Canada must retaliate decisively against Trump’s trade war
Recent disputes with its longstanding trading partner show need to renew political and economic landscape
American and Canadian flags fly side by side at an American Independence Day event in Winnipeg in 2023. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Canada/Wikimedia Commons)
Kabelo Mokoena
U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods is another example of America’s economic bullying.
As a sovereign nation, Canada must respond with strength, not weak diplomacy. Our leaders have failed to assert economic independence, settling for the role of a supplier of raw materials while importing finished goods at inflated prices. This cycle of dependency must end.
Canada must revisit the North American Free Trade Agreement and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which have disproportionately benefited the U.S.
If tariffs are weaponized against us, we must reassess these deals and consider alternatives that serve our interests. Trade agreements should reflect fair partnerships, not Washington’s dictates.
For decades, Canadian governments have neglected domestic manufacturing, opting instead to export raw materials while importing finished products at high prices. This failure of vision and leadership has stifled innovation and economic growth.
A prime example is our acceptance of subpar American dairy products, particularly processed “cheese” that barely qualifies as cheese.
Canada must ban low-quality U.S. dairy imports to protect our farmers and ensure consumers get genuine, high-quality products. Canada should halt raw material exports and prioritize domestic manufacturing.
Rather than shipping lumber, minerals, and energy resources abroad, we should refine, process, and manufacture them into finished products. This approach would create jobs, drive innovation, and reduce reliance on volatile markets.
For too long, Canada has depended on U.S. automobile manufacturers. It’s time to introduce a domestically designed and manufactured vehicle that meets high standards of quality and sustainability. This would create jobs and establish Canada as a global competitor.
To protect our auto industry, we must impose tariffs on U.S.-manufactured vehicles. If America embraces economic protectionism, Canada must respond in kind.
It’s time for young people to engage in politics and policymaking. I call on a younger generation of Canadians to forge a movement that secures our future.
Current political parties benefit only a few players tied to lobbying and investments. We must abandon outdated political structures and unite across all lines to send innovative minds into leadership at all levels.
This is a call for the renewal of Canada’s political and economic landscape. Our future depends on fresh perspectives and engaged citizens. This is a call to action.
Canada must stop playing America’s junior partner. Our leaders must stop compromising and start leading.
Strong retaliatory measures against unfair U.S. tariffs are not just a response, they are a necessity.
Canada has the talent, resources and innovation to thrive independently. It’s time we acted like it.
Kabelo Mokoena is the president of the African Caribbean Association of Nunavut.
Yawn
Canada should hold off on any heavy-handed responses for a period of up to 6 months. Let the tariffs bite long enough for U.S. industries and consumers to feel the real cost of more expensive goods—because once that happens, the political pressure in the U.S. can ramp up quickly.
Meanwhile, it’s smart for Canada to use this window to strengthen our internal supply chains and begin to invest in the infrastructure that allows our producers to move goods across the country more efficiently and to our ports.
Very intelligent points that suggest an effective course of action. Of course, that means nothing of the sort will be pursued.
Thanks, NN, for putting this article in the ‘opinion’ section – even though, technically it belongs in the ‘very long comment’ section
Canada has many, many tariffs, duties and taxes which it imposes on foreign goods, including numerous products from the USA. If we hadn’t allowed our country to regress economically and socially, and so substantially, over the past decade any tariffs on exports would be inconsequential. Now we have mainstream media, policians and their adherents advocating for more policies, programs and taxes that will negatively affect Canadians and our society. We are rotting from the inside, not because of circumstances outside our borders
You’re right. We’re rotting from the inside from the inside because of people like you who parrot Project 2025 talking points you got from your FB algorithm. Have you ever driven on a road, went to a public school, or a hospital. Taxes pay for those.
You are right
GN should require Northmart/Northern, Coop, etc to post large country of origin stickers beside all products.
