JOHN IVISON
NATIONAL POST
Buy Sprague Prince Edward County Baked Beans!
Ontario-based Sprague Cannery posted an appeal to Canadians on social media on Tuesday, saying that tariffs will torpedo their soup and beans business in the U.S.
This is a fifth-generation Canadian company founded in 1925 to preserve locally grown vegetables in the Bay of Quinte region.
The response online from eager supporters was heartening. Canadian hearts are glowing again.
The natural reaction to Donald Trump’s tariffs is fear and trepidation across Canada. But there is also courage and resolve.
This is not a country that is going to be bullied into submission.
By Tuesday afternoon, Trump was threatening to add reciprocal tariffs to the 25-per-cent already in place. Meanwhile, his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, was telling Fox News that the “very fair, very reasonable” American president is ready “to work something out” and meet Canada and Mexico “somewhere in the middle” on the tariffs he’s imposed.
But this is not a reality TV show where you leave viewers in suspense with a cliffhanger that then resolves itself the next day.
This is real life, people’s lives, and the great turning away from America will be irrevocable because Canadians no longer trust their former friends to the south.
Nobody can win a trade war and Trump has an escalatory advantage that could, if he is determined enough, collapse the Canadian economy and allow him to annex the country.
But Canadians have been shaken from their complacency. They are offended and angry in ways that have probably never been seen in peacetime.
They are united and determined not to be intimidated.
I don’t recall Justin Trudeau saying anything as succinct and powerful as the opening sentences of his press conference on Tuesday.
“The U.S. launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murdering dictator,” he said.
The sense of betrayal on Tuesday was shocking, even though we knew it was coming.
It felt like war and Canadians are, by and large, ready to fight.
But are American voters ready for higher gas prices and job losses? Is corporate America going to be cowed while trillions of dollars of value are wiped away by constant chaos and destabilization?
It was once said by a former president of General Motors that what was good for his company was good for America and vice versa. Those days are gone: GM’s stock has lost nearly seven per cent in the past month, as Trump has threatened and now imposed tariffs.
Trudeau was also correct to speak directly to Americans and point out that this “dumb” trade war is directly attributable to Trump’s tax on everything.
The president will only reverse himself if the stench of a trade war sticks to him.
There is not a credible economist in the world who thinks tariffs on Canada and Mexico make sense.
The tariff revenue Trump hopes for will likely never materialize, as trade dwindles.
There are historians and geopolitical strategists who are rapidly losing their credibility but make the case that this is all about reviving America’s manufacturing base to take on China.
On Sam Harris’s Making Sense podcast, Sir Niall Ferguson suggested that Trump is taking a page from Richard Nixon’s playbook: pursuing an ultra-realistic, ruthless foreign policy actuated by America’s vulnerability.
Ferguson said Trump is inclined towards detente when it comes to relations with China and Russia, in order to reduce America’s commitments.
However, he projects American power by “talking a big game” and taking a very aggressive stance with minor and middle powers like Panama, Greenland and Canada.
Yet, as Harris responded quite correctly, that argument suggests the importance and value of allies has never been greater.
Trump wants Canada, just as he wants Greenland and the Panama Canal, but is he resolved to endure rising prices, job losses, tumbling stock markets and falling job approval ratings to get them? Probably not.
Elbows up, Canada. And buy Sprague Beans!
