Canada is adopting a hedgehog strategy, making itself “hard to eat,” in response to President Trump’s looming tariffs, in words of British Columbia Premier David Eby.
“We are relatively small compared with south of the border,” Eby said in an interview, discussing his country’s and province’s economy. BC has mapped out a response “as targeted as possible.”
Eby delivered a civil, factual response to lies that Trump has been spouting to justify his 25 percent tariff — now delayed by a month — on imports from his nation’s greatest trading partner.
In a recent social media diatribe, Trump declared: “We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited energy. And have more lumber than we can ever use.” Eby ticked off how BC and Canada are linked economically. The province supplies oil to Washington refineries as well as oil and gas up and down the West Coast. British Columbia has critical minerals, needed south of the border with supplies from China cut off. As for lumber, said Eby, “We are rebuilding Los Angeles.” The recent fires destroyed more than 15,000 structures in the Southland.
Eby’s left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) prevailed in a tightly contested provincial election just three weeks before the U.S. Presidential election. “We won the election by three times the margin of Mr. Trump,” Eby noted.
The province’s hedgehog strategy is selective, and aimed at red states that voted for Trump. Ontario is banning all alcohol imports from the US, which total nearly $900 million a year. In BC, it will be impossible to get a litre of Jack Daniels, but the ban is not blanket.
The province, and Canada’s national government, are urging Canadians to vacation at home this year. They are also being urged, in Eby’s words, “where possible to use Canadian products.”
Eby conferred with Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on Thursday morning. Ferguson is a longtime Trump foe who repeatedly sued the first Trump administration — and won.
The premier talked about how much he has enjoyed trips south of the border. The governor spoke of enjoying trips to the Great White North. “We have committed to finding ways to work together,” said Eby.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, reacting to Trump’s threats to deploy “economic force,” said recently: “It is not a fight we signed up for. But I assure every American, especially the president, that Canada will fight.”
Eby is baffled at the rumblings of Manifest Destiny coming from south of the 49th Parallel. “Nobody wants it, nobody asked for it, it is unprecedented,” he said of Trump’s imperial ambitions. Many Americans are wondering as well. Exports support one out of every four jobs in Washington, from piano stools to Boeing jets to cherries and apples.
“Why are we arguing with our closest neighbors over our biggest export market for apples?” Sen. Maria Cantwell asked at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on confirmation of Trump’s nominee, Jamison Greer, as U.S. Trade Representative.
Warning of retaliation by Canada and Mexico if Trump imposes a 25 percent tariff, Cantwell cited the “unbelievable retaliatory tariff” that India imposed on Washington apples after the first Trump administration imposed duties on imports from South Asia. More than 68,000 people work in this state’s apple industry.
The hedgehog is not without sharp hairs with which to fend off the orange-haired gorilla next door. The United States in 2023 exported $356.4 billion in goods and services to Canada, 17.3 percent of total U.S. exports.
Trudeau has fashioned a two-pronged approach to the tariff threat. He has vowed to retaliate. But he has also promised to tighten border enforcement and set up a fentanyl task force. He conferred twice in a day with Trump last week.
There are already signs that tariffs as a bullying tactic won’t work. Eby points at one response to Trump bluster about making Canada “our 51st state”: brisk sales of T-shirts bearing the moniker “Canada is not for sale.” Beyond that, Trump has solidified Canadians in opposition to what Eby called “the massive threat to our country.”
British Columbia mirrors the U.S. electorate in some ways. There is a sharp divide between urban and rural voters, and chronic showdowns between big resource industries and still-powerful labor unions.
Not over trade policy. The pro-labor Eby government has recruited nabobs from the greater Vancouver Board of Trade and the Teck mining conglomerate to a tariff response task force. “We have business, labor and Aboriginal First Nations all around the table,” declared the premier.
When talking of retaliatory response, Eby sprinkles his conversation with such phrases as “trouble understanding” and “that it is hard to say” given how “incredibly close” are the U.S. and Canada.
The bull-headed, vengeance-driven Trump Administration ought to heed this opinion from Sen. Cantwell: “Free-trade agreements are a way for us — not tariffs — to gain the leverage we want.”
This article also appears in Cascadia Advocate.
When Iranian revolutionaries started seizing Americans as hostages in 1979, Canadian Ambassador Keneth Taylor issued Canadian passports to several U.S. citizens which allowed them to escape the country. I remember posting signs in Bellingham that said “Thank you Canada”. This is how we treat our nation’s best friend now. Of course, Trump has no clue about history and no loyalty to anyone other than himself. It is hard to fathom how far our country has fallen from its noble aspirations and ideals.
Thanks, Joel, for filling in some important blanks that help us understand this current and evolving North American power struggle and its impacts. So much has been gained since the War of 1812 through cooperation between U.S.-British Empire political continental entities.Today, in the far Pacific Northwest, our nations share the responsibility to care for the Salish Sea, the mineral resource temptations of the far north and our forest environments. The long-ago “Pig War” of the San Juan/Gulf Islands’ history may draw 21st Century smiles. But its peaceful result is that today we share the gifts of that ultimate resolution.