(Reuters) – The Premier of Ontario, Canada, has announced the suspension of plans to impose a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the United States. Doug Ford revealed on Tuesday that he would be traveling to Washington this week for discussions with the Trump administration.
Ford’s decision came just hours after he had stated in U.S. media interviews that he was prepared to halt all electricity exports unless U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned his threat to impose tariffs on Canadian imports.
“Both parties are heated, and the temperature needs to come down,” Ford told reporters, emphasizing that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had reached out to him.
“When you’re negotiating with someone (and) they call you and they hand over an olive branch, the worst thing I think I could do as Premier of Ontario is ignore them,” he said.
Ford confirmed that he would depart for Washington on Thursday alongside federal Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc to engage in discussions with Lutnick and other U.S. administration officials.
The discussions will focus on a potential revision of the trilateral trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Canadian government had previously expressed reluctance to renegotiate the deal while U.S. tariffs remained in place.
Trump, citing Ford’s initial threat, had stated he would double his proposed tariff on all steel and aluminum imports from Canada.
“Let’s sit down and negotiate,” Ford urged, stressing that dialogue was in the best interest of both nations.
Ontario currently exports electricity to power approximately 1.5 million homes in New York, Minnesota, and Michigan.
