Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs on more than 700 American products, covering C$27.6 billion of goods, about $19.9bn, at rates between 15 and 50 percent, Al Jazeera reports. They take effect on September 8.

The list covers steel and aluminium, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, plastics and electronics. The government says it is matching the new American duties "dollar for dollar".

What "dollar for dollar" means, and what it does not

It means the value of trade hit is designed to match, not that the pain is symmetrical.

The United States is by far the larger economy and Canada sends more than three quarters of its exports there, which we noted when the auto tariffs were announced. A matched retaliation is therefore a proportionally much heavier commitment for Ottawa than for Washington, and Mark Carney's government has acknowledged as much by putting C$7.5 billion, about $5.42bn, into a package to help small and medium-sized businesses absorb the effects.

That figure is the honest measure of what this costs Canada: a retaliation that requires a domestic bailout attached to it.

The sequence

Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20bn of Canadian goods on Saturday, then announced that tariffs on cars and parts would double to 50 percent from January 1, 2027. Tuesday's measures are the response to the first of those.

Who pays

Al Jazeera reports that Americans could face higher prices on 550 consumer goods imported from Canada, including ice skates, toilet paper, alcoholic drinks and paint.

That list is worth reading precisely because it is unglamorous. Tariff disputes are argued in terms of steel and cars, and settled in supermarkets. A duty is paid by the importer and passed on where the market allows, so the visible effect of a trade war between two neighbours is that ordinary items get more expensive on both sides of the border.

Markets moved little. Gold edged up, the Canadian dollar index rose 0.04 percent to 72.27, and US indices posted modest gains, which suggests investors had already priced in an exchange of this kind.

What we could not establish

We could not establish which specific products carry which rates, whether the measures can be lifted if talks resume, what the White House has said in response, or how the business support package will be distributed. We verified this account from a single publication.