Canada: ‘Elbows Up’ to Trump the Bully

Solidarity Is a Beautiful Thing to Behold

Canadian Liberal candidate Mark Carney is drawing overflow crowds as our neighbors to the north go “Elbows Up”

On the surface, President Donald Trump’s warbling about our neighbor to the North seems nonsensical. Why would anybody torment a good neighbor? Why the need to pick a fight with a country with a smaller economy and less military power?

The U.S. is Canada’s largest trading partner. Its land mass safely hosts an abundance of defensive infrastructure that is aimed at (what used to be) an enemy kept in check by a balancing act of mutual assured distraction.

The Canadian economy suffers from the same flavor of late-stage capitalism as the U.S., where the realities of neoliberalism are tamping down the aspirations of a once-prosperous middle class. Our neighbors do have a somewhat stronger social safety net, but it’s being whittled down by forces that want the invisible hand of the market rule its economy.

Let's break down specifics of Trump’s threats.

He promised tariffs of 25% on Canadian imports, except energy which only got 10%, saying the fees were being used to halt the flow of drugs and migrants coming over the northern border.

Despite an absence of data documenting these problems, Canadian officials made policy and enforcement changes.

Trump wasn’t satisfied, implementing tariffs on March 4.

One day later, after discussions with auto industry CEOs, the White House said it would begin exempting autos complying with standards in the 2000 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

(It allows goods to move among the three countries tariff-free if they follow certain rules. The rules require that a product be made entirely in North America or be substantially transformed in North America if it is made of components from other countries. For products like autos, 75% of the content must be from North America.)

Another day later, he issued exemptions on tariffs for all the Canadian and Mexican goods covered in the USMCA, saying they would expire on April 2.

One day later Trump threatened new tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy products, claiming the U.S. was being ripped off by the very same penalties he agreed to in 2020.

(These tariffs are only in effect when Canada imports over 13 million gallons of milk, 27.56 million pounds of cheese, or 11.02 million pounds of butter/cream in a single year. Otherwise the tariffs on dairy are mostly around 0%. Canada has rarely, if ever, exceeded these quotas.)

Trump has been criticizing Canadian tariffs on US lumber for several weeks, claiming America should respond in kind. He claims the U.S. can do without Canadian lumber, an assertion that industry experts say simply isn’t true.

(Lumber imports from Canada are already subject to agreed to in the USMCA treaty of countervailing and anti-dumping duties of 14.5%)

Lumber is a critical ingredient in the US homebuilding industry, and the U.S. sources about 30% of the softwood lumber it uses annually from Canada. So much for the possibility of more affordable housing construction.

On March 7, the New York Times reported on the content of calls a month earlier between Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and President Trump.

• He told Mr. Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary. He offered no further explanation…

• …Mr. Trump also mentioned revisiting the sharing of lakes and rivers between the two nations, which is regulated by a number of treaties, a topic he’s expressed interest about in the past.

• Canadian officials took Mr. Trump’s comments seriously, not least because he had already publicly said he wanted to bring Canada to its knees. In a news conference on Jan. 7, before being inaugurated, Mr. Trump, responding to a question by a New York Times reporter about whether he was planning to use military force to annex Canada, said he planned to use “economic force.”

The story goes on to recount a call between Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick — who at the time had not yet been confirmed by the Senate — and Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc.

Lutnick said the U.S. President had come to realize that the relationship between the United States and Canada was governed by agreements and treaties that were easy to abandon and was interested in pursuing that path.

One impact of tossing out those treaties would enable redrawing the border between the U.S. and Canada.

Also, the Times said President wanted:

• Canada out of an intelligence-sharing group known as the Five Eyes that also includes Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

• To tear up the Great Lakes agreements and conventions between the two nations that lay out how they share and manage Lakes Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario.

• To review military cooperation between the two countries, particularly the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Canadian officials are taking these threats seriously, especially in light of Trump calling the Prime Minister “Governor” and saying it should become the 51st State.

Visit Florida, the state’s tourism bureau, estimates that over 3.2 million Canadians visited Florida in 2024, making up 27% of all international travelers

“Canadians are hurt. Canadians are angry. We are going to choose to not go on vacation in Florida,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a press conference on Tuesday, March 4, when US tariffs kicked in. “We are going to choose to try and buy Canadian products ... and yeah we’re probably going to keep booing the American anthem.”