Thanks, MiC; I met you. You’re the guy:
a) who insisted everyone should be forced to wear a mask even when they were alone during the lockdowns, AND
b) who thinks all the Arctic glaciers will melt in the next twenty years and that we’ll be underwater
You’ve got the wrong guy. Tell your Northmart bosses to open their books to prove they’re not stealing Nutrition North Subsidy. Answer: they won’t b/c people will know the truth. Meanwhile Northern/Northmart/Coop still don’t show country of origin stickers. Traitors, imo.
Who would vote down a post that supports transparency at Nunavut grocery stores? Answer: Nunavut grocery store gougers.
Thanks, Lwh; and why didn’t you advocate for this faux transparency a year ago, two years ago, a decade ago?
Besides, nearly every food product in Canada already has country-of-origin on the label. Adding more big posters for the faux-folks who need glasses just adds cost for the sensible-folks.
Are you one of those who believes everything said on mainstream social media like CBC and CNN
At the end of WWII Canada was the third largest industrial power in the world.
In the 1950s the saying was “The second half of the 20th century belongs to Canada.”
But we gave it all away.
The Rockefeller Institute said the path to lasting world peace lay in enabling people in less developed countries to share the good life. The way to do that was to share the technological knowledge which enabled Canada and other countries to produce the goods that people wanted.
So that was part one. But their lower labour costs, combined with our production knowledge enabled many countries to under-cut Canada in world markets. We needed to continue to innovate in order to be able to compete.
Innovation usually happens at head office.
Part 2. The US printed dollars. Wealthy US interests borrowed those dollars and used them to buy up Canadian businesses. Those purchased businesses changed from being producers in Canada to being Canadian distributors of goods produced in the USA.
Canada used to build telephones, televisions, appliances, cars, trucks, ships, aircraft, and much more.
Over the last 80 years the US government printed the money that was used for buying Canadian manufacturing.
Now Canada mostly is a supplier of raw material.
Today Nunavut exports Arctic Char and imports “fish sticks”. “Fish sticks” are scraps of fish, stuck together with starch and covered in flavoured bread crumbs. Nunavut exports the best fish in the world and gets back processed scraps. The rest of Canada does much the same.
Part 3. What did wealthy Canadians do with the US dollars they got for their companies? They used the money to buy land and housing in Canada, driving up the price of both. Then they raised rents, to get back their “investments”. The result has been inflation and homelessness.
I’m old. I had a summer job that paid me $2.00 per hour. From that $2.00 I paid rent, bought food, and travelled. At the end of the summer I had saved enough money to fly across the country and pay tuition at university that fall. No student in Canada can do that today, because of the inflation caused primarily by the US export of its dollars.
It’s time to seperate from the US economy. Canada has the raw materials and the knowledge to produce its own goods and give its citizens a good quality of life. The only thing Canada lacks is tropical fruit. There are other places where we can trade for tropical fruit.
Taima.
Everyone our age at one time or another worked for 2.00 an hor or less. That’s when a house could be bought for under 10k, a car for under 1k. That was minimum wage, now minus wage close to 20.00 per hour. It’s all relative.
All good points, but what you are not saying is Canada got lazy, and took the easy route , and now we have to deal with a lunatic, and this should be a wake up call, the European Union and Britain have a population of 350 million, and need everything we have, but 90 percent of canadas population lives next to the USA border, and they are sheep to Trumps threats, look at them running to him,Stand up to a bully, and after WW2 Canada had the 4 largest army in the world, we turned into a Nation of wimps
I don’t think most Canadians became lazy.
Canada’s WWII economic capability was built under the direction of C. D. Howe, Canada”s “Minister of Everything”. By the end of the war, 50% of working Canadians were working for him. He not only built our industrial state, he managed the transition from wartime economy to peacetime economy without a recession, something that had not been done before.
He provided the vision. He hired the “dollar a year” men to run the companies, day-to-day. But they were “hold the tiller men”. They did not know the course. Howe built 3 companies in each industry, so no one firm could exert undue influence. But these firms did not compete for resources or for customers.
Then came television. Neither Minister Howe nor Prime Minister King were photogenic and the Liberals lost the next federal election.
