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Canada Adds Inflatable Boats and Nail Polish to U.S. Trade Spat

Canada Adds Inflatable Boats and Nail Polish to U.S. Trade Spat

(Bloomberg) -- Canada’s new tariffs could increase the cost of having a good time.

On Thursday, Finance Canada released a list of U.S. products that will be subject to 25 or 10 percent tariffs as they cross the border into Canada as of July 1. The majority of items are obvious such as iron ingots. That makes sense, as they’re retaliating against U.S. President Donald Trump’s duties on steel and aluminum imports.

But the other products on the list that are subject to the 10 percent surtax are a mishmash of consumer indulgences like maple syrup, whiskies and chocolate, and more mundane items including toilet paper and dishwasher detergents.

Some items are also oddly specific, such as “other candles and tapers and the like not including those for birthdays, Christmas and other festive occasions" and "preparations for perfuming or deodorizing rooms, including odoriferous preparations used during religious rites.”

Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government tried to focus on "end-use products" so as not to upend Canadian supply chains, and to pick products that would be available from Canada or non-U.S. countries.

It’s not unusual for tariff lists to run to dozens of pages of seemingly random goods. The recent list of planned U.S. tariffs against $50 billion of Chinese imports included human blood and golf carts.

Here are some of the more arcane selections in Canada’s proposed tariffs:

Canada Adds Inflatable Boats and Nail Polish to U.S. Trade Spat

--With assistance from Josh Wingrove and Jen Skerritt.

To contact the reporters on this story: Erik Hertzberg in Ottawa at eschmitzhert@bloomberg.net;Kristine Owram in Toronto at kowram@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jacqueline Thorpe at jthorpe23@bloomberg.net, Steven Frank

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