04:58 PM EST, 12/09/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada "will respond" if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump imposes new tariffs on Canadian imports, and argued that retaliatory tariffs were successful when Trump put tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum in 2018, Bloomberg News is reporting Monday.

It noted Trump has threatened to impose across the board 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports on the first day of his presidency unless both countries crack down on the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the US.

Canada will "respond to unfair tariffs in a number of ways, and we're still looking at the right ways to respond, but our responses to the unfair steel and aluminum tariffs were what ended up lifting those tariffs last time," he said.

Shortly after Trump announced the tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum in the spring of 2018, Canada rolled out retaliatory tariffs on targeted, politically sensitive items such as "bourbon and Harley Davidsons and playing cards and Heinz ketchup," Trudeau said.

The tariffs were "politically impactful to the president's party and colleagues," and that was how "we were able to punch back in a way that was actually felt by Americans," Trudeau said.

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