Among the many things the next government did, it chose not to buy the first practical commercial passenger jet, designed and built in Canada. It cut up for scrap the jet fighters already designed and built in Canada. Those Mach 2 fighters lacked today’s electronics, but in all other ways, they would still be competative today, more than 70 years after they were cut up.
The Americans got to the moon largely because they hired the fired Canadians who had designed and built those two aircraft. They were not lazy. They were the best in the world and they provided much of NASA’s middle management.
I don’t think Canadians were lazy. I think they were misled. Canada had the best centrally planned economy, and then it lost its center. That’s both the good and bad of central planning.
Lazy, lost the centre what planet are you on, the million dollar playboy PM, and sellout Singh, doubled our national dept in 10 years, because we were printing money to buy an electorate, and if you had a clue you would talk to business people across this country, not big corporations, small business people and their no. 1 complaint is nobody wants to show up for work, and if you look at the federal gov employees 60 percent are not showing up for work 3 days a week, if that’s not lazy what is it. Another academic CD Howe quoter and there was never was an Arrow.
NTI, Kivalliq Inuit Assoc, ITK, ICC need to express our Nunavut concerns at the negotiating table, costs will deeply impact Nunavut with these tariffs coming our way.
Tariffs will hurt if Canada slaps tariffs on food and other items coming into Canada from the US. You’re right, the Inuit Orgs are silent. The same silence on the Liberal/NDP, giving $20 billion and counting to an endless death war over a foreign border. Yet our own border, our country, is in shambles. Taken over by criminal networks running our country, money laundering, world shipper of meth and fentanyl and human and child trafficking.
The PM says everything is on the table for the war as are for tariffs, but zilch for our own country’s prosperity. If a false-flag triggers Nato Article 5, will 18–40-year-olds from Nunavut drafted and sent to the WWIII front lines under the emergency act?
Strange, out of the blue, Team Canada (Canada) to believe the US is the enemy. The only country who wants peace and to build prosperity in all of North America. Why is Canada against this? Are Inuit Orgs? BTW, Carbon tax April 1st, will increase food prices, and everything else… the silence continues.
Although I appreciate the passion in this piece, it’s clear the writer cares deeply about Canada’s economic future, and I definitely agree that supporting more domestic manufacturing and innovation is important, but at the same time, a lot of the claims seem to oversimplify some complex issues or overlook important facts, which weakens the overall argument.
For example, the call to revisit NAFTA stood out to me, since NAFTA was actually replaced by the USMCA back in 2020. If the concern is that Canada isn’t benefiting enough under the current trade agreement, it would make more sense to focus on reviewing USMCA itself rather than referencing a deal that no longer exists.
There’s also the claim that Canada is just a supplier of raw materials, which really downplays the fact that Canada has strong manufacturing sectors, including aerospace, automotive, and technology industries. Yes, we could definitely do more to process our resources before exporting them, but it’s not accurate to say we only ship out raw materials and import all our finished goods.
The part about banning low-quality U.S. dairy imports also doesn’t quite line up with reality. Canada already has one of the strictest dairy import systems in the world under supply management, which heavily limits how much U.S. dairy can even enter the market. On top of that, imported dairy still has to meet Canada’s food safety standards, so calling it low-quality feels like an exaggeration without evidence.
The call to impose tariffs on U.S. vehicles is another area where I think the argument overlooks how deeply connected Canada and the U.S. are when it comes to auto manufacturing. Parts and vehicles cross the border several times before a car is finished. Slapping tariffs on U.S. cars would likely hurt Canadian workers and consumers just as much, if not more, than it would affect American companies.
One point I really think is worth considering is why the U.S. imposes tariffs on Canadian products in the first place. Instead of immediately calling for retaliation, it might be more productive to look at the reasons behind those tariffs, whether it’s disputes over subsidies, regulations, or other trade policies, and see if there’s a way to address the root causes through negotiation first.
