I will never understand why President Donald Trump, brought back to office partly in response to a sharp rise in prices during the Joe Biden interlude, would pursue the expensive tariff policy we’ve been subjected to since the beginning of 2025. And yet here we are, with another reason to be unhappy about inflation and the cost of living.
Almost four decades ago, the Mulroney government concluded the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement with the aim to gain access to the much larger U.S. market. The Chrétien government followed in 1994 with the North American Free Trade Agreement that included Mexico, creating one of the largest trading blocs in the world.
Despite trade frictions from time to time, all three countries benefited from higher economic growth and more jobs by removing many trade barriers, thus enabling import competition to improve productivity. Undoubtedly, NAFTA meant Canada would become even more dependent on the U.S. for trade than it was in the past.
Some Canadian politicians have been caught flat-footed in responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda.
For a year and a half, Canada’s political leaders have known that Trump’s protectionist trade agenda was on its way.
In 1928, Warner Bros released Lights of New York — the first full-length feature film with audible dialogue. That same year, another drama was unfolding. Republican Herbert Hoover won the presidential election by promising higher tariffs on goods imported into the United States.
Nearly a century later, protectionism seems to be back on the screen. The actors have changed, but the script has not. In fact, for Canadians, it’s just a rerun of a bad movie with a clear lesson: counter-tariffs don’t do squat!
The future of Ontario’s auto sector has become a major sticking point in trade negotiations with the U.S. For Ontario Premier Doug Ford, auto parts and manufacturing must be preserved at all costs.
It’s easy to see why Ford, elected on a promise of job protection, would champion the highly visible auto sector, but is this the right battle to fight?
You mean Carney lied!
“So when they say the Commerce Secretary Lutnick stepped in and everything got screwed up, that’s not true?”
Greer “That’s not true” @jamiesongreer https://t.co/eFD3HNdR6c
— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) September 3, 2026
So, the acrimonious end of trade negotiations was the electoral blessing for Mr. Carney that it was widely expected to be, right? Three by-election wins, each delivering more than 50% of the vote to the Liberals, including a surprise flip of a Conservative seat and the whole event giving the prime minister an absolute majority of one in the House of Commons.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has dismissed a series of recent comments by U.S. cabinet members that challenge the Liberal government’s explanation for walking away from trade talks last month.
“I don’t think, with all respect, appointed, unelected cabinet members in the United States are experts on Canadian politics,” he said in Thunder Bay, Ont., on Thursday.
Ever since he pulled Canada’s negotiating team back to Ottawa late on Friday, Aug. 21, Carney and Canada’s chief trade negotiator Janice Charette have maintained Canada left after the U.S. introduced last-minute changes the government deemed unfair and uneconomic.
I don’t believe a word that comes out of Carney’s mouth.
The Americans have been consistent and offered up specifics while Carney and his coconspirators just lie through their teeth knowing their media will never demand proof.
With the stroke of a sharpie last week, President Trump moved to re-designate Lake Ontario, the long-established name for the freshwater lake that lies between New York State and the Canadian province of Ontario, to “Lake America.”
The executive order came amid an escalating trade war with Canada after negotiations over tariffs fell apart, followed by new tariffs and tough talk between Washington and Ottawa.
OTTAWA — U.S. President Donald Trump warned Prime Minister Mark Carney Thursday that Canada’s economy would collapse and threatened him with political consequences “worse than anything that has ever happened to a Canadian politician.”
Stop making memes. Leave Mark Carney alone. pic.twitter.com/xBQbkSPXiH
— RPN Entertainment (@rpnenter) September 2, 2026
(Incognito)
There has been no greater gift to the Liberal Party’s powerful pro-Beijing comprador caste than U.S. President Donald Trump’s exasperating bellicosity and exhausting trade-relations vandalism. Even after nearly a decade of scandals involving China’s Uyghur slave camps, its “hostage diplomacy,” mass espionage, intellectual property theft, forced corporate co-ventures and clandestine election-interference operations, by this summer the Pew Research Centre found that Canadians had come to view China more favorably than the United States.
You could say the American president can be thanked for that.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick accused Canada’s Liberal government of deliberately derailing the trade agreement with the Trump administration for political gain.
“This is the Canadian Liberal Party using their economy to get themselves elected, even if they’re selling their own citizens down the river. It’s sad and disappointing,” Lutnick told Bloomberg, speaking of the failed negotiations.
Lutnick: "If you are gonna mess with the United States of America and its economy and you're right adjacent to our northern border, it was really disrespectful. When you treat Donald Trump disrespectfully, he knows it. And that's what happened. It's just sad the way Canada has… pic.twitter.com/7j7wnP5jFu
— Sigurdur Nordal (@essenviews) September 2, 2026
I believe Carney sabotaged the talks to hasten our demise. He's not on our team and he's not on Trumps but both are fighting for the spoils of Canada's remains. Unseen hands are at work. I will take Trump over Xi, Ursula and the WEF any day.
— Blazingcatfur (@fancypants_s) September 2, 2026
The reason it’s unrealistic for Canada to curtail or tax the flow of Canadian oil to the U.S. in retaliation for U.S. tariffs, is our lack of practical alternatives to sell it to any country other than the U.S.
This is one of the legacies of the previous Liberal government of Justin Trudeau and its failed climate change policies, which not only cost federal taxpayers more than $200-billion, but failed to achieve any of its promised greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
Some negotiations are easy; others are destined to fail given intractable issues, including the personalities of negotiators, their values, style, character, and other difficult issues. Was it ordained that a negotiation between Donald Trump and Mark Carney would be successful?
Trump lays it on
.@POTUS: "We're fighting for our country. Canada has taken advantage of us, they have ripped us off for years, and now we're turning the tables — very easily turning the tables." https://t.co/sxGnD4lfOy pic.twitter.com/nPY5NlrUYk
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 2, 2026
Republican members of Congress are publicly backing U.S. President Donald Trump in his trade war with Canada and blaming Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government for walking away from negotiations.
Dozens of GOP House members gathered on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a closed-door meeting with Trump’s point man on tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
While some Republicans are quietly concerned that an escalation of costly tariffs could worsen their re-election prospects in the midterms in November, those who spoke with CBC News after meeting Greer generally expressed support for the president’s trade strategy.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick continues to accuse Canada’s prime minister of “trying to blow up” a deal with the United States to gain “political leverage.”
“This is about the Liberal Party and Mark Carney trying to use a kerfluffle with the United States to gain political leverage,” he said during a television interview with U.S. network CNBC on Wednesday.
“They’ve got an independent party, the sovereign party vote in Quebec on October 5. They’ve got an independence vote that starts the process (in) Alberta, who always feels ripped off by Ottawa and the left of Canada,” Lutnick said.
Did the US – Canada negotiations collapse on…PURPOSE❓️❓️
US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick:
"What are you doing? Are you actually trying to blow this up?
Canadian Minister:
"I'm not allowed to say that." pic.twitter.com/Uad8DjPVX2
— Kirk Lubimov (@KirkLubimov) September 2, 2026
