Summary
Donald Trump launched a trade war against Canada by imposing a 25% tariff on nearly all Canadian goods, including a 10% levy on energy products.
His action, intended to pressure Canada to curb fentanyl flows, contradicts official trade figures and ignores that most deficits result from American demand for cheaper Canadian oil.
The tariffs, set to remain until Canada complies, could cost billions to Canada’s economy and disrupt $800 billion in annual trade.
Canada is expected to retaliate, forcing Prime Minister Trudeau to respond amid escalating cross-border tensions.
Canada (as a federal unit) has pretty desperately been trying to allow itself to trade oil on the global stage, but the infrastructure to allow that just isn’t there. To get meaningful quantities to Canadian ports required pipelines through to the west coast, and that was politically unpalatable to the people living there.
Really sucks that Canada just plainly didn’t build the infrastructure to expand to global markets. Most intercontinental trade of Canadian petroleum is via Florida. It’d be great if Canada could flood the European and Asian markets to kneecap Russias war machine funding. But the infrastructure isn’t there.