Canada has taken in almost $300 million from retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports

Canada collected nearly $300 million in surtaxes in the two months after it slapped U.S. imports with retaliatory tariffs.

Figures from the Canada Border Services Agency provided to CBC News show that in July and August 2018, surtaxes worth more than $286.5 million were charged on imports of American steel, aluminum and a variety of other goods, including handkerchiefs, coffee, icing sugar and sweetened or carbonated mineral waters.

A spokesman for Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the money will be funnelled to Canadian industries hit by the Trump tariffs...

With the cost of tariffs and counter-tariffs mounting, trade lawyer Cyndee Todgham Cherniak said consumers on both sides of the border will end up the losers.

"Importers will be paying more, whether it be 25 per cent or the 10 per cent. Importers will pass that cost on to the next person in the supply chain and eventually it will be the consumers that pay the increased cost," she said.

Todgham Cherniak called the Trump tariffs a "lose-lose proposition" that left Canada and other countries with no option except to retaliate. But the money could wind up changing hands again.

"If there's a challenge and these surtaxes were collected inappropriately, then it may very well be that the Department of Finance is going to have to refund those amounts to the importers who have paid them," she said...

This was excerpted from 11 September 2018 edition of the CBC News.