The Canadian government Thursday said it will raise a 15% surtax on some U.S. products like cigarettes, oysters and live swine. The surtax which will amount to $11.6 million this year is a Canadian retort against U.S. trade measure known as the Byrd amendment .

The law gives the U.S. right to levy tribute on exporters twice -- first by imposing a tax and then by passing the collected money to the exporter’s rivals. The main income earners are U.S. makers of steel, ball bearings, honey and candles.

The announcement of the surtax followed the European Union’s decision to take a similar measure.
Both the Canadian and EU’s sanctions are to come into force by May 1.

Japan and Mexico are willing to follow the example of the EU and Canada in imposing extra import taxes on U.S. goods. The pretext of such decision was Congress’s failure to eliminate a law that has given the companies like Timken Co. more than $1 billion in tariffs paid by their competitors.

Mexico is in the process of deciding which U.S. products will be targeted and when to apply the sanctions, said Fernando de Mateo, the country’s ambassador to the WTO.

Being in great concern about the insecure situation with the WTO, George W. Bush called for a repeal of the Byrd Amendment in his budget proposal to Congress on Feb. 7, stating that elimination of the law could save the U.S. Treasury $1.6 billion in the next fiscal year.