Ontario premier freezes plan to slap surcharge of electricity exports to US | U.S. & World [Video]

OTTAWA (Reuters) -The premier of the Canadian province of Ontario said he was suspending plans to impose a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the United States and would fly to Washington this week for talks with the Trump administration.

Doug Ford made his surprise announcement on Tuesday just hours after telling U.S. networks that he was ready to cut off all electricity exports unless U.S. President Donald Trump dropped his threat to impose tariffs on Canadian imports.

“Both parties are heated and the temperature needs to come down,” Ford told reporters, adding that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had reached out to him.

“When you’re negotiating with someone (and) they call you and they hand over an olive branch, the worst thing I think I could do as premier of Ontario is ignore them,” he said.

Ford said he would fly to Washington on Thursday with federal Finance Minister …