When US President Donald Trump first began talking about imposing tariffs on imports to the US, experts warned that it would trigger a tit for tat response. That's exactly what's been happening.

We see this happening with China, Mexico, the EU and now Canada, as on Sunday, the US’s neighbor to the north started imposing tariffs of roughly 13 billion dollars’ worth of US goods. Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says it is the strongest trade action that Canada has taken in the post-war era.

Now the tit for tat comes as Trump seeks to renegotiate NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). He wants more concessions from Canada, and he's clearly playing the hardball, but so it is with the Canadian prime minister.

“I think the Canada government has sent some very clear signals that they want to defend their domestic industries. It is important because the United States, especially the Donald Trump, wants to change the pattern of the already existed agreement, and wants to increase the tariff, so to get the so-called fair trade,” Zhou Mi, the deputy director of the Institute of America and Oceania of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation told CGTN.

It’s hard to say which side will lose more in this round of tariffs.

“The tariffs between Canada and United States are different. The United States puts more tariffs on the steel and aluminum, which will have some effect on the manufacturing. But Canada put some pirates on the consumer products. I think that will also affect some of the voters of the United States. So they have a different effect. ”

Canada is considered the second largest trade country with the US and also a reliable NAFTA partner for Washington. Since Trump came to the White House, they have started the negotiation of the NAFTA. But at that time they have different purposes.

Zhou pointed out that the United States wants to change the agreement to reach the so-called fair trade, the same tariff levels for all of those categories. 

But Canada thinks that the agreement has been existing for over twenty years. They want to update and input some more new things on that, and they have had a lot of rounds of negotiations, but there are not so many agreements to be reached.

“The United States wants to take tariff as a tool to force Canada government to change their ideas... So maybe both sides will think about these things again. And Mexico, they also have different opinions. So I don’t think it’s a good signal for the NAFTA negotiations by the tariffs by both sides,” said Zhou.

With the EU, Canada, and Mexico imposing tariffs in response to US actions, how far will Trump go with his trade brinkmanship? Zhou Mi said that for short-term, when all of the above three partners start to impose tariffs, maybe the domestic industries and consumers will suffer from the tariffs which have been increased.

But it will not just try to decrease all the effect of the United States economies. Because of the tax reform, they have attracted more capital from other countries, so that will have some very strong impact on the boom of the United States economies.

But after several months and even one year or more, this effect may be felt and hurt by the consumers. And some of them will be sent to the government of Trump.

Canada is one of the closest allies of the United States. Its economic strength is far less than that of a big European country. 

However, it is now unable to endure the US trade bullying policy and decided to rise against it. The US and Canada’s trade war will undoubtedly result in a loss for both sides. This is a well-known truth which Trump does not seem to understand.