Trump targets Canadian goods in $50B federal procurement fight

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(The Center Square) – Hours after Canada's retaliatory tariffs took effect Tuesday, President Donald Trump escalated the trade dispute again, directing federal officials to take steps to remove Canadian products from the government's Multiple Award Schedules, a procurement program with more than $50 billion in annual sales.

In a Truth Social post, Trump directed the General Services Administration to work with the U.S. Trade Representative to take steps to remove Canadian-origin products from GSA's Multiple Award Schedules, the contracts federal agencies use to buy goods and services, unless Canada restores what he called "full and fair reciprocity" for American farmers and companies. He said the schedules account for more than $50 billion a year.

Trump framed the move as a response to what he called a "Canadian Trade Scam," alleging that Ottawa and the provinces bar American small businesses from selling into Canadian government procurement markets while Canada retains broad access to U.S. federal and state contracts.

"From now on, no reciprocity, no access," the U.S. president wrote.

No estimate has been released of what removing Canadian products from the schedules would cost federal agencies or save taxpayers, or how much of the schedules' $50 billion in annual sales involves Canadian goods.

Canada had not immediately responded to the procurement directive.

The procurement move capped a day of escalating actions. Canada's retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion in U.S. goods took effect the same day, and Trump signed proclamations adjusting his Section 338 tariffs on Canadian goods and barring certain products, including certain dairy products and alcoholic beverages, from importation beginning Sept. 29.

The moves mark a sharp escalation in a relationship with recurring trade disputes, including successive fights over softwood lumber dating to 1982.