Elbows Up: Canada’s Response to Trump’s Trade War
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How is Canada responding to Trump's trade war?
This is Daily producer Michael Simon-Johnson. I am in downtown Toronto because things are getting real here in Canada.
Okay, Anna Holy here, producer on The Daily. I have just touched down in Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada.
It feels like the vibe is changing and I am here to do a vibe check.
How would you describe how you're feeling about what's going on between the U.S. and Canada right now? Canadians have always been known as nice people. We turn the other cheek.
We've been kind of backed into a corner now by your president. America, Donald Trump. How can American people back this man?
I don't buy any more USA products, just buy Canadian goods. I will not buy anything from America. In fact, I've told anybody and everybody I possibly can, don't ever go down to America.
I served in our Canadian Navy, and nothing ever takes me more than when somebody looks down their nose at us.
I'm very, very proud to be Canadian. We were born Canadian, and we will die Canadian. Who do you blame for all of this? Who do we blame? The American citizens.
I don't think we'll ever be the same as friends, neighbors. They want everything from us, y'all. Without us, they can't survive regardless, eh?
From The New York Times, I'm Kim Severson, and this is The Daily. A gloves-off trade war with America is uniting Canadians from all corners of the country against its southern neighbor. Today, my colleague Matina Stevis-Gridneff on what that trade war means for the future of the relationship and how this fight is shifting the country's politics, its culture, and its place on the global stage. It's Thursday, March 13th. Matina, you've been traveling across Canada reporting on what's turned out to be a very big news week. Thank you for taking the time to come on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Kim. So coming into his presidency, I think there was an expectation that Trump might make waves on matters of international diplomacy.
But I don't think many of us had make Canadians really, really angry on their bingo card.
Oh, totally. I mean, I took up my posting as Canada Bureau Chief in August, and I thought this was going to be a good posting for my work-life balance. Little did I know. I mean, it's been a really extraordinary stretch since the election, for sure.
So let's rewind a little and just remind me of how we got here. We're in a place where Canadians who, to many Americans, seem very, very nice, have turned downright hostile and find themselves in such a political vice.
Sure. I mean, I think the first signs that something was going to go wrong emerged in early December when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago to sit down for dinner with President-elect at the time, Trump. And the dinner, you know, was feeded as a success for Trudeau to be able to get FaceTime with Trump. And it seemed cordial enough. There were like photos of everyone smiling and jokes. And tonight we're getting some new details about that Trump-Trudeau dinner from two people who were at the table.
What is the public sentiment in Canada regarding the trade dispute?
But it does sound like that's when Trump sort of started raising complaints about the U.S. relationship with Canada.
Fox News is reporting that Trudeau warned Trump that his tariff proposal would kill the Canadian economy, to which Trump replied that Canada could then become the 51st state and that Trudeau could be governor.
And made the supposed joke of Canada becoming the 51st state of the United States.
That meeting did not appear to go well.
The Canadian delegation brushed that off at the time, but it would come back to haunt them.
Right. I think a lot of us did. And no one knew if it was one of the many things that he says that you don't know whether to take seriously or not. For sure.
And I think that at first that was generally seen as like a troll. A lot of people thought it was quite personal to Trudeau because we knew Trump doesn't like Trudeau much from his first presidency. But I think that we started realizing it is probably something more ominous when Trump gave a press conference on January 7th.
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