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As a trade battle erupts between Canada and the United States over steel and aluminum, Alberta’s NDP government is lashing the Trump administration’s “absurd” and “insulting” tariffs and offering its support to Ottawa as it faces down the U.S president.

Donald Trump followed through on a longstanding threat Thursday, as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced the U.S. would end the temporary exemption on Canadian, Mexican and European Union steel and aluminum and impose import duties of 25 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively, at midnight June 1.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced in turn that Canada would retaliate “dollar-for-dollar” as of July 1 with $16.6 billion in tariffs on U.S. steel, aluminum and a host of other products ranging from yogurt to felt-tipped pens.

In Fort McMurray to talk about pipelines, Notley said the Americans’ “unpredictable behaviour” showed the need to diversify markets for Alberta’s energy resources and end the oilpatch’s overwhelming reliance on the U.S. as a customer.