Canadians Have A Duty To Buy Canadian During The 2025 Trade War

“The Dutch may have their Holland, the Spaniard have his Spain, The Yankee to the south of us must south of us remain” – Last verse of Canadian Born by Pauline Johnson (1903)

The 2025 U.S.-Canada Trade War is on in earnest, with the opening salvoes fired by the Trump administration in an unprovoked act of economic aggression against Canada, a long-time ally of the United States – weeks after we sent water bombers to help extinguish the L.A. wildfires.

This will be remembered as the trade war which erupted for absolutely no reason. One of President Trump’s spurious justifications is that Canada permits a cross-border flow of fentanyl “at levels never seen before”. Putting aside the fact that this is entirely false, wouldn’t his logic justify Canada slapping pre-emptive tariffs on the U.S. for permitting the export of the illegal handguns that fuel the gang wars that plague Canadian cities?

Another excuse is that the U.S.-Canada trade balance is unfair because Canada sells more to the U.S. than they sell to us. This bizarre argument is akin to me walking into a grocery store and accusing the cashiers of perpetrating a grave injustice by selling me more items than I have sold them.

There is no point searching for logic in the Trump administration, a true Idiocracy consumed by a desire for chaos, a troglodyte urge to dominate neighbouring tribes, and above all a pressing need to deliver an endless stream of content to the social media entertainment mill.

As Canadians, our response to this American economic aggression should not be contingent on whether or not we as individuals support or oppose free trade. If Trump had wished to express a principled opposition to unrestricted trade, he would have simply exited or renegotiated the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement.

No, this is not a debate over free trade. This is an attempt to inflict economic damage on Canada in order to extract concessions that Trump can then display to his fanatical base like a primitive war trophy. The goal is to make Canada grovel, to humiliate us.

We cannot let that happen. Ottawa and the provinces are hitting back with economic countermeasures, but this strategy will only succeed if citizens enthusiastically take on an auxiliary role of our own and implement a boycott.

As consumers, we can help ensure the Trump administration’s unprovoked aggression ends in embarrassing defeat by minimizing our purchases of American goods. No amount is too small. If every Canadian diverted $10 a week away from American products, this would be a hit of $400 million to the U.S. economy. If every Canadian withheld $50, that’s $2 billion.

The Canadian government can help the citizen boycott by mandating highly visible country of origin labelling for food products. I have created a petition calling for this.

A citizen boycott will enable Canada to hold its own until the U.S. backs down. And if this experience inspires us to keep buying Canadian after the trade war, all the better!

Editor’s note: My 500-word Counter Current column is published once every two weeks in the Islands Marketplace paper on Salt Spring Island. This piece will appear in the February 7th, 2025 issue.