Overall, I totally agree that Canada should be confident in building up its own industries and reducing unnecessary dependence, but I think the best way to do that is through a combination of smart investment, innovation, and stronger trade relationships, not by isolating ourselves or getting into a trade war. Passion is great but combining it with accurate facts and balanced analysis would make arguments like this much stronger.
You should have written the opinion piece, on point on every aspect. thank you for this
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback. The original article did address the transition from NAFTA to USMCA, but due to a 500-word limit, some details had to be condensed. It’s important to note that while President Trump championed the USMCA, it has remained unchanged since its signing, yet he continues to claim that the U.S. is being taken advantage of. These statements are largely political, aimed at his base, and do not reflect the economic realities of Canada-U.S. trade. Engaging in a trade war is not a sustainable solution reciprocal and retaliatory measures are the necessary response. Canada is a trading partner, not a charity case or an annex, yet Trump has even suggested that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state. This raises serious concerns about our sovereignty and how such rhetoric impacts Inuit and other Indigenous communities.
Regarding dairy, the example used was just one of many. The U.S. permits the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), a synthetic growth hormone banned in Canada. Canada’s supply management system ensures fresh, locally sourced milk, supports our economy, and provides fair prices for both farmers and consumers without relying on government subsidies. However, the U.S. continues to challenge our dairy policies, as seen in the first formal trade dispute under USMCA, which ruled against Canada’s allocation of dairy Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs). These disputes often serve corporate interests rather than benefiting farmers or workers, leaving consumers especially those in remote regions like Nunavut to bear the consequences.
Going back to USMCA negotiations, President Trump falsely claimed Canada imposed a 270% tariff on U.S. dairy products, using this narrative to push for concessions. This is part of a broader pattern of using trade as a political tool, while many Canadians struggle economically. Now is the time for Canada to strengthen its industries and expand partnerships with Europe, Asia, and Africa. The impact of U.S. tariffs extends beyond businesses it disrupts Indigenous communities, affecting livelihoods, development, and cultural preservation.
The lack of Canadian manufacturing autonomy is another critical issue. Trade agreements have left Canada primarily assembling rather than manufacturing vehicles. This lack of production rights was evident during the pandemic, when Canada was unable to purchase M95 masks despite supplying the raw materials. If Canada continues to take a slow, passive approach to tariffs, the long-term effects on Indigenous and Inuit communities must be considered. Protecting our industries and ensuring economic sovereignty should be a national priority.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, I appreciate the passion and the opportunity to have this conversation, especially on such an important topic.
I do agree that Canada should absolutely prioritize strengthening its own industries and diversifying its trade partnerships, that’s smart economic policy, no question. But I think some of the points raised here still need a bit more balance and clarification.
First, regarding CUSMA, I fully understand the word limit challenges in opinion writing, but it’s important to note that CUSMA was not simply “championed by Trump” and imposed on Canada. It was the result of long, complex negotiations where Canada’s negotiating team (under Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland) fought hard to preserve key elements from NAFTA and secured important new provisions. These included:
• Preserving a dispute resolution mechanism (essentially the new version of Chapter 19), which allows Canada to challenge unfair U.S. trade actions, something the U.S. wanted gone.
• Protecting Canadian cultural industries from U.S. control.
• Improving automotive rules of origin, requiring more North American content and higher wages, which helps Canadian manufacturers and workers.
On dairy, it’s true that Canada bans rBST, but it’s also important to note that all U.S. dairy imported into Canada must meet Canadian safety standards. So, the idea that all U.S. dairy is inherently low-quality isn’t accurate. While Canada did lose the dairy TRQ dispute under CUSMA, that’s part of the agreed dispute resolution process, not proof that the system itself is biased against Canada.
The idea that Canada only “assembles” vehicles also overlooks the fact that Canada has some of the most advanced, full-scale manufacturing plants in the world, including operations by Toyota, Honda, and Ford. Canada’s integration into the North American supply chain is actually a competitive strength, not a sign of economic weakness.
