Trump is going to Make Canada Independent Again
MCIA is a lousy acronym but Canada isn't going to take Trump's tariffs lying down.
Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico are an extraordinarily awful idea.
Whether it’s domestic politics or international politics, Trump’s entire modus operandi depends on the people and countries he bullies not having any viable choices. This might be true for Republican politicians desperate to hang onto their jobs. But it doesn’t work with countries except, occasionally, in the very short term.
Trump appears to have a lot of power when dealing with Canada and Mexico only because America has been reliable, fair, and reasonable for so long. Canada, in particular, has allowed itself to become dependent on the United States because the Canadians believed they could trust us.
In the short term, that makes them vulnerable to pressure from Donald Trump. They may even give in to Trump’s demands. In this case, however, it isn’t clear what those demands are. Trump was talking about fentanyl and illegal immigration when he announced these tariffs. But only something like 0.5% of fentanyl comes in over the Canadian border and about 1% of undocumented migrants.
But now that Trump has started strong-arming Canada, the Canadians will act to eliminate the vulnerabilities that make that possible.
It’s exactly analogous to what Putin did in Europe, except with even less reason. The Russians had spent decades building up European reliance on Russian natural gas. This gave Russia a lot of influence in Europe. It also made Russia a lot of money. But Putin overplayed his hand and destroyed that relationship when he attempted to use access to gas to pressure the E.U. not to support Ukraine. Europe spent a stressful winter but took immediate steps to eliminate European energy dependence on Russia. Now that they’ve largely succeeded, Russia couldn’t give gas to Europe for free and won’t be able to for decades.
Much the same will happen with Canada. The tariffs are supposed to go into effect on Saturday. If I were them, on Monday, I’d announce a state visit to China. And at that state visit, I’d announce a trade deal – it doesn’t matter how large – and discuss tentative plans for China to help expand Canada’s oil and gas export capacity.
Canada already has plans to do this but hinting that Canada might decide to make itself part of China’s silk road initiative will cause panic in Washington and might make even Trump think twice.
Canada has other cards to play, too. NORAD stands for North American Aerospace Defense Command. It’s a joint operation between the U.S. and Canada and it is the first line of defense for the continental United States. This benefits the U.S. far more than it does Canada. I doubt if Medicine Hat is on any country’s list of nuclear targets.
Or perhaps Canada could invite the Chinese navy on a goodwill tour of the Arctic. The point here is that Canada is unlikely to passively accept Trump’s efforts to humiliate it and force it to become the 51st state.
On the contrary, Canadians only seem nice. There is a longstanding thread of distrust and resentment for what Canada views as American high-handedness and disrespect. Trump’s actions are going to drive that thread to the surface and force Canada to seek new friends in what will soon become a multi-polar world.
Trump is burning through a reservoir of goodwill that has been built up over a hundred and fifty years. And both the United States and Canada will be the poorer for it.