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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Americans seemed shocked when Canadians booed the United States national anthem at the 4 Nations Face-Off hockey tournament… but that was the tip of the iceberg as fans’ boos had been drowning out The Star-Spangled Banner at sporting events north of the 49th parallel for weeks, before and since.
While Oh, Canada has become a raucous sing-along patriot lovefest for their home-and-native-land.
With mounting disgust towards the American Hitler intensifying around the world, those who elected him better get used to strong disapproval from beyond their borders. Or do something dramatic to claw back the bully’s ability to sow disaster.
After weeks of threats, the Un-Presidential One slapped a 25% tariff on virtually all Canadian goods and 10% on Canadian energy.
The Truth-Social-Twit’s tariffs will make targeted Canadian imports less competitive because American importers will now have to pay the U.S. government 25% to bring them into the country which will push up prices on all products due to demand.
And good ol’ American profiteering.
North of the border, pro-Canada sentiment in political exhortations drove developers to design Is This Canadian? – a website that helps users figure out which products are truly Canadian, using A.I. to analyze product images on supermarket shelves to identify their origin.
“Buy Canadian” groups are proliferating, some with hundreds of thousands of new followers. One network alone numbers over a million followers in a country with 32 million active social media users.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers is distributing “Made in Canada” tags to be placed alongside Canadian products in grocery stores.
Canadians are on average buying 25% less of American-produced goods.
Travel to the United States is down 25%.
The Twit’s tariffs have inspired both a sense of betrayal and patriotism. In a show of shared anger, Canadians are urging each other to become less reliant on all things American.
Yup, those crazy Canucks are busy boycotting U.S. products.
Cutting the cord to U.S. services such as Netflix and searching for alternatives to Starlink for rural internet access.
Provinces are pulling American products from liquor store shelves – decimating 35% of U.S. wine exports, 11.2% of U.S. beer exports and 10.6% of U.S. hard liquor exports.
And, instead of interdicting immigrants wanting to illegally enter the United States, Canada’s beefed-up border security is facing people fleeing north… to the land of the still free.
The Government of Canada retaliated by slapping 25% tariffs on $30 billion worth of American imports including orange juice, peanut butter, appliances, clothing, make-up, and motorcycles. If current U.S. tariffs are maintained or expanded, Canadian counter-tariffs will be bumped up to cover $155 billion of U.S.-sourced goods.
In a response guaranteed to piss off Canadians, the only people standing between the United States and Putin’s empire, Loony-Lord-Wannabe posted “Please explain to Governor Trudeau, of Canada, that when he puts on a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!”
The Paranoid Prez also ordered an investigation into whether lumber imports threaten national security – the United States being the biggest customer for Canadian wood products. A move destined to drive more tariffs and incense more Canadians. And another wave of toilet paper shortages south of the border.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford went further, talking about cutting off energy exports entirely which could leave 1.5 million American customers without power.
Canada is the United States’ #1 source for oil and gas. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pointed out that tariffs will drive up all oil and gas prices for Americans especially since some U.S. Midwest refineries are entirely reliant on Alberta crude.
Canada sends south over four million barrels of oil a day… because the U.S doesn't produce nearly enough to meet its own demand.
Tariffs on steel and aluminum imports may initially hurt Canadian companies but will slam the American consumer harder. Many industries in the United States require these components throughout their supply chains. Over 85% of the aluminum U.S. industry consumes comes from Canada.
Even if levies on cars themselves are paused for a month, Jean Simard, president of the Aluminum Association of Canada, points out: “… components that end up in… a car, travel back and forth 10 to 12 times across the border. So, if every time they’re impacted by the same tariff, it’s going to be very tough to remain competitive.”
Anyway, according to its Headless Head, the United States has no need for Canadian products such as aluminum, oil, and lumber…
Meanwhile, American consumer and business sentiment has been shaken, not stirred, by the on-again/off-again tariffs as fears spiral upwards alongside prices. Investors fear further Wall Street sell-offs in the wake of The Rump and Eel-on’s dismantling of the American governmental system and devastating blows to its economy.
Proving it won’t emulate the Yo-Yo in the White House, Canada has kept their tariffs in place. Mark Carney, elected over the weekend to replace Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party, says they will remain so “until the Americans show us respect”.
Carney is a real economic genius, a leader who shepherded the Bank of Canada through perilous times in the wake of the Great Recession, and then the Bank of England through its European aftermath:
“We can't change Donald Trump, but we can control our economic destiny… America is not Canada, and Canada never, ever will be part of America in any way… We didn't ask for this fight...
“President Trump probably thinks Canada will cave in. But we are going to stand up to a bully, we’re not going to back down. We’re united and we will retaliate… make no mistake, in trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
The Me-Macho-Man’s ego revels in the power of the American dollar but crazy-like-a-fox wants a weakened dollar, worth less in comparison to other currencies, to move more American goods into foreign markets and boost manufacturing in the United States.
Unfortunately for the Too-Full-of-Himself, that has backfired big-time, with his tariffs and threats and tantrums devaluing the Canadian dollar making purchasing American products more expensive. Another reason to buy Canadian.
As the U.S. dollar rises, it makes American products less competitive worldwide, the opposite of what the Bloviating Bully desires.
A bully not jeering a war-embattled foreign leader despised by Comrade Putin but a neighboring country whose most prominent stereotype is that its people are “nice” and whose departing leader’s style valued bringing people together in what he called a “sunny ways” approach to political life.
The bully has unified disgust and anger in Canada against his abuse of office, his deviation from political decorum, and his plan to annex Canada as the 51st state.
As the other T, the one from the Great White North said a few weeks ago:
“Not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have, but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state…
“They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those. But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country.”
Trudeau labeled the fentanyl excuse a “legal justification” to tap emergency presidential trade powers and invoke tariffs that violate the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement the Big Buffoon pushed through during his first tryst with the presidency. To create chaos calling for an American annexation of its northern neighbor.
After two abject failures to expand his imprimatur into the Canadian market – a hotel and condominium project in Toronto, and a hotel of exaggerated height in Vancouver – perhaps the
acquisition of Canada as the 51st state is vindication, the ultimate real estate deal.
Buy American. Buy Canadian. Buy Mexican. Not a bad idea. Locavorism is a choice that will not only improve people’s health but the planet’s as well as it will significantly reduce the need for fossil fuels to transport goods from here to there and from there to here.
The combined value of imports and exports of goods traded between Canada and the United States in 2024 surpassed the $1 trillion mark for a third consecutive year.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimates the 25% tariff will cost Canadians about $1,900 per person, per year. In Canadian dollars.
South of the border, it could be a hit of $20,000. Per person, per year. In U.S. dollars.
So the pain will most definitely be two-way with many American industries heavily dependent on the Canadian market, and energy being Canada’s largest export to the United States.
Tariffs and counter-tariffs will affect all items. With the rising cost of energy, it’s increasingly more expensive to run factories and ship items.
No one wins in a trade war and the tariffs imposed will hurt factory workers and farmers, white collar workers and families. On both sides of the border.
And, despite the Toad’s assertion in his campaign speech to Congress last Tuesday, it won’t be “a little bit of an adjustment period” for U.S. food producers. The Truth-Social-Twit’s tariffs are pulling the ground out from under every American dependent on the food industry to survive.
And that means everyone.
(Liz Amsden resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about. She can be reached at [email protected].)
