Lorne Gunter: Trump's hatred for Canada has permanently damaged world's best trade relationship

Once again this week, U.S. President Donald Trump demonstrated his hatred for Canada. His antics and statements are not merely a negotiating strategy, not merely a tactic to scare us into giving the United States a better trade deal.

Trump seems genuinely to detest Canada for some reason.

Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers released a new 30-second ad this week stating that "Canada is not our enemy." Rogers promised that if he is elected in November that ending Trump's tariffs on this country will be "job No. 1."

The tariffs, Rogers acknowledged, had cost thousands of Michiganders their jobs as Canadian auto parts had been made too expensive for Detroit automakers to keep importing them. However, no U.S.-based alternatives have been found and new American factories cannot be built fast enough to take up the slack. That has left assembly lines south of the border to reduce shifts and lay off workers.

However, when Trump (who had endorsed Rogers) was asked about the candidate's ad, his bile for Canada spewed to the surface, again.

"We don't want (Canada) to make cars for us … It's a long story, but they've been ripping us off. Canada has been ripping us off for many, many years and they're not going to rip us off anymore."

But if anyone is ripping off the American people, it is Trump himself.

According to a new study by the Advancing American Freedom (AAF) think-tank, the tariffs imposed by Trump since April of last year have resulted in US$50 billion in lost trade with Canada. That amount has not been replaced by a return of American manufacturing.

That was Trump's theory when he described "tariff" as "the most beautiful word in the dictionary," He would impose stiff tariffs on the rest of the world which would reinvigorate American manufacturing and make the U.S. wealthier.

In fact, the reverse has been true. According to the AAF study, the $50 billion lost in trade with Canada as not been made up by renewed manufacturing in the U.S. Indeed, the AAF says Trump's tariff war with his northern neighbour has led to zero new manufacturing in the U.S.

Rather than replacing Canadian goods with made-in-the-USA alternatives, American companies have merely increased their imports from Mexico, Tiawan, Vietnam and, yes, even China.

American manufacturing is still being "offshored," it's just being offshored to places other than Canada.

Republican candidate Rogers' ad is a direct response to this failure of Trump's tariff strategy. If anything, Trump's trade war has blown up in his face. American automakers and U.S. autoworkers' unions have called for a repeal of the tariffs because there are no good, cheap American alternatives to Canadian auto parts and assembly lines. That means that far from increasing U.S. manufacturing jobs, production in American factories as been slowed by Trump's moronic trade policy.

It may be little comfort to Canadian workers laid off as a result of slower exports to the U.S. caused by high tariff barriers, but at least the pain inflicted on American workers and consumers has been greater as a result of Trump's actions.

And Americans know it. One of the biggest reasons the Republicans could be trounced in next month's midterm elections is the consumer inflation brought on by Trump's tariffs. It is hurting ordinary Americans.

The American Tax Foundation, for instance, estimates that the White House's tariffs on Canadian goods alone cost the average American family US$1,000 last year and could cost them US$1,300 in 2026.

The long-term problem for Canada is that the U.S. now imports exports roughly $65 billion more in goods to and from other countries than it did when Trump began his trade war on this country. Indeed, in 2025 Mexico replaced Canada as the top destination for American exports.

And that trade will not return quickly or easily once Trump is stopped by a Democratic Congress or once he is out of office.

Trump's tariffs have done permanent damage to the best trading relationship in the world.

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