TORONTO — Washington began turning back Canadian alcohol, whey products, molasses and larger motorcycles at 12:01 a.m. ET Tuesday, and Queen’s Park answered by putting those same sectors onto a $1-billion provincial loan program — without saying how much more taxpayers may have to spend, or what market replaces the one just closed.The Protect Ontario Financing Program already covered steel, aluminum, copper, auto firms and goods under earlier US Section 338 tariffs. Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli said alcohol, dairy and motorcycle businesses can now tap the same facility for payroll, leases and utilities. President Donald Trump set the terms the night before. In the Oval Office he called Canada “one of the worst” countries to deal with, said Ottawa had “treated the United States very, very badly,” and predicted Canadian officials would phone in three or four weeks to say, “Sir, we are sorry.” Any deal, he said, would have to be “fair,” and the United States would “win everything.”.The bans cover a sliver of two-way trade — on the order of US$1 billion against last year’s volumes, most of it spirits — but a prohibition is not a tariff you bargain down. Distillers, whey processors and motorcycle lines over 800 cc are out of the American market until a president takes the order off. Provincial liquor-board restrictions on US product helped give Washington its pretext on alcohol; Queen’s Park is now extending credit to the industries that fight produced.Premier Doug Ford was not in Toronto for the announcement, he spent Monday in Calgary with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith selling a cross-country pipeline and telling Albertans to stay in Confederation. The bans landed while he was on that stage. His government has spent months stacking tariff-response funds and “buy Ontario” directives.Fedeli said Ontario will “do whatever it takes” to keep workers paid and to diversify away from a single customer.