The M95 mask example is also worth clarifying. That was less about trade agreements and more about global supply chain disruptions and emergency export controls imposed by the U.S. during the early pandemic. Canada’s real vulnerability there was its lack of domestic PPE manufacturing capacity, which is a separate issue from CUSMA or trade policy.
I also absolutely agree that more investment is needed in Indigenous and remote communities, but I’m not convinced retaliatory tariffs are the most effective way to achieve that. Targeted investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and local economic development would likely do far more to strengthen those communities than a trade war with the U.S. that could also harm Canadian businesses and consumers.
Finally, I just want to clarify that my original comment was intended to help provide factual context for other readers, not to start a prolonged back-and-forth. It’s clear we both care about Canada’s economic future, even if I am taking a factual approach. FYI, Canada has responded already, check this article on the government of Canada website: “Canada announces robust tariff package in response to unjustified U.S. tariffs”. Thanks again for engaging, I’ll leave it here.
The ongoing trade war between the United States and Canada is not rooted in traditional economic disputes but rather serves as a political tool to achieve strategic dominance. U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions suggest an ambition that extends beyond economic leverage his approach indicates an effort to exert political and territorial influence over Canada.
From a legal perspective, any attempt to integrate Canada into the U.S. would be in direct violation of international law, particularly the principles of state sovereignty as outlined in the United Nations Charter. Canada’s constitutional framework is designed to resist external coercion, and any effort to undermine its political autonomy whether through economic pressure or otherwise would face severe legal and diplomatic challenges. Additionally, trade agreements such as the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) provide clear legal frameworks that prohibit punitive economic measures designed for political gain.
From an economic standpoint, the notion of assimilating Canada into the U.S. is impractical and destructive. Canada, as the world’s second-largest country by landmass, possesses a unique economic structure with key industries such as energy, mining, and technology that operate independently of U.S. control. Forcing economic subjugation through tariffs and trade restrictions would lead to severe market disruptions, capital flight, and a loss of investor confidence. The cost of integrating thirteen Canadian provinces and territories into the U.S. economic system would be astronomical, outweighing any perceived benefits. The imposition of tariffs under the pretext of addressing trade deficits is misleading, as the U.S. benefits significantly from its economic relationship with Canada, which remains one of its largest trading partners.
From a political analysis perspective, Trump’s language, including his reference to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the “Governor of Canada,” reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of international relations and political sovereignty. His administration’s trade policies appeared to be less about addressing legitimate economic concerns and more about appeasing his political base. The pattern of targeting Canada alongside moves to exert influence in regions such as Greenland, the Panama Canal, and the Gulf of Mexico indicates a broader geopolitical strategy rather than a legitimate trade dispute. These actions align with an outdated 19th-century imperialist mindset that is neither viable nor acceptable in today’s globalized world.
Furthermore, economic coercion as a method of political subjugation is historically ineffective. Rather than weakening Canada, such measures only strengthen national resolve and economic diversification efforts. Canada has no choice but to respond with countermeasures, as acquiescence would set a dangerous precedent for economic bullying. The assertion that tariffs were imposed to curb drug trafficking or because the U.S. subsidizes Canada is inconsistent and contradictory. These justifications lack economic merit and instead serve as political distractions.
Ultimately, weaponizing trade policy for political gain creates instability that extends beyond North America. The economic and diplomatic consequences of this approach are far-reaching, and history has shown that such reckless strategies often lead to political unpopularity and eventual policy failure. As Canada navigates this period of economic and political tension, it must respond with strategic diplomacy, economic resilience, and firm legal action to uphold its sovereignty and global standing.
You bring up an interesting angle into the bigger picture of the U.S.-Canada trade conflict. Your points about how it’s not just about economics but also a political play for influence are really interesting. You provide a great opinion breakdown of how Canada’s sovereignty is at stake, and the potential consequences if these trade pressures go beyond just tariffs. I actually think this would have done really well as a separate opinion piece, maybe titled something like “The Political Push Behind U.S.-Canada Trade Tensions.” It would give the topic the room it deserves to dive deeper into the legal, economic, and diplomatic angles you’re touching on.