In retaliation for Canada planning to implement tariffs on Chinese EVs, steel, and aluminium, China announced an anti-dumping investigation into Canadian canola imports and certain chemical products, as well as an anti-discrimination investigation into the tariffs.

China intends to take the case to the World Trade Organization, saying it will protect the rights and interests of Chinese companies. It is also “extremely dissatisfied” with the tariffs.

This comes in response to last week’s announcement from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada will impose a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese Electric Vehicles and a 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium. 

Canada cites “abysmal” environmental and labour standards that allow China to unfairly price and dump products into the market at a huge cost to the environment and workers.

China is one of Canada’s largest markets for canola products, including canola seed, canola oil, and canola meal. So far in 2024, Canada has exported 3,738,237 metric tons of canola products to China according to numbers from Statistics Canada and the Canadian International Merchandise Trade Database, as of August 12, 2024. 

Those statistics are based on exports by calendar year and are available on the Canola Council of Canada website.