US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order effectively putting a 25 per cent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports after the announcement during the Super Bowl.

This comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Trump negotiated a 30-day hiatus on the imposed tariffs.

But will these tariffs lead to job losses in Canada? To put it simply, yes.

Tariffs will cause the price of the goods exported to the United States to rise which will lead Americans to find other, cheaper options, thus decreasing the demand of Canadian items exported to the United States.

“Regardless of what we do individually to prepare economically, they're pretty certain that a trade war between Canada and the US will lead to a recession,” Fanshawe Canadian Politics Professor, Glen Morgan said. “Depending on the industry that you work in, it could be incredibly damaging to the automotive sector, people could be looking at potential job losses.”

Canadian companies have already begun lay offs, with Canadian pantyhose manufacturer, Sheertex, laying off 40 per cent of their staff due to the impending tariffs.

“So if the US buys less of those goods from Canada, you know those producers, the firms that do that, that sell those goods to the US are going to have to scale down because, likely, they're not going to be able to sell the same amount just to other Canadians or to other countries,” Western Economics Professor, Anath Ramanarayanan said. “They may cut employment or reduce capacity at factories.”

So, what can Canadians do to keep businesses afloat if all the imposed tariffs go into effect?

We, as Canadians, can support Canadian manufacturers and companies.

“I've heard of a number of people who have canceled vacations to the US and have shifted to taking vacations in Canada, start buying Canadian, start focusing on buying local as much as possible,” Morgan added.

Some grocery stores, like Food Basics, have begun placing maple leaf stickers beside items that are Canadian made, to help shoppers looking to only buy Canadian. Labels will identify where the product was manufactured, and depending on the product, will also tell you if the material used to make the item was imported or is Canadian.

The tariffs themselves may also influence Canada’s upcoming federal election, according to Morgan.

“Anything can still happen, but we're looking at about three to three-and-a-half-weeks until the announcement of the new Liberal leader. If it happens to be [Mark] Carney, he's shifting some of the poles in Ontario and Quebec, which is making a [Pierre] Poilievre victory—which was all but foreseen a few months ago—into something a little less certain,” Morgan said. “I would still say the Conservatives are en route to winning the next election. But I can't guarantee that and I can't necessarily guarantee that they'd get a majority either.”

Liberals who were almost guaranteed to lose this upcoming election, according to the polls, are now seeing an increase, as Canadians watch Trudeau and the Liberal Party navigate this potential trade-war with the US.

The aluminum and steel tariffs have been put in place, but Trudeau is attempting to negotiate our way out of all the other imposed tariffs, by promising to spend $1.3 billion on a border plan.