The only certainty in the months to come is that the past year of erratic threats and vandalism from the Trump administration will continue, writes Tony Keller.Evan Vucci/The Associated Press
On Wednesday in Washington, D.C., U.S. Vice-President JD Vance addressed a conference called by the United States to encourage the world to co-operate with it in breaking China’s dominance in critical minerals.
Mr. Vance – the No. 2 in an administration that has spent the last year slapping allies with tariffs, insults and demands for territory – told a room of officials from 54 countries that he hoped they could come together “to form a trading bloc among allies and partners,” because “our alliances and our friendships can really help one another.”
He continued in this vein for some time, closing with “let me just reiterate: We here, I think all of us, are friends.”
The audience of diplomats must have struggled to not burst out in laughter.
On Thursday, also in Washington, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked whether the Trump administration wants free trade with allies and friends.
“If Canada, for example, came to the United States and said, ‘We’re going to zero tariffs on the United States,” asked Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. “Would [the U.S.] go to zero tariffs?”
“Absolutely not,” replied Mr. Bessent.
Opinion: In Carney’s world, Canada is more powerful than Trump thinks
There are Canadians who still believe that everything the Trump administration has said, threatened or done against us is, at root, our fault. If you’re reading me online, you can meet this opinion in the comments section. I see it in my mail and on social media. It is minority opinion, though depressingly widespread among Conservative voters.
Before the second Trump administration, nearly everything moving across the world’s longest border did so tariff-free. Yes, Canada had negotiated barriers in some relatively small sectors such as dairy products, while the Americans bent the rules to levy tariffs in discrete sectors including softwood lumber. But for more than 35 years, Canada-U.S. trade was almost entirely free.
Who changed that? Not Canada. Who is threatening to further undermine it? Not Canada. Who keeps saying that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement could be done away with, and perhaps replaced with nothing? Not us.
The Trump administration convening a conference to try to foster an industrial alliance against China is particularly ironic – given that the Trump administration has spent the last year aggressively degrading and dismantling all such alliances.
Why did China slap tariffs on Canadian canola? Because Canada, following the lead of our U.S. ally, put 100-per-cent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. The Biden administration understood that the North American auto industry was under threat from Chinese industrial strategy, and responded with a North American industrial strategy – a strategy of partnering with allies like Canada.
The Trump administration ripped that up. They’ve bullied automakers to shift production to the U.S. from Canada, and there have been repeated public statements from President Donald Trump and his minions that the integrated North American auto industry should be an America-only industry.
Canada’s industrial base, once a partner, is now prey. And not only in autos.
Andrew Coyne: Separatism isn’t treason. Helping Trump take over Canada? That’s another matter
Mr. Vance may have mouthed aspirational words about “a trading bloc among allies and partners,” but the Trump administration has spent the last year aggressively pursuing the opposite.
In 12 reckless months, it has torpedoed free trade; forced erstwhile partners against China to cut (solo) deals with China, as Canada had to do to lower canola tariffs; threatened to occupy NATO allies; and erected trade barriers aimed at ensuring the U.S. buy less from Canada.
What remains of our free trade with the U.S. is a tattered USMCA, shot through with holes and cracks down to the foundation.
The only certainty in the months to come is that the past year of erratic threats and vandalism will continue.
The same day as a Janus-tongued Mr. Vance spoke in Washington, former prime minister Stephen Harper gave a speech in Ottawa. It was the 20th anniversary of the formation of his Conservative government. His audience were mostly Conservatives.
He told them to get over their illusions about the situation next door.
Mr. Harper has described himself as the most pro-American prime minister in Canadian history. But on Wednesday, he said that the main challenge facing our country is “a hostile United States.”
Or to quote him in full: “A hostile United States that has openly questioned Canadian sovereignty, that has openly broken the trade commitments that we have made to each other and that regularly issues further threats against us.”
He continued, “There are many, particularly in the business community who believe that things will go back to the way they were in due course, with secure and predictable access to the U.S. market and a United States that upholds a global order.
“I do not believe that is a safe assumption.”
I wish Mr. Harper was wrong. He isn’t.