Saturday, October 24, 2026
The news that moves freight
Ocean Oct 24, 2026 · 8 min read

Canada’s 50% tariff list changes on 30 October

Seven days to re-check every Canadian entry against a new 50% list. Trump signed a proclamation on 23 October changing which Canadian goods pay the 50% Section 338 tariff. The changes take effect on 30 October, the White House says. Packing crates and boxes, plywood and refrigeration equipment come off. Carpets, valves and waste products go on. Our view: the list is now being shaped by politics, so it will keep moving. Outlets don’t agree on what’s on it, but the White House annex lists the tariff codes. Forwarders should screen every Canadian shipment arriving after 30 October against it. Our call: the list changes at least once more before 31 December.

A one-week warning on a list the headlines can’t agree on

On Friday 23 October President Trump signed a proclamation changing which Canadian goods carry the 50% Section 338 tariff. The White House fact sheet says it plainly: “The product additions and removals will take effect on October 30, 2026.” That leaves importers, customs brokers and forwarders seven days to work out which of their Canadian lines just got cheaper and which just got 50% dearer.

Our view: this is not a tidy correction. It shows the Canada list is now set by political pressure as much as trade policy, and it will keep changing. Forwarders should treat every Canadian product line as provisional until a deal is signed. And right now, press accounts of the 30 October list don’t agree with each other.

What changed, and what nobody agrees on

The fact sheet says the proclamation further modifies Proclamation 11048, one of the three signed on 20 July. It removes “certain products — such as plywood sheets, some paper products, certain machinery and refrigeration equipment”, along with certain packing crates and boxes. It replaces them “with certain valves, carpets, waste products, and others.”

“And others” is doing a lot of work there. The fact sheet gives no HTS codes and no time of day for the change. HTS codes are the Harmonized Tariff Schedule numbers that decide what a shipment actually pays. Those codes sit in Annex I, posted on the White House site. It lists 22 eight-digit codes coming off, including seaweed, corrugated boxes, plastic crates and sacks, thin plywood and packing machinery. Its additions include shampoos, vinyl flooring, wooden coffins, carpets, valves and window air conditioners. It also adds wooden packing boxes (4415.10.30), even as plastic and cardboard ones come off.

The press accounts summarise it in different ways. CBS News, citing the proclamation, says the removals include “corrugated boxes, crates, plastic sacks” as well as “packing machinery, refrigeration equipment and seaweed”. It says the additions include “shampoo, vinyl flooring, coffins, carpets and window-unit air conditioners.” Supply Chain Dive lists the additions as cocoa powder, carpets and air conditioners.

Across all three, only carpets are named as an addition every time. For removals, packaging and refrigeration equipment are the common ground.

That matters because the original action worked by tariff code, not product name. When the first proclamations came out in July, Polsinelli explained that they used “positive lists of eight-digit HTSUS classifications.” The firm added that the product descriptions in the annexes were informational only. In other words, the code decides, not the label on the box. A shipper who reads “air conditioners” in a news story can’t tell from that whether their unit’s code is on the list.

How we got here

Section 338 comes from the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. It lets the president add duties of up to 50% on goods from a country found to discriminate against US commerce. Law firm Morrison Foerster wrote in July that “it appears never before to have been used to impose tariffs.” Polsinelli was more direct: “These are the first tariffs imposed under Section 338.”

Trump signed three proclamations on 20 July. They covered Canadian motor vehicles, alcoholic drinks and dairy. The motor-vehicle annex was the broadest, covering hundreds of tariff codes, Polsinelli noted. Polsinelli said the duties applied from “12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Aug. 19.” Supply Chain Dive puts the original coverage at about $20 billion of Canadian imports. Talks broke down in mid-August, when Prime Minister Mark Carney called them off, according to Supply Chain Dive. Canada then hit back. BNN Bloomberg reports Canada’s counter-tariffs now cover $27.6 billion of US imports, including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics. The White House fact sheet dates one earlier change to the US list to 8 September. The 23 October changes are another.

USMCA, the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, gives no protection. The fact sheet repeats that the tariffs apply “regardless of whether a good originates under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.” Polsinelli put it bluntly in July: “USMCA qualification is not an exemption.”

