Canadians Are Extremely Confused Right Now

(Bloomberg Opinion) — I thought they might be angry.

Over the past quarter century, I’ve spent big chunks of time in Canada — Montreal and Toronto on occasion, but mostly Vancouver and the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Vancouver is beautiful, but Nova Scotia has a unique hold on me; for a few years my wife and I owned a 200-year-old cottage there. So I was curious how we would be greeted on a return trip this month after President Donald Trump’s twin assaults on Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

It turned out that everyone was nice. Also polite. No one seemed to hold us responsible for the actions of “the bad orange man,” as a waitress in Lunenburg called the US president.

“We’re angry, but we’re trying to temper our anger so that we’re not ruining these generational relationships we have with the American people,” David Mitchell, the mayor of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, told me in an interview. “We’re recognizing that this is one person who is fracturing a hundred years of solidarity.”

Bridgewater is home to a Michelin tire plant that is the largest private employer in Nova Scotia. “Our town is only 9,000 people,” Mitchell said. “This plant itself is 1,200 direct jobs. In the region it’s probably closer to 10,000 indirect jobs when you think of trucking and fuel and servicing and all the things that come with not just the Michelin employees, but their families. It’s a key part of the lifeblood of our region, for sure.”

On the Michelin website, the message is optimistic: “Located on Nova Scotia’s beautiful South Shore, Michelin’s Bridgewater site is actively expanding to meet new and dynamic market demands. Join us in our journey as Bridgewater gets ready to be the future of tire manufacturing.”

Tires are the province’s biggest export to the US. In equity markets, Trump’s chaos is calculated in lost value. In Bridgewater, it is measured in fear. Tariffs could devastate local communities. A local real estate agent told me that families who moved to the area when the plant expanded now wait and worry, subject to one man’s behavior that they cannot possibly predict. Kids are in school. Housing is expensive. A lost job is not easily replaced. What if?

Trump initiated a multi-front trade war — including a “wrecking ball” aimed at the Americas — soon after taking office. In a social media post on March 10, Trump called Canada, the US’s top export market, a “tariff abuser” and said the US won’t continue “subsidizing” its neighbor. “We don’t need your Cars, we don’t need your Lumber, we don’t your Energy, and very soon, you will find that out,” Trump said.

Beneath the quintessential Canadian politeness, there is no shortage of hard feelings. Trump’s puerile denigration of the nation’s prime minister as “governor” and his similarly degrading taunts about Canada’s destiny as the “51st state,” are prime examples of what the Economist calls his “mafia-like” approach to international relations. His gyrating threats of tariffs — ostensibly based on the small quantity of fentanyl that flows across the border or similarly specious claims — add injury atop the insults.

All of which has left some Canadian leaders feeling very impolite. “Donald Trump is a short-sighted man who wields his power just for the sake of it, not having any consideration for the destructive impact of his decision on Canadians and on Americans as well,” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said in an official statement .

Nova Scotia, which has set aside $200 million in its budget to blunt some of the economic dislocation anticipated from US tariffs, stretches far to the east of Maine. It’s now looking to Europe. “Nova Scotia is so well positioned to seek out other markets just based on our geography,” Mitchell said. 

Perspectives are shifting in Western Canada as well. “The relationship has been changed forever,” British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters. Canadians, he added, “will never again put ourselves in the position of being so dependent on the United States.” Others are more pointed. Trump “intends clearly to try and destabilize our economy,” Ward Elcock, a former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told the CBC.

As a result, Canadians are canceling travel plans to the US. Liquor and wine from the US have pretty much been cleared from Canadian shelves, and some Canadian consumers are seeking alternatives to American products across the board. Nova Scotia is poised to double its tax on home purchases by foreigners — mostly Americans — in April.

Damaging the ties between Canada and the US is a remarkable achievement, really. On Sept. 11, the airport in Halifax accepted 40 diverted flights carrying more than 7,000 passengers. Canadian soldiers died fighting in the US war in Afghanistan that followed. Support has been mutual. When a French munitions ship blew up in Halifax harbor in 1917, destroying much of the city in the greatest man-made explosion prior to Hiroshima, doctors and nurses from Boston boarded trains to Nova Scotia to provide aid. Nova Scotia still sends a Christmas tree to Boston every year in gratitude.

A couple of mystified Canadians asked me why the US president was fracturing such a rich and mutually beneficial relationship. I suggested the answer resides less in the dismal science of economics than in even darker realms of psychology. But I was curious how Bridgewater Mayor David Mitchell, whose community has such an intense personal stake in the conflict, would answer the same fundamental query: Why?

“That’s the billion-dollar question,” Mitchell said. “I don’t understand it. Nobody does. I haven’t met one single person that has understood why this fight has been picked.”

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

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