Canada stands up to Trump's attacks

WashingtonCanada has embarked on a war of attrition with Donald Trump to set the limits of his power. When last weekend the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, left the negotiating table assuring that he was not willing "to compromise the country's sovereignty," it was already evident that the dimension of the conflict was not merely economic. After a tariff spiral in which Carney has responded with a 50% tariff to the 50% that Trump had applied on Saturday to Canadian products, the American president has gone a step further and has threatened to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America. After a tariff spiral in which Carney has responded with a 50% tariff to the 50% that Trump had applied on Saturday to Canadian products, the American president has gone a step further and has threatened to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America.

Lake Ontario is the smallest of the five Great Lakes and borders the Canadian province of the same name and the state of New York. The name change is very reminiscent of the magnate's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as "America's Gulf," and it evidences the imperialist aspirations of his second term.

The verbal attack on the lake, however, is not the only point that goes beyond the commercial relationship between the two neighbors. The French language has also become another front of symbolic dispute within a conflict that Carney has pointed to as part of a broader agenda to turn Canada into the 51st state, an idea that Trump has expressed on repeated occasions.

"The North American demands are not consistent with the relationship between two independent states, but rather pursue one of Donald Trump's declared objectives: to turn Canada into the 51st state," denounced the Canadian Prime Minister when he addressed the nation on Saturday. Carney then criticized that, at the last minute, the American negotiators had added a series of conditions that directly interfered with Canadian sovereignty.

Washington sought to restrict Canada's right to sign trade agreements with other countries, a key element of Carney's strategy to reduce dependence on its increasingly unreliable southern neighbor. In addition, Carney also assured that the White House had tried to interfere with the use of the French language, which is the country's second official language and is spoken by one-fifth of the population, mainly in the province of Quebec.

Although Trump has denied that demands related to French have been made, the United States has always viewed Canada's second language as a trade barrier. As it has the same status as English, products sold in Canada must be labeled in both languages. Since the outbreak of the dispute, Carney has reinforced the use of French in his speeches and messages, both internally and to the United States.

The vast majority of goods exported by Ottawa go to the North American market, 72% last year, which Trump has interpreted as exclusive dependence. The reality, however, is that the vulnerability is mutual: the 50% levy imposed by the tycoon on Canadian products will directly affect the pockets of his voters, who are increasingly suffocated by the cost of living. Citizens who have been expressing their discontent and disappointment for months with an administration that has not fulfilled its electoral promise to lower the price of groceries.

Worn-out strategy

Canada is aware of this, and that is why it has decided to enter into an open conflict with Trump, with a strategy not far removed from that applied by the ayatollahs: it is not about winning, but about seeing who can withstand the damage for longer. The Canadian announcement to respond with 50% tariffs was on Tuesday, just after Trump threatened with another 50% tariffs seeing that Carney was not yielding.

Ottawa has decided to stand up to the tycoon with a proportional response, tariffs of 50%, 25% and 15% that will affect some 700 products from September 8. The new levies on US goods are estimated at around 20 billion dollars annually, exactly the same value as those of the US on Canadian imports.

During the press conference to present the new tariffs, Canada's Minister of Industry, Mélanie Joly, said that they had selected some of the taxed items precisely to harm the states that had voted for Trump. The minister refused to specify which ones, but assured that the list included "household appliances and food products".

Carney seems willing to keep up the fight and see where Trump's trade war limits are. However, he has not yet brought out the heavy artillery. Many economists point out that the real capacity to harm Washington would be to impose tariffs on oil, natural gas, and electricity imported from the US. Polls suggest that this idea is gaining popularity among Canadians, while also escalating tensions with the neighboring country.