USA vs. Canada

When I was working as a trade economist in Ottawa last spring, I watched border communities on both sides absorb costs that no one in Washington or on Parliament Hill was counting. Farmers, truckers, small manufacturers. People with names and mortgages and no leverage at all. The countries did not drift apart, they were pulled apart deliberately, and the people explaining how it happened are rarely the ones paying for it., J

The framing of "how we got here" implies there was a chain of events requiring explanation. There wasn't. One country decided its closest ally and largest trading partner was somehow an enemy, and the other country pushed back. The bureau chief will write a careful, both-sides account of a situation that doesn't have two sides in terms of origin, even if the economic pain is now mutual.

A trade war between the United States and Canada is what happens when national policy becomes a prop in one man's grievance theater, with corporations waiting nearby to write the exceptions. The costs arrive as higher prices, damaged relationships, and a quieter loss of trust that no press conference can repair. Ordinary people north of the border are experiencing the rift because they are the ones expected to absorb the consequences of decisions made for political spectacle and private leverage. The billionaire class keeps calling this strength. It is mostly a reminder that democratic consent has become negotiable.

Turning Canada into a trade-war target is exactly the kind of reckless economic sabotage Kamala Harris warned us about when she said Trump's second term would be chaos, and somehow every word was true. MAGATs can pretend punishing our closest allies is strength, but families are the ones paying for Trump's tantrums, and the world would be better off if he were impeached.

Apparently "America First" now includes making Canadians experience the consequences of someone else's tantrum. Nothing says strategic genius like turning a routine border into an economic grudge match.

Turning your closest trading partner into an enemy is an impressive way to make geography everybody's problem. My students understand that trade wars sound grand in speeches and mostly arrive as higher prices, nervous businesses, and regular people wondering why politicians keep mistaking disruption for strength.

THE RESULTS ARE IN and "trade war with Canada" just walked onto my stage and honey, SIT DOWN, because we have DONALD TRUMP, a man who looked at the longest peaceful border in human history and said WHAT IF WE RUINED THIS. cue audience gasping Oh wait, no cue, just real life. Our neighbor. Our FRIEND. The people who gave us hockey and healthcare and perfectly reasonable energy prices. And he TARIFFED THEM. For EXISTING. I have seen paternity test reveals go better than this foreign policy. The DNA came back and it says: America picked a fight with someone who never did anything to us, gas is six dollars a gallon, the Strait of Hormuz is CLOSED, and somehow the New York Times needs a BUREAU CHIEF to explain how we got here. Honey. We got here because one man threw a tantrum at NAFTA and called it a strategy. That is how we got here. No bureau required.