How to lose Trump’s trade war: test Canada’s resolve with threats to hockey sticks

Donald Trump in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on 21 August and Mark Carney in Quebec, Canada, on 24 August. Photograph: Saul Loeb,andrej Ivanov/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenDonald Trump in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on 21 August and Mark Carney in Quebec, Canada, on 24 August. Photograph: Saul Loeb,andrej Ivanov/AFP/Getty ImagesAnalysisHow to lose Trump’s trade war: test Canada’s resolve with threats to hockey sticksAdam GabbattThe US president expected Ottawa to bow to tariff demands, but Canada is striking back – and it could cost Americans

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Earlier this year, a survey found that Canada, along with Switzerland, was the best-liked country in the world. We all know this kind of polling is about as scientific as a high school popularity contest, but at least anecdotally, Canadians have a reputation for being friendly and welcoming, respectful and polite. Many people would find it difficult to dislike Canadians.

But not Donald Trump, who in a “hold my beer” moment this week demonstrated that he, at least, finds it easy to resent Canadians. The US president called the country “difficult and unreasonable”, and in a particularly hysterical moment, threatened to rename a lake, after trade talks collapsed.

Days earlier, Trump had claimed a deal with Canada was imminent, which would avoid the new taxes.

Read moreBut, in a development that surely galled the Art of the Deal author, there was no agreement.

Instead, Trump and his team demonstrated the art of collapsing the deal, as trade talks fell apart due to what Canada said were unreasonable, last-minute demands from the US side.

It meant that the US tariffs duly came in on Saturday, applied to various Canadian exports including hockey sticks and tongue depressors, but if Trump expected Canada to bow to his demands – the president was seeking more favorable terms on things like steel and aluminum – he was disappointed.

Instead, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister who has emerged as a rare world leader willing to stand up to Trump, said Canada had been “attacked”, and announced retaliatory tariffs on about $20bn worth of US goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.

All this means US consumers are seeing surging prices on all kinds of products – including toilet paper. My colleague Lauren Aratani reports that “the US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s population”. And this outsize usage has grown more expensive. “Though American toilet paper and tissues are often made domestically, they heavily rely on lumber-rich Canada for raw materials,” she writes.

It’s fair to say that Canada’s retaliation upset Trump, who famously loves to win. On Tuesday, he claimed the US “is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer” – we’ll see how that goes – and has dubbed Canadian negotiators “clowns”.

Earlier this week, Trump compared Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, unfavorably to his deceased brother Rob, the scandal-plagued former mayor of Toronto, whose time in office saw him admit to smoking crack cocaine and being “hammered” in public.

And while Trump was flailing about, JD Vance was doing his best Scrappy-Doo, “lemme at ’em” impression, lobbing insults at Canada from the safety of a Republican rally in Maine. Vance claimed that Canada and China are “the two worst countries when it comes to trade policy anywhere in the world”.

He added: “We have to remember, Canada is a state. Sorry. Freudian slip. That was actually an accident.” The satisfied look on his face didn’t make it seem like one.

Vance went on to add that Canada “quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the United States of America”. It was an interesting take, given the only country that has mused about invading Canada is the US – as recently as last year Trump was threatening to annex the nation.