AUGUST 24, 2026
The Gloves are Off
“Our goal has always been to get the best deal for Canadians, never a deal at any price or on any time frame,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told the nation Saturday, conceding that talks to head off 50 per cent U.S. tariffs on plastic products, electrical machinery, furniture and wood products had collapsed. In the end, U.S. President Donald Trump was always going to find a justification to punish Canada economically, cycling through an ever-changing list of grievances – fentanyl, border security, smoke from wildfires, the Gordie Howe Bridge, French-language product labels, alcohol – that no amount of kowtowing or concessions was ever going to overcome. Trump’s latest salvo announced today – a 50 percent tariff increase on Canadian car exports starting Jan. 1. – leaves the prime minister with few options but to fire back with our own retaliatory measures and seek out new economic partnerships, specifically with the European Union. Despite warnings by economists that the latest U.S. tariffs could shave 0.4 percent off our GDP, potentially tipping us into recession, Carney’s message on Saturday was that we can survive this war: “We’ve got the reserves. We’ve got resilience. We’ve got the plan. We’ve got the focus.” It’s a fight Canada never wanted — but, unfortunately, one we can no longer avoid.
