KINSELLA: American voters embraced the Trump Tax, even to their own detriment

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Trump Tax™️.

President-elect Donald Trump may call it a “tariff,” but essentially that is what he is promising to impose on his first day in office: A tax. “Tariff” comes from a Turkish word meaning “prices.”

So, the price of just about everything is where the Trump tax will be most keenly felt. In his late-night post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that he intended to slap tariffs “on ALL products coming into the United States.” His targets: China, Mexico and – notably – us.

For most of our history, we have been the closest allies and trading partners of the Americans. No more. If he carries through with even part of his tariff, Trump will effectively cripple the Canadian economy. He will be treating us like we are the enemy.

For Canada, the Trump Tax will mean that further interest rate cuts are over. Rates will likely need to go up, in fact, to shore up the Canadian dollar, which started to plunge the moment Trump made his announcement.

More broadly, the Trump Tax will strangle consumer spending just as the critical Christmas season kicks off. Many firms will scuttle Christmas bonuses, and not a few would now be contemplating layoffs — they’d be fools not to. Inflation will return with a vengeance, and some analysts are even quietly wondering if the Trump Tax will usher in something akin to a depression.

Trump has fans in Canada, mainly on the political right. Those partisans will dispute all of this, of course, just like the millions of Americans who ignored warnings from Kamala Harris that Trump’s tariffs would cost them, too.

But make no mistake: A 25% increase in the cost of “all products” will devastate Canada. Our top trading partner is the United States: We do billions of dollars in trade with them every single day. A 25% tariff will kill off most of that.

Ninety per cent of our exports go to only one market: The United States of America. Trade to the United States accounts for about a quarter of the 16 million jobs in Canada — and as much as 40% of our GDP. No nation on Earth is as economically dependent on the Americans as us in Canada.

Crude petroleum, cars, petroleum gas, machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers, plastics, precious stones and metals, all kind of commodities: All of these, and more, represent about $4 billion in trade every single day. All of that is now at risk.

The pain will not just be felt here. Americans, too, will feel it. Michigan has been our top trading partner since 1990. Illinois, California, Montana, New York, and Texas also do a huge amount of business with Canadians. Those states are much more reliant on us than Trump voters realize or know.

Which raises the key question: Why would so many Americans vote for economic calamity — for them, as well as us? There was no shortage of warnings about Trump’s tariffs during the presidential campaign. On the search engine Bing, there are 1.2 million stories or postings about the Democrats and Harris sounding the alarm about the impact of Trump’s tariffs on Americans, and how it would harm America’s relationship with allied countries like ours.

Americans, clearly, didn’t care. Trump once again showed his immense skill in persuading people to vote against their own economic interests. Either because they think he is joking, or because they think it’s a bluff — or because they favour disruption over harmony — Americans embraced the Trump Tax. Trump is not honest about much — but he was always honest about tariffs. He’s doing what he said he was going to do.

We cannot and must not assume Trump is bluffing. We must prepare for the worst-case scenario. Justin Trudeau’s government has lost all economic credibility, and Pierre Poilievre is not in power yet. So, it will fall to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his counterparts to fashion the Canadian response.

And respond we must, and united we must be. With the Trump Tax, war has been declared on us.

And there are going to be many, many casualties.