Colorado Gov. Jared Polis spoke out on Thursday against tariffs imposed on Canada by the United States as a 25% levy on all steel and aluminum imports took effect this week.
“Any additional tariffs with Canada would make us all worse off. Canada will lose, the United States will lose and Colorado will lose. It’ll decrease export markets for growing Colorado and major Colorado products, and it will increase prices for American consumers,” he said in his office at the Capitol, alongside Sylvain Fabi, Canadian consul general in Denver.
Polis, a Democrat in his second term, then announced that March 15 will be Colorado Canada Friendship Day to mark the relationship between the state and the country.
“Our close partnership with Canada strengthens our economy, protects our national security and enriches our culture, at a time when in Washington, our national government seems to be confusing friends with enemies,” he said.
Tariffs imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump on steel and aluminum imports went into effect Wednesday, part of a trade fight that has worried watchers of the global economy. There is already a 25% tariff on Canadian goods that are not under the US-Mexico-Canada agreement.
Canada is the biggest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States. That country announced retaliatory tariffs totaling about $20 billion on American goods.
Trump briefly threatened to double the tariffs on Canada when Ontario moved to impose a 25% surcharge on electricity sold to Minnesota, Michigan and New York state, but he scrapped the plan when Canada agreed to suspend the planned charges.
The economic skirmish is part of a broader fraying of diplomatic relations between Canada and the Trump administration, which has also repeatedly threatened to annex the country as the 51st state.
“Let us get back to the effective and constructive relationship that has defined so much of our shared history as friends, partners and allies,” Fabi said.
While Colorado has no power to set or reduce tariffs, Polis wanted to voice support for Canada.
“Now is the time to go out of our way to show our appreciation to a partnership that has made Canadians and Americans better off,” he said. “It’s important that Canadians know that not all Americans – in fact, most Americans don’t feel the way our current administration has treated them is appropriate.”
There are about 272 Canadian-owned companies in Colorado that employ about 21,000 people, according to the governor’s office. In 2023, 18% of Colorado’s exports went to Canada.
Polis also weighed in on recent operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Colorado. ICE and the Drug Enforcement Agency targeted several locations, including going door-to-door at an apartment building, in Denver and Aurora last month and have confirmed a handful of arrests on social media.
The agency claims it is targeting immigrants without proper documentation who have a criminal history but has not divulged the total number of arrests, the associated charges and the fate of detainees.
At the start of this year’s legislative session, Polis told reporters that he welcomes more federal help to detain and deport criminals.
“To the best of my knowledge, the operations have targeted criminals. But I don’t have sufficient transparency or knowledge to say that conclusively,” he said Thursday, adding later that he doesn’t have “full trust.”
“We have a great partnership with all of our federal enforcement partners. We have under many different presidents, and that’s something we pride ourselves on in our state, whether it’s President Biden or President Trump.”
In response to a question about the number of Coloradans who have recently lost their jobs as the Trump administration pushes agencies to make deep spending cuts, Polis said he is worried about how it could impact wildfire readiness in the state. Agencies and workers who manage trails, roads and forests have all been affected.
“It could directly lead to increased forest fire risk here in our state, so I’m extremely concerned about that,” he said. “We do not have the ability to backfill the federal government’s withdrawal from basic items like road maintenance and forest management, so I’m really hopeful that those cuts can be restored.”
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