The US and Its Trade Wars

President Trump presents himself as a supporter of tariffs as a way to “balance” international trade terms

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum may have shown how best to counter Donald Trump’s tariff threats — with a little flattery and performative diplomacy. But one could argue that Ontario Premier Douglas Ford has shown another way to charm Trump: returning his alpha-dog stare, making him consider the possibility of real political pain, and then extending an olive branch that allows him to diffuse the tension without having to admit weakness.

The finger-pointing by Andrew Egger, who covers the White House for the conservative online newspaper The Bulwark, described what was a bizarre day in more ways than one in the context of a trade war as rare as it is absurd.

President Trump, who presents himself as a proponent of tariffs as a way to “balance” international trade terms he considers unfair to the United States, initiated the “hostilities” when he took office on Jan. 20, but apparently suddenly realized the responses would be painful.

When he took office, Trump announced he would impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, countries that are party to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which he himself demanded and signed in 2018. After postponing tariffs in February in the face of an angry response from a Canada that feels betrayed in more ways than one, he threatened to double the punitive tariffs on that country’s exports.

Ford, premier of the largest Canadian province of Ontario, led the Canadian response, which came in the midst of a political crisis, and immediately announced that his government would no longer buy American liquor (In Canada, provincial governments are in charge importing and distributing alcoholic beverages.) Ford then announced a 25% surcharge on the electricity it exports to more than a million consumers in the northeastern states of the U.S., including New York and Maine.

U.S. concern was immediate. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik contacted Ford, and the threatened electricity surcharge was removed along with an additional 25% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum exports, although it did not stop the original 25% tariffs from going into effect.

The Europeans, in turn, imposed tariffs on $28 billion worth of U.S. exports, which Trump reciprocated yesterday by imposing tariffs of up to 200% on certain European exports.

But most interesting is Trump’s lament. “And can you imagine Canada stooping so low as to use ELECTRICITY, that so affects the life of innocent people, as a bargaining chip and threat?”

It sounds like President Vladimir Putin’s denunciations of Ukrainian shelling of Russian territory: I can, you must not.