This Is Not Just About Tariffs

This is not just about tariffs.

Yesterday, trade negotiations between Canada and the United States collapsed after the American administration introduced new demands at the last hour. The United States has now imposed 50 per cent tariffs on approximately $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, and Canada has said that it will retaliate dollar for dollar.

It is going to hurt. Canadian workers, businesses and families will feel it. Retaliation will carry costs of its own. Mark Carney knows that.

But giving in would not save us from the difficult road ahead. It would only postpone the next threat.

We already had a trade agreement with the United States. It was not an agreement Donald Trump inherited from another administration. It was the agreement he negotiated with Justin Trudeau and Mexico, signed in 2018 and celebrated as one of his great achievements.

Now his administration is imposing tariffs on Canadian goods regardless of whether they qualify for protection under that agreement.

So what would another agreement with Donald Trump be worth?

Britain reached a tariff agreement with the United States too. Now it is being threatened with tariffs of up to 100 per cent unless it makes further concessions.

This is the pattern. The agreement is never the end of the negotiation. It simply becomes the starting point for the next demand.

You do not compromise with a bully and expect the bullying to stop. You teach the bully that the threat worked.

That does not mean countries should never negotiate or compromise. Diplomacy depends upon both. But there is a profound difference between negotiating with a partner acting in good faith and negotiating with a government that treats agreements as temporary, borders as negotiable and economic dependence as a weapon.

Trump has repeatedly spoken about making Canada the 51st state. When he was asked whether he would use force to accomplish that, he specifically said he would use economic force.

We should take him at his word.

He has repeatedly insisted that the United States should control or own Greenland, even though Greenlanders have said that their country is not for sale. Just recently, a Trump-connected American oil company brought drilling equipment ashore in Greenland without authorization from Greenlandic authorities.

In January, American forces entered Venezuela, captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and transported them to the United States. We do not have to defend Maduro or pretend that he led a democratic and admirable government to understand the precedent this created. A powerful country entered another sovereign country and forcibly removed its leader. Trump then spoke openly about American companies accessing Venezuela’s oil.

The United States has also cut off Venezuelan fuel shipments to Cuba, pressured Mexico to stop supplying Cuba and threatened countries that continue to sell it oil. Cuba’s electrical infrastructure was already fragile, but depriving the island of fuel has helped plunge millions of people into darkness. The United States may not be physically flipping the electrical switch, but it is knowingly creating the conditions in which the lights go out.

Now Trump claims that the United States has “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas once travelled.

These events are not identical. The countries and governments involved are very different. But pull the lens back and a larger pattern becomes visible.

Powerful states are testing how much they can take and how little the world will do in response.

Russia invaded Ukraine and has sent drones into Polish airspace, testing the boundaries of NATO. China continues to extend its power over Taiwan and the surrounding seas. The United States is increasingly behaving as though the Western Hemisphere is its natural sphere of control.

It is the geopolitical equivalent of powerful animals marking their territory.

Russia, China and the United States are acting more and more as though the world can be divided into spheres of influence, with each great power entitled to dominate the smaller countries within its reach.

When one powerful country disregards another nation’s sovereignty, it makes it easier for the others to do the same. Russia can point to Venezuela. China can point to Greenland. Each violation becomes someone else’s justification for the next one.

And above all of this lies the Arctic.

As the climate warms and the ice retreats, new shipping routes are opening. Critical minerals, energy deposits and other resources are becoming more accessible. Russia, China and the United States understand exactly what is at stake.

Canada must understand it too.

Trump may have little interest in addressing climate change, but he is perfectly willing to exploit everything climate change exposes.

The Canadian Arctic is not an empty frontier waiting for the strongest country to claim it. People and communities live there, and Inuit and other northern peoples must be central to every decision about its future.

But it is also our North.

It is Canadian territory. Its waters, resources, shipping routes and strategic position are inseparable from our sovereignty. No other country has the right to pressure Canada into surrendering control of it. Decisions about its development, protection and future belong to Canadians.

Our resources are not bargaining chips to be claimed by whichever larger power applies the most pressure.

I do not agree with every decision Mark Carney makes. I do not support every project his government proposes, and I do not believe that any prime minister should be above scrutiny. Supporting Canada’s position now does not require unquestioning loyalty to Carney, the Liberal Party or anyone else.

But I can recognize that he understands the larger danger.

At Davos, Carney warned that the old international order was breaking down. He argued that countries such as Canada must work together if we do not want larger powers determining our futures for us.

Since then, his government has been building relationships around the world, diversifying trade, pursuing international investment and strengthening Canada’s presence in the Arctic. Our economy has remained remarkably resilient under enormous pressure. In September, Canada will welcome major investors and business leaders from around the world for the first Canada Investment Summit.

At this moment, I believe Carney is offering the strongest leadership available to us.

That does not mean I will agree with him tomorrow about Alto, pipelines, spending or every other issue facing this country. It means recognizing that this particular threat is bigger than one government, one party or one election.

I do not particularly like Doug Ford either, but this is a moment when premiers and the federal government need to stand together. Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc supporters, Greens and Canadians who feel represented by none of them will continue to disagree about the country we want to build.

Those debates matter. But first, we must remain free to make those choices ourselves.

We can scrutinize our government without undermining our country. We can disagree about domestic policy while standing together against economic coercion. Unity does not mean conformity. It means recognizing when the stakes have become larger than party affiliation.

Canada is not a marionette. We cannot allow another country to pull the strings while we perform each new movement demanded of us.

This is going to be a rough ride. But it would be a rough ride no matter what we surrendered, because every concession made under threat would simply become the starting point for the next demand.

We do not have to agree on everything to stand together as Canadians.

But we do have to stand.