Trudeau spoke to Trump directly: “I want to speak directly to one specific American, Donald,” Trudeau said. “It’s not in my habit to agree with the Wall Street Journal, but Donald, they point out that even though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.”

While Canada has had its share of domestic disruptions, the country’s social structure has been able to mostly absorb or neutralize threats to tranquility.

Bill McKibben at the New Yorker:

• Canada’s democracy has frayed and strained in the years since, but always held—Quebec’s independence movement was subdued by real concessions from the rest of the provinces, for instance. Canada has not always been a model global citizen—its determination to export oil means that it bears outsized responsibility for the climate crisis—but, on balance, it has been a good and decent country, not to mention a firm ally.

• America’s craziness has drifted north across the border in recent years, though, producing out-there influencers, such as the psychologist-podcaster Jordan Peterson, and Foxish stunts, such as the “Freedom Convoy” of truckers that briefly paralyzed the Canadian capital with demands for an end to vaccine mandates. Indeed, the bilious mood that’s gripped the planet, post-COVID, seemed almost certain to set the stage for the election of a Trumpian figure, Pierre Poilievre, who has delivered the same kinds of broadsides about “utopian wokeism” and who delights in calling the sitting Prime Minister—Pierre Trudeau’s son Justin—a “wacko.”

The public mood and the probable results of an upcoming election have shifted since Donald Trump began running his mouth. Pride in the country has increased, with polling showing that Canadians are firmly opposed to becoming the 51st state: 9% favor the idea, 85% do not.

Via CTV News:

• Asked if they were in favour of the Canadian government responding with dollar-for-dollar tariffs to U.S. tariffs, 70 per cent said they were, while 18 per cent were opposed. Men (74 per cent) were more likely than women (66 per cent) to be in favour of it.

• Asked about changes to their consumer behaviour over the past few weeks, with about two-thirds of respondents said they had decreased their purchases of American products in stores or online, and more than half cutting back on American fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and Starbucks.

• Just under half of respondents said they had decreased their purchases at American retail chains like Walmart and Costco.

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President Trump is reviving a Republican scheme from the gilded era, which I now presume is where he intends to take the country, where partisans wanted to annex Canada and make it the 45th state. The protectionist McKinley tariffs of 1890 explicitly declined to exempt Canadian goods, and the hope was that public sentiment would facilitate incorporating the then-self governing dominion of the British empire into the U.S.

Via Time Magazine:

• Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister John Macdonald wanted to react forcefully to send a message to the U.S. He proposed retaliating with high tariffs on American goods, as well as increased trade with Britain. He also recognized a political weapon when he was handed one. He adroitly turned the 1891 Canadian elections into a broader referendum concerning Canadian-American relations. He portrayed the Liberal opposition as being in bed with the Republican annexationists. According to him, they were involved in “a deliberate conspiracy, by force, by fraud, or by both, to force Canada into the American union.”

• After playing “the ‘Loyalty’ cry for all it was worth,” Macdonald scored a narrow victory over those favoring friendlier and more open relations with the U.S.

• The U.S.’s loss was Britain’s gain. Within two years of the McKinley Tariff’s passage, Canadian agricultural exports to Britain jumped from $3.5 million to $15 million, and produce and animal exports grew from $16 million to $24 million. Beginning in 1897, Canadians began granting preferential market access to British imports. And U.S. manufacturers continued to move production to Canada to bypass its tariff walls.

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There is a larger strategic concern involving Canada and Greenland, namely that an exit route from the North Sea would be a plum for Russia’s military.

As the ice caps melt potential oil fields will open up that have been blocked by ice. There is no guarantee of oil in Greenland and the surrounding northern seas, but the North Sea has plenty of oil and there are reasonable chances for the Arctic near Greenland to have some deposits..

As polar ice is quickly decreasing, an important route for ships will be opening up in the coming years. From the Atlantic side, ships can sail to the east of Greenland, pass between Greenland and the Norwegian islands of Svalbard, cut across the top of the world and come out past Alaska.

This is where the importance of Canada comes in. U.S. control of Canada and Greenland gives further control of the Arctic waters to Trump, and the ability for a sharing agreement with his pal Putin.

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Charlie Angus, a Member of the House of Commons of Canada since 2004, has become somewhat of a folk hero as tensions with the U.S. have risen. HIs podcasts and commentary on The Resistance Substack have gained a following thanks to his unrelenting critiques of Trump and cheerleader for Canadian patriotism.

