The trade war launched by Donald Trump continues to intensify, striking Canadian workers. In addition to the 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum imposed earlier this year and the duties on non-CUSMA-compliant automobiles and parts, Washington added a 50% tariff on copper in July. More recently, a new 10% duty on softwood lumber was introduced, on top of the existing countervailing and anti-dumping duties, bringing total tariffs to over 45% for this vital sector.
These attacks are already affecting thousands of jobs across our industrial sectors and in the communities that depend on them. It is workers who are paying the price for unilateral and reckless political decisions made in Washington.
Thanks to the mobilization and constant pressure of the United Steelworkers, several long-standing union demands have finally been adopted in Ottawa. They are the direct result of years of advocacy. The federal government announced that it will now require the use of Canadian-made products in publicly funded projects and has announced new investments to strengthen Canada’s industrial capacity and the resilience of our supply chains. Tariff-rate quotas to combat dumping were also introduced and later reinforced as a result of USW pressure.
But for the Steelworkers, these steps forward are only a beginning. Canada must go further and adopt a strong industrial strategy to reduce our dependence on the U.S. market, protect jobs, and ensure that we never again find ourselves in such a vulnerable position. The union also continues to call for comprehensive reforms to Employment Insurance, a wage-subsidy program tied to job retention and strict enforcement of trade rules at the border.
If these recent gains prove that mobilization works, the work is far from finished. Canada must continue to defend its workers with courage, determination and solidarity.
This article appears in the Winter 2025 issue of USW@Work magazine.
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First published on globeandmail.com on October 22, 2026 By Marty Warren, Special to the Globe and Mail Marty Warren, the Canadian national director of the United Steelworkers union. As I write, more workers at Hamilton’s Stelco steel mill are being laid off. In all, the plant’s U.S. owner, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., will cut up to 500 jobs. This, […]
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