Listening to most of the media and Canada’s prime minister, you’d think the U.S.and its northern neighbor were in a full-blown trade war after new tariffs were announced days ago.
Au contraire: Anyone who checks the numbers can see this is merely a skirmish.On Aug.22, the administration's Section 338 tariffs took effect, at 50% on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods, or about 5% of what Canada sells the U.S.
Ottawa's answer, effective Sept.8, will be varying tariffs on roughly $20 billion of American exports to Canada, about 6% of what Canada buys from the U.S.While tariffs on $40 billion aren’t chump change, they’re a small portion of the roughly $900 billion in products and services that are exchanged across the U.S.-Canadian border annually.
Roughly 95% of transactions are proceeding exactly as they did in July.A POPULAR COCKTAIL HAS A TRUMP TRADE PROBLEM YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW ABOUTPeople should be much more focused on January, because that’s when 50% tariffs hit many more Canadian exports, including cars, trucks and auto parts.Throw in potential Canadian retaliation, and we’re looking at higher tariffs on well over $100 billion of trade between the two countries.A drone view shows a transport truck entering the United States from Canada, at a Canada-U.S.
border crossing in Blaine, Wash., April 2, 2025.(REUTERS/David Ryder)When the artillery joins in like that, we go from a skirmish to a war.
However, that doesn’t mean we can brush off these recent developments as insignificant.The current skirmish feels eerily similar to Union and Confederate reconnaissance units encountering each other outside Gettysburg.‘CAPTAIN CANADA’ FIREBRAND UNLOADS ON TRUMP WITH PROFANE ONE-LINER AS TRADE WAR ESCALATESWhat makes this time different is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
Other tariffs had carveouts for USMCA-compliant products.This was extremely important because businesses invested billions of dollars over several years to c...