This is a rather remarkable development that requires an understanding of what is true and accurate, versus what is stated as the justification.
In short, Prime Minister Mark Carney is conceding defeat to President Trump and positioning the Canadian economy to be compliant with U.S-Mexico trade regulations.
However, Carney is not saying that, indeed he cannot; he’s spent over a year telling Canadians that President Trump’s trade and economic demands are not going to be accepted by Canada. However, what he is factually doing is exactly what President Trump has demanded.
Prime Minister Carney is saying he is restricting Steel and Aluminum imports from non-free trade agreement countries, and he is lowering the tonnage of Steel and Aluminum that will be permitted for import. His claim is that this approach will help drive up “domestic demand” for Canadian Steel and Aluminum, but that’s ancillary to the real objective.
President Trump has demanded Canada stop importing cheap steel and aluminum mostly from China; including manufactured component goods that are made with steel and aluminum (think autos). Canada would not stop, because they could not stop. Their manufacturing base, green energy and climate change economy, is more of a component assembly system now.
So, President Trump hit Canada with a 35% tariff, and things got ugly. In June Trump raised the tariff to 50%. The back and forth has gone on all year.
Carney now announces restrictions on imported steel and aluminum, as well as restrictions on imported derivative goods that come from steel and aluminum, in combination with a spending plan to bolster the Canadian steel and aluminum manufacturing base. This ends up shifting the Canadian industrial sector to making steel and aluminum products without Chinese import dependency.
THIS IS EXACTLY what President Trump told both Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney they needed to do in order to get their manufacturing base into alignment with the U.S. plan for industrial manufacturing. But Carney cannot tell the Canadians that part; instead, he tells them this policy shift will drive up domestic demand. True, but that’s not the underlying motive.
President Trump is going to exit the USMCA (CUSMA to Canadians) trade agreement. It looks like Carney now realizes that is going to happen, and when that happens his only hope for a bilateral trade agreement will be if Canada makes goods again, rather than assembles the component products from imports.
“We know that this decades-long process of our ever-closer economic relationship between Canada and the United States has ended, and as a consequence of that, many of our strengths have become our vulnerabilities, particularly in those industries that are most tightly integrated with the United States,” Carney said during his announcement.
CANADA – […] Among the new measures is further limiting foreign steel imports from countries without a free trade agreement with Canada — from 50 to 20 per cent of 2024 levels — a measure largely aimed at reducing Chinese steel imports.
The government will also reduce quotas for countries with which Canada has a free trade agreement – excluding the U.S. and Mexico – going from 100 per cent to 75 per cent of 2024 levels, and impose a global 25 per cent tariff on targeted imported products made from steel.
Carney made the announcement in Ottawa on Wednesday, as trade talks with the U.S. remain stalled after the fallout over Ontario’s anti-tariff ad last month. (more)
Carney cannot say, ‘trade with the USA is different now. As a consequence, if we want to be compliant with Trump’s demands, we have to limit imported steel from China. We cannot survive without the USA so we are limiting our steel imports from China, and instead of importing the component goods, we are going to train and retool our own manufacturing to be Trump-compliant.’ Yet, that is exactly what Carney is doing.
The net/net if Canada keeps following this path, is they will come into compliance with a reestablished manufacturing system that will align with the USA for a bilateral free trade agreement. This is exactly what Mexico has been doing all year, instead of fighting with Donald Trump.
The ‘elbow’s up’ is an illusion.
Carney is politically gaslighting the Canadian electorate because he cannot admit to them that Trump has crushed him.
It was always, a.l.w.a.y.s going to end up like this. There was no other way it could end. The narrative engineering is now completely about face-saving in front of the Canadian people.
