The country faces a punishing economic and political fight with no easy end

The sombre mien—that’s what stayed with me. On Saturday, Mark Carney looked less like a prime minister briefing media on trade negotiations than a wartime leader telling his country a feared turn had finally arrived and preparing them for a long ordeal. The intense, all-out effort to stop crushing new tariffs had failed, with Carney grimly explaining that the United States insists on “short-term transactions” rather than “long-term partnerships” and that its commitments could no longer be assumed to hold.

American demands reportedly went well beyond tariffs, market access, and sectoral protections. They targeted Canada’s freedom to set domestic cultural policy, interpret agreements it had already signed, and conduct trade relations with third countries. The loss of our sovereignty was too high a price for preserving economic integration. What prime minister would accept Canada becoming a vassal state on his watch? With the collapse of talks, and Carney describing the country as being “attacked,” it’s hard not to feel like we have crossed into a different moment—that we are living in a slightly darker reality.

Throughout the weekend, The Walrus spoke to economists, policy experts, and political observers about what exactly has changed and what this new period might demand of Canada.

  • CanadaPlus
    9·
    2 days ago

    Carlo Dade

    None of this is new. Yet Canada, writ large, walked into the stadium without studying the game film of the opponent. Had we done so, little of what just transpired would have come as the surprise it apparently is. We would have known that the Americans would slip in an amped-up no-trade-with-China poison pill. We would have been prepared for it to arrive at the last minute, and we’d be working on contingency plans. Businesses could have readied (stockpiling goods, for instance). The media would have known, and they’d be hyperventilating less. Instead of a shock, it would have been a known worst case. We wouldn’t feel singled out. Our reaction would be calmer—we got punched when we weren’t expecting it, and we’re upset.

    Either “writ large” is doing a lot of work there, or that’s just unfair. Anybody both not MAGA and following events was expecting this. Our negotiators definitely included.

    The bit later on about communicating with the public suggests he did mean everyone else. To that, a whole lot has been written and said already about why it everything had to be secretive. Trump didn’t make a deal, but he wouldn’t even have gotten close if we’d been calling him out the whole time, and then you’d have the Conservatives saying Carney didn’t even try.

    The nationalist, hit-back response—“we’re at war”—is based on emotion, not reason, and that plays into the Americans’ hand.

    The only examples I can’t think of, where a nation at war downplays it, is where the war is a war of aggression they started. Spreadsheets and pie charts just don’t stir up the same will to sacrifice and defend.

    At the other extreme, Vass Bednar is totally speaking our language:

    What’s been missing, so far, is a strategy for technology and digital goods.