Blazingcatfur

TORONTO—Prime Minister Mark Carney swept to power promising an “elbows out” stance against President Trump’s tariff threats and rhetoric, vowing he would never accept a bad trade deal.

Sixteen months later, Carney says he has avoided making a bad deal but critics say it has come at a cost: A series of trade concessions to the U.S. that are beginning to add up.

Carney has scrapped a digital-services tax affecting U.S. tech companies, rolled back retaliatory levies and halted streaming regulations opposed by American companies.

Carney was “swept” to a minority government, the WSJ is not a Trump fan.

The Trump administration’s announcement of a new round of tariffs on Canadian goods may be less of a reprisal over trade barriers and more about gaining leverage in CUSMA negotiations, trade watchers suggest.

Whether the measures are legal are not is open to debate, but that may not matter because for now they put Canada in a difficult position of whether to strike back and risk even further heightening the trade war or to try playing along with President Donald Trump’s game.

Canada’s dairy industry policy is among the most politically sacrosanct in the country. It has also long been a thorn in the side of Donald Trump.

Now, Canada’s dairy supply management system is back in the spotlight after the US president singled it out as one of three main irritants used to justify a 50% tariff on $20bn worth of Canadian goods imported to the US, which is set to come into effect in August.

Trump argues the system, which sees production quotas, set pricing, and import quotas on dairy, eggs, and poultry, is “unreasonable” to American farmers who want to sell their product north of the border.