Trump Plays Cat to Canada's Mouse

Debra Saunders on Apr 2, 2025

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump likes to troll Canada. He has been threatening our neighbor to the north with additional tariffs, and he thinks it's funny to dangle his dream of turning our longtime trading partner into America's 51st state.

And yet Wednesday in the Rose Garden, when Trump declared a national emergency and announced a 10% baseline tax on imports from all countries, Canada was spared -- for now.

But not from another Trump rhetorical scolding.

"It's important to note that tariffs on Canadian goods are not entirely omitted, however, as the tariffs on autos and auto parts, steel and aluminum are still going forward," quoth Jamie Tronnes, executive director of the Center for North American Prosperity and Security. "These are still going to be a big hit to the Canadian economy and will see American importers paying huge tariffs that will be passed along to consumers, whether it's on a car or a steel-toed boot or a can of beer."

Welcome, or bienvenue, to Trump's on-again, off-again spat with a long-term ally. Like a cat with a mouse, Trump just can't stop needling O Canada, so he dismissed U.S.-Canadian trade relations as "not a pretty picture."

Before the April 2 "Liberation Day" event, Trump's barbs and threats raised hackles in Ottawa. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney proclaimed that the two nations' old-school relationship is "over."

A boost in tariffs threatened to flip how Canadians see the United States, conservative commentator Sean Speer told me, from valued neighbor next door to "unreliable partner."

"We have a trade deal," Speer, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, noted Tuesday. In his first term, Trump negotiated the USMCA, or United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Trump himself described as "a wonderful new trade deal."

Now it's chopped liver.

Speer, a Canadian who lives in New York, considers himself a "huge" fan of America and Americans and said he is proud of the two countries' "most successful bilateral relationship."

Speer feared that Trump's "completely insensitive" rhetoric would turn Canada more "statist" and more resistant to Washington.

An emerging "Buy Canadian" movement has sprouted.

Ironically, Carney and his Liberal Party could be beneficiaries as Trump alienates Canadian conservatives. Monday, the CTV/Globe and Mail/Nanos tracking poll found Liberals leading Conservatives 44% to 36% in Ontario, "once a stronghold that bolstered Conservative hopes of victory."

Christopher J. Coates of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute cautioned in an email exchange that, on the one hand, Trump's reasons for tariffs "seem to change and on the other hand the reasons don't add up -- whether that is related to the 'threat' posed by the Canadian border or to the balance of trade (overall in the U.S. favor, if U.S. oil imports are removed)."

The Rose Garden speech pretty much confirmed that Trump again was using the threat of big tariffs as a negotiating tactic. Israel announced Tuesday it was lifting all tariffs on U.S. goods.

But really, there is a limit to how many times this gambit works.

There's a larger question. Speer asked, rhetorically, what happened to American exceptionalism. The answer seems to be, he added, "America doesn't want to be exceptional anymore."

You can appreciate that Trump is cleaving to his campaign promises and his goal of increasing domestic manufacturing jobs -- and still wonder if his bull-in-the-china-shop approach will help or hurt the U.S. economy.

I'm hoping Trump's focus on growing the manufacturing sector proves to be a bonanza for the non-college educated workforce. But I share Speer's concern about America's standing in the world.

For my whole life, the world has benefited from U.S. leadership. Because we were the world's guiding light, we could afford to be generous and forgo the trade reciprocity Trump demands. In 2024, Americans voted for tit-for-tat trade.

As I write this, the economic consequences of Trump tariffs are a great unknown. But the reaction of our allies seems more predictable.

As Speer observed, Canadian politicians who support the United States are on notice: "Anything that looks like capitulation will be criticized."

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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