In Trump’s Gangster Economics and the Myth of American Autarky, Angus explains that the word I’d never heard of was the guiding principle of Nazi economics. It was Hitler’s vision for Germany to build a wall of tariffs making itself self-sufficient from all other trading nations.

• Trump oversees a deeply divided nation while driving internal division and chaos even further. Hitler's economic and military project was based on a principle that shoppers and families had to be completely insulated from any economic impact from their increasingly disastrous war aims. Even as the cities were being bombed to rubble, Hitler was obsessing about keeping middle-class mothers content with fair prices. He understood that a restless population would cause his adventurism to fail.

• Trump's gang, on the other hand, are thriving on the chaos, uncertainty and fear in America. But the reality is that a deeply divided nation will not put up with the shocks caused by destroying the greatest trade relationship in the world. Even the MAGA voters will start to question the cost of satisfying whack-job ideology. It doesn't bode well for any long-term adventurism.

• And they didn’t factor in the determined resistance of the Canadian people.

• They thought we would just roll over.

• As if.

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Since one of the powerful tools of persuasion can be parody, a Molson Ale commercial from a few years back has been remade as a YouTube video:

March 8, 2025 by Heather Richardson Cox at Letters From an American

• Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made it clear that the Trump administration’s goal is to slash the federal government and to privatize its current services. As the stock market has dropped and economists have warned of a dramatic slowdown in the economy, he told CNBC “There’s going to be a natural adjustment as we move away from public spending to private spending. The market and the economy have just become hooked, we’ve become addicted to this government spending, and there’s going to be a detox period.”

• Bessent’s comments reveal that the White House is beginning to feel the pressure of the unpopularity of its policies. Trump’s rejection of 80 years of U.S. foreign policy in order to prop up Russia’s Vladimir Putin has left many Americans as well as allies aghast. Trump’s claims that Putin wants peace were belied when Russia launched massive strikes at Ukraine as soon as Trump stopped sharing intelligence with Ukrainian forces that enabled them to shoot down incoming fire.

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Trump Targets Law Firms—Is Your Legal Representation Next? at Take Action Now

• In a sudden and alarming move, two prominent law firms that represented critics of the Trump administration found themselves targeted. Federal contracts were canceled and security clearances revoked, sending a clear message: challenging the government’s agenda comes with serious consequences. This isn’t simply a matter of a headline—it’s an attack on the principles of justice and the integrity of our legal system.

• Why This Matters:
  In a free society, legal representation shouldn’t depend on politics. When the government starts punishing law firms for taking on certain clients, it chills the very foundation of our legal system. Will attorneys think twice before defending whistleblowers, journalists, or nonprofit advocates? Will smaller firms hesitate to represent clients who challenge government policies, fearing they’ll lose contracts, clearances, or future opportunities?

• The consequences aren’t just theoretical. This shift could mean fewer options for those who dare to speak truth to power. If major law firms—often the last line of defense—are dissuaded from representing certain clients, the average citizen loses a critical check on government overreach. What truly matters is every individual’s right to be defended, to be heard, and to seek justice without fear.

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DHS Detains Lead Negotiator of Columbia Gaza Solidarity Encampment After Online Campaign by Pro-Israel Groups

• On Saturday night, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents entered a student residential building at Columbia University in uptown New York and detained Mahmoud Khalil, one of the lead negotiators on behalf of pro-Palestine protesters at 2024’s Gaza solidarity encampment. In a sweeping attack on the First Amendment, the Trump administration said this week it would begin revoking visas of “Hamas sympathizers,” specifically citing Columbia University students. The detention followed a two-day targeted online campaign against Khalil by pro-Israel groups and individuals, including Columbia’s high-profile pro-Israel professor, Shai Davidai.

• Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin and an American green-card holder, was detained by DHS officials around half past eight as he was entering the Columbia residential building he lives in. He was returning from an iftar, breaking the day-long fast observed by many Muslims during the month of Ramadan.

• Khalil’s wife, who is eight months pregnant, was with him at the time. A statement by the pro-Palestine group Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) stated that he was “abducted and detained without the physical demonstration of a warrant or officially filed charges.” At the time of writing, Khalil is still being detained at a DHS facility in New Jersey, according to a database for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

• According to WAWOG, the DHS agents told Khalil that the U.S. Department of State had revoked his student visa. The group said this was “despite the fact that he has a green card, not a visa, and is a lawful permanent resident.”

• In response to a request for comment from Drop Site, the DHS stated, “You need to reach out to the White House.”