Trump’s ‘dollar-for-dollar’ war on Canada takes another extremely costly turn

‘It won’t be easy, and I won’t pretend otherwise,’ said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, ‘but none of the alternatives are any better, so we’re pressing ahead.’ Yesterday, Canadian tariffs came into force, affecting around 20 billion dollars’ worth of imports of American goods; this is Canada’s ‘dollar-for-dollar’ response to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, in a feud with its ally and neighbour that seems to be getting worse by the day. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been spending his days and nights in a social media frenzy—take away his artificial intelligence—anticipated the introduction of the Canadian tariffs with comments and little drawings.

First, a map of the North American continent in which everything – from Iceland to Greenland, Canada, Cuba and the French territories in the Caribbean Sea – is coloured in the colours of the American flag; This is followed by an AI-generated cartoon set on a hockey rink, in which Trump, wearing the ‘Team Trump’ jersey, beats up the Canadian Prime Minister – referred to as the ‘governor’, since in Trump’s vision Canada will become a US state. The brutality of the cartoon video is both grotesque and deeply sombre: Trump vents his virulence against a democratic ally of America and NATO, distorting the borders and sovereignty of allied democratic nations with his expansionist ambitions, whilst ignoring the enemies of the West, their joint military actions, and their active and deadly collaboration.

Trump is far more interested in the trade war than in Ukraine’s stability, and he is prepared – in this instance, at least – to use every weapon at his disposal, and even those he does not actually possess, because the tariff policy adopted by the Trump Administration – based on a mixture of misguided calculations and objectives – has been formally halted by the Supreme Court. If the U.S. President displayed the same brazen willingness to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine as he does to prevent Canada’s largest aircraft manufacturer, Bombardier, from operating in the United States, Russia would certainly not feel so free to strike Ukrainians on a daily basis, wherever they may be. However, he does not demonstrate that inclination, just as he lacks the capacity for long-term thinking: Bombardier, to take one example, manufactures many components in Texas and California and employs thousands of Americans in its factories. Targeting the Canadian company, telling Americans they must ‘buy American, fly American, drink American drinks and sail on Lake America’ – which is Lake Ontario – comes at a cost to Americans, who may well make Trump pay for it at the ballot box.