Perhaps contrary to its national reputation of low-key equanimity, Canada has wasted little time marshaling its forces to assertively address the Trump administration’s planned tariffs. Fittingly, the perfect metaphor for the United States’ standing with Canada can be found in the world of hockey. Much like the two nations, the typically jocular hockey rivalry between squads from both sides of the border took on a decidedly sharper edge, as fans of the Ottowa Senators and Vancouver Canucks drowned out the U.S. national anthem with a chorus of boos at recent games against American teams.
But arena-echoing jeers aren’t Canada’s only response to the Trump administration’s disruptive trade war, initially set to go into effect this week but delayed a month after last-minute negotiations. Canada is matching President Donald Trump’s bellicosity with a steely and rueful resolve of its own. “Unfortunately,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a Feb. 1 speech announcing his country’s response, the “actions taken today by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together.”
What did the commentators say?
Canada plans on “moving forward with 25% tariffs on $155 billion worth of goods in response to the unjustified and unreasonable tariffs imposed by the United States on Canadian goods,” its government said. The retaliatory tariffs will apply to “American products like orange juice, peanut butter, wine, spirits, beer, coffee, appliance, apparel, footwear, motorcycles, cosmetics and pulp and paper,” said the CBC — goods that Canada would ordinarily import from the U.S. “for which there is a replacement” from other countries, said Finance and Intergovernmental affairs minister Dominic LeBlanc. Trudeau has also encouraged shoppers to focus on buying Canadian products, “effectively urging a boycott of U.S. goods,” said The Associated Press.
The Canadian government is “not ruling out other retaliatory measures,” Politico said, including “targeting Elon Musk’s companies, or slapping export taxes on Canadian oil.” Already, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has pledged to end his province’s contract with Musk’s StarLink internet provider, drawing a line in the sand for American companies “hellbent on destroying our economy” as part of Trump’s leadership team. “Trump is the only person to be blamed,” said Ford to ABC News. “Maybe Elon Musk can call his buddy?”
What next?
Despite (or perhaps because of) the increasingly heated posturing by both countries, the White House has reacted to Canada’s proposed salvo with typical Trumpian bluster. “Canadians appear to have misunderstood the plain language of the executive order,” said White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on CNBC. Instead, Hassett said, Canada is mistakenly “interpreting it as a trade war” rather than accepting Trump’s claim that the tariffs are intended to stop undocumented immigration and drug trafficking. To that end, the agreement negotiated this week to delay Trump’s tariffs by a month included on the Canadian side “measures that were already being enacted under its $1.3 billion border plan,” The New York Times said, as well as the creation of a “joint strike force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering.”
With the immediate threat delayed for now by at least a month, Canadian provincial lawmakers have nevertheless been “united and resolute” in the face of the tariff threat, with each “crafting individual retaliation measures that will continue to unfold in the days ahead,” said TD Bank in its analysis of the ongoing showdown. Given Canada’s “Twisted Sister” declaration that “we’re not gonna take it,” TD Bank’s analysts said, “brace for a further escalation.”
“I won’t sugarcoat it,” Prime Minister Trudeau said. “Our nation could be facing difficult times in the coming days and weeks.” But, Trudeau added, although Canada prefers to “solve our disputes with diplomacy,” the country is “ready to fight when necessary.”