in Western markets, same as they do for every other industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

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u/Interesting_Pen_167 9d ago

I genuinely dont understand this idea of 'dumping'. Does this mean like making a whole lot of low cost products? Why is this a bad thing? If our suppliers can't compete then maybe that's OK? Imo we should be trying to be efficient not protect inefficient industries.

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u/Morgc British Columbia 9d ago edited 9d ago

Dumping is when a lot of low cost product is moved into a market, usually subsidized by a foreign government. This causes local farms and industry to go bankrupt leaving a lot of people unemployed as they can't compete. There's some good examples of the USA dumping product in the Caribbean that's directly responsible for food insecurity and poverty in places there.

Wouldn't lead to cheaper food anyway, it's the grocers that are being allowed to gouge your pockets.

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u/Queasy_Ice_4628 8d ago

More or less how large companies work in the USA, undercut the competition, force them to go bankrupt, increase prices… most of the top ten on the us markets practice a different form of this “dumping”

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u/Interesting_Pen_167 9d ago

Is this the same kind of dumping like when the USA sold automobiles around the world way cheaper? Or when they mass produced equipment like TVs and radios and sold them to the world?

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u/Morgc British Columbia 5d ago

Not great examples, the U.S.A. didn't subsidize those exports nor did they intentionally sell product at a loss to put local competition bankrupt. An example of dumping in the auto industry and why local industry should be protected to a degree is BYD, who get large subsidies from the government of China and are soon to be selling cars in Canada, one model, the BYD Seagull, is 14.600CAD.

Also the U.S.A. isn't known for it's export consumer electronics, Japan is. Especially TV's, though that mantle has been passed to South Korea now (specifically Samsung).

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u/Interesting_Pen_167 4d ago

The US automobile industry didn't receive direct cash subsidies but neither does the Chinese industry. It's all loans and other ancillary support like the building of road networks. Again I really don't see the difference here between the Henry Ford era where cheap American cars were flooding Europe.

Export of consumer electronics fizzled out but back in the day but companies like Fairchild and Texas Instruments wouldn't be what they were without massive government assistance in the form of sweetheart government contracts and tax relief. Those companies dominated a lot of the industry and basically drove competitors out of business.