Trump says Canada has been ripping off the U.S. for years. Carney says he decided to reject the impending trade agreement between the 2 countries because of new demands made by Trump at the last minute. The problem is that Carney has in no way clarified the specifics of his claim while Trump’s notion of Canada’s unfair trade policies seems as much a matter of Opinion as of Fact. Compounding the seeming biases implicit in both of their narratives are the biases of the many commentators eager to offer their opinions on this issue. How, one wonders, can the general public ever arrive at the Truth? While I am certainly not pretending to be in possession of such, a few facts which have emerged from this ongoing debate would seem to be particularly relevant to the merit of Trump’s apparent economic attack on Canada.
America’s annual 50 billion dollar trade deficit with Canada lies at the heart of the problem. But given that the population of the U.S is approximately 10 times that of Canada, it makes perfect sense that Americans should buy far more Canadian products than they are able to sell north of the border. Moreover as the CBC pointed out in a recent article, America’s trade deficit with Canada virtually disappears when one eliminates the 3.9 million barrels of oil sent south daily by provinces such as Alberta. Disregarding this much needed product which Canada sells to the U.S. at a discount, we, in spite of our significantly smaller population, actually purchase more American products than they do ours. Yes, paradoxically, the 15% of U.S. exports bought by Canadians exceeds the 75% of our exports sold south of the border!
In response to the outrage expressed by Trump over the 300% tariffs threatened by Canada on U.S. dairy products, the CBC article smugly points out those tariffs have never been imposed inasmuch as they will only kick in should certain import limits be exceeded. What it fails to admit, however, is that this tactic, designed to protect Canada’s dairy industry, obviously violates the principles of Free Trade. Why, Trump has no doubt concluded, can I not do the very same in defense of various American industries?
On Aug. 22, Carney declared he had withdrawn from the trade deal in response to Trump’s attacks on Canada’s culture, including its French aspects, as well as his attempts to control Canada’s trade relations with other countries. But on Aug. 25, Ezra Levant of Rebel News posted a lengthy interview with U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra who insisted that Canada had been offered the best trade deal ever, and that Carney’s charges made little sense. On the one hand, he said, the U.S. has no problem with Canada’s diverse culture, while on the other, Trump had every right to question Carney’s recent trade discussions with China inasmuch as the CUSMA [Canada-U.S.-Mexico] agreement of 2020 stipulated that each of the 3 countries involved must give the other 2 at least three months notice should they decide to open trade negotiations with any nation whose economy relies predominantly on enforced labor [i.e., Slavery]! Carney’s claim, in other words, that Trump had arbitrarily introduced this issue at the last minute, was a brazen distortion of the truth!
Perhaps not surprisingly, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre recently pointed out that while the U.S. had blocked the entry of over 69,000 shipments of Chinese “forced-labor” products into its domain in 2024, Canada under Trudeau had turned away less than 10. His statement in fact seems to validate Trump’s contention that Canada’s trade policies have for some time been rooted less in Integrity than Self-Interest! But that would seem to be equally true of both countries. The U.S. president’s 2025 tariff threats against Canada were unduly harsh and aggressive, but so also were Canada’s reactions. Premier Ford of Ontario threatened to increase tariffs on the electricity sent to N.Y., Michigan and Minnesota by 25%, a move that would have cost each family in those states $100 a month. Trump’s counter threats quickly cancelled that move. At the same time, the banning of U.S. liquor products from all Canadian provinces save Alberta and Saskatchewan, has cost American producers of those products hundreds of millions of dollars.
As reported by The Financial Post a couple of days ago, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is convinced that Carney scuttled the trade talks with Trump for political reasons, hoping his rejection of the Republican president would lead to victories for the Liberals in various upcoming elections. It seems likely he has already begun to regret that move. And of course Doug Ford’s recent personal rant against Trump has done nothing but exacerbate the anti-Canadian venom emanating from The White House. But while Carney and Ford must bear some of the blame for our present situation, to what extent is Donald Trump the real villain of the piece?
To those on the Left, of course, Trump is a monster. But as I have tried to explain on multiple occasions, while I do not condone the aggressive way in which he pursues his goals, I do agree with much of his agenda. His initial offering in any negotiation, it seems to me, while often outrageous, is always open to compromise. But given Canada’s refusal to compromise on the issue at hand, he seems to have utterly succumbed to the petty, spiteful, childish inclinations of his nature. Canada does not deserve to be treated as a country, he has said. Indeed it is among the worst nations on the planet to negotiate with! Really? He constantly invokes the outrage of the annual 50 billion dollar deficit with Canada which, as I have explained, is a perfectly rational result of both the natural resources the U.S. buys from Canada as well as the radical disparity in the population of the two countries. Canada benefits from its proximity to the U.S., but it hardly does anything nefarious in doing so!
While I shan’t go into details, Canada’s Culture is radically different from that of the U.S.. Yet Trump’s disdain for the Canadian Identity seems to have infected the Mindless of the American Right. On Aug. 27, Townhall published a piece by conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter entitled: “It’s Always Cute When Canada Thinks It Matters.” The ignorant chauvinism shared by both Trump and Schlichter informs the following: “Canadians don’t want to be Americans, and that’s OK. It’s silly, because everyone should want to be Americans, but that’s alright.” The Irish, the Italians, the Greeks, etc., should all, apparently, want to be Americans! A truly ignorant, arrogant vision of the Species!