Why this change looks political

The timing points to Maine. Sen. Susan Collins announced the relief herself, in a post on X. She is seeking a sixth term, CBS notes, in a race the Cook Political Report rates a toss-up, according to Townhall. In her statement, quoted by Townhall and CBS, she said: “Many of our farmers and growers rely on specialized equipment, packaging materials, and other products from Canada”. She named blueberry, potato, apple and seaweed producers. The removals line up closely with that list: crates, boxes, sacks, packing machinery, refrigeration and seaweed. Townhall reports that the Wall Street Journal described the move as part of an effort to help races in Maine and other states where the tariffs have become an issue.

Rep. Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he could not think of “a more desperate admission of failed trade policy”. He described the move as “temporarily lowering tariffs on select products to favor a political ally 11 days before an election” (CBS). The White House line, through spokesman Matthew Middleton, was that “President Trump continues to address Canada’s discriminatory treatment of U.S. commerce” (Townhall).

Both sides are talking deal, without much sign of one. On the day of the proclamation, Trump said “Canada’s working very hard to make a deal with us” and added, “we have all the cards” (BNN Bloomberg). Carney, speaking in Istanbul, said Canada could sign a deal “this afternoon if the U.S. were there.” He also said Canada would wait “months from now or longer than that” if needed (BNN Bloomberg).

Our reading: a list that can be reshaped for one state’s growers a week before an election can be reshaped again for the next pressure group. That’s the real risk for anyone pricing Canadian freight into 2027.

The legal angle forwarders should watch

There is a timing question here. Morrison Foerster wrote in July that “the statute requires the duties to take effect no earlier than 30 days after the proclamation.” This proclamation adds new products at 50% with seven days’ notice. The fact sheet cites the president’s power to “amend” earlier Section 338 proclamations. It doesn’t say how the 30-day rule applies to additions. That’s a question for the courts, and in our view a likely target for challengers.

There is already a case. Earlier the same week, Gellert Global Group, a food importer represented by the Liberty Justice Center, sued at the Court of International Trade. It argues the president did not meet the statute’s conditions and seeks refunds, Supply Chain Dive reports. Lawyers quoted by Trade Law Daily on 23 October were split on its chances. BJ Shannon of Berliner Corcoran said Section 338 “does (or at least at one time did) expressly provide for tariffs, as compared to IEEPA”. IEEPA is the emergency-powers law behind earlier tariffs. Shannon said that makes it “tougher to challenge” in that respect. Shannon also flagged that the tariffs could be “at least as vulnerable to challenge as those under IEEPA or Section 122.” James Kim of ArentFox said “the challengers have to show that this particular use of the tariff power exceeded the conditions Congress imposed.” Morrison Foerster had already called the lack of precedent the “core litigation risk.”

For importers, a pending suit means one thing: keep entry records clean. If refunds ever come, they’ll go to those who can show exactly what they paid, on which code, and when.

What forwarders should do this week

Screen by code, not by headline. Pull every Canadian entry due on or after 30 October. Check each line against Annex I on the White House site. Don’t re-quote off news lists that disagree with each other.

Expect in-transit exposure. Polsinelli noted in July that the original proclamations did “not provide a general in-transit exception.” Neither the fact sheet nor the annex for this change mentions one. A truckload of carpets crossing on 30 October may pay 50% that it wouldn’t have paid on 29 October. A load of crates may save the same.

Decide hold versus hurry. For lines coming off the list, it may pay to hold entry until 30 October, using a bonded warehouse where that’s practical. For lines going on, getting goods entered before the switch is the only cheap option. Both depend on the exact code, so brokers should have both plans ready.

Re-quote landed cost with a validity date. Landed cost is the full price of goods delivered, including freight, duty and fees. Any quote for Canadian goods should carry a short validity window and a clause for tariff changes. This list has now been changed twice since 20 July, on 8 September and 23 October.

Watch packaging on cross-border goods. Crates and boxes coming off the list helps importers who buy Canadian packaging as a product. It does not change the duty on the goods inside them. And wooden packing boxes go the other way: the annex adds them.

Our call

We don’t expect a US–Canada deal before the 3 November midterms. Carney’s own words suggest Ottawa is ready to wait. Trump’s “all the cards” line suggests Washington thinks time is on its side. Our prediction: the 50% Section 338 duty is still in force on Canadian goods on 31 December 2026. The product list is amended at least once more before then, by a proclamation adding or removing named products. We also expect the seven-day notice on additions to show up as an argument in the Court of International Trade challenges by the end of Q1 2027.

Sources