KINSELLA: Canada must become less dependent on trade with U.S.
What matters now is linking arms with those who support Canada, and building new alliances
Article content
The Trump tariffs have been delayed yet again – until Tuesday – but the existential threat remains.
How did we get here?
tap here to see other videos from our team.
KINSELLA: Canada must become less dependent on trade with U.S. Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Simple: we – all of us, under successive governments of different political stripes – allowed our trade with the United States to balloon to 80% of what we export. That was a critical mistake, and all of us went along with it. It is a mistake that has left us too vulnerable to the whims of our biggest customer. Never a good strategy.
Canadians who have been justifying Donald Trump’s bogus pretexts for imposing crippling tariffs aren’t very good strategists either. They’ve been dutifully dancing to Trump’s tune, just like he wanted us to. The newly-returned U.S. president exaggerated the fentanyl and illegal migrant threats so he couldn’t be accused of violating the very trade agreement he himself signed with Canada and Mexico in his first term.
His fentanyl and illegal border-crossing claims were bogus pretexts to get him out of his United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) obligations. Nothing more, nothing less.
But none of that matters so much, now. What matters is changing course, and making us less dependent on trade with the U.S. What matters is getting national leadership to guide us through the difficult years ahead. And what matters now is linking arms with those who support Canada, and building new alliances.
In the United States, finding those allies is pretty hard to do, these days.
This writer, like many Canadians, thought most Americans would rally to our side when Trump started threatening “economic force” to make us the 51st state. Some of us thought the majority of Americans would object when Trump published maps – like antisemites do with Israel – in which we no longer exist. From sea to sea.
That hasn’t happened, for the most part. Few Americans have spoken up for Canada.
On social media, sure, there have been a few voices decrying Trump’s plans to annex Canada. The “Republicans Against Trump” group tweeted on X the U.S. President’s claims that Canadians support his expansionist scheme is “false. All Canadian leaders, from Right to Left, oppose this idea. According to a recent poll, 82% of Canadians are against joining the U.S.”
For his part, Washington state’s Lt. Gov. Danny Heck tweeted: “Canada is NOT our 51st state. They ARE our neighbor, one of our largest trading partners, our ally (having fought along side us in every war) and our friend – a friendship built on shared values and a commitment to democracy.”
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Influential American podcaster and writer Brian Krassenstein posted this about Trump’s threats: “Canada has been one of our closest allies, a key trade partner, and shares countless common interests with us. This isn’t diplomacy; it’s a cringe-worthy display of ego masquerading as leadership.”
Similarly, Bruce Heyman, who was U.S. ambassador to Canada from 2014 to 2017, told a Canadian journalist that “as an American, I hate this.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, too, was unimpressed by Trump’s rantings, noting Canada and America are longtime “friends” and adding: “I’m not opposed to tariffs outright, but we can’t treat them like a ‘one size fits all’ solution. And we certainly shouldn’t use them to punish our closest trading partners.”
American journalist Aaron Rupar, who has nearly a million followers on X alone, had possibly the best and pithiest take: “I’m sorry, Canada.”
Elsewhere, American allies have been few and far between. Even Leftist American Senator Bernie Sanders, when asked about Trump’s expansionist plans, said: “All for it,” because he believes it would get America universal health care, like Canada has. (He’s wrong. We’d get their system, not the other way around.)
Other Americans, including other elected ones, have been openly hostile.
Texan Republican congressman Brandon Gill: “Listen, I think that the people of Canada for that matter should be honoured that President Trump wants to bring [their] territory under the American fold.”
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Similarly, Utah Senator Mike Lee suggested the U.S. “take Alberta and leave the rest.”
And, game show host and boating enthusiast Kevin O’Leary, who professes to be Canadian from his perch in a mansion in Boston, has done the media circuit to defend Trump’s aggression.
O’Leary, who has unilaterally appointed himself Canada’s ambassador to Mar-a-Lago, said: “What has caught the imagination of Canadians is an economic union beyond what we have now.”
Which is false. Which is a lie.
Multiple polls have been conducted up here in the Great White North since Trump starting fulminating about taking over, and all have found more than 90% of us – on Right and Left, from Pierre Poilievre to Justin Trudeau – strongly oppose the “idea.”
But for those of us casting our eyes down South to see if any of our erstwhile allies will step up to a microphone and defend us?
It ain’t happening. We’re on our own, folks.
Time to get ready.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.