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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. And we’re going to move from one border to the other. A major focus of President Trump’s address Tuesday night was tariffs. After imposing stiff new tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners — Mexico, Canada and China — early on Tuesday, President Trump doubled down on his decision during his speech.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They’re about protecting the soul of our country. Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much. No, you’re not. Oh.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on the tariffs, we’re joined from Ottawa, Canada, by Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. His most recent piece, “Ten Trump-proof nation-building projects for a strong, independent Canada.”
Hadrian, we only have a minute, but if you can respond to what President Trump has done? And, of course, your prime minister, Trudeau, held a news conference, saying, “Then we’re going to have to retaliate,” and apologized to the American people for doing this, saying he understood it’s the president, not the people.
HADRIAN MERTINS–KIRKWOOD: Well, I mean, if there’s one feeling in Canada right now, it’s probably betrayal. We trusted this relationship with the U.S. for a century. We count on the U.S. as an economic partner. We’re obviously very closely culturally tied. And this just kind of throws everything into question. How are we supposed to negotiate with a partner like, this that tears up the trade agreement we have, that keeps moving the goalposts in terms of what Canada is supposed to do? It’s just a really untenable situation.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hadrian, what do you think will be the impact, because especially in the Midwest, the Midwest depends a lot for its oil and even energy, in some places, from Canada?
HADRIAN MERTINS–KIRKWOOD: Yeah. So, we see this — I mean, this is going to hit both sides of the border really hard. There’s no winner in a trade war. Households are going to see costs grow up by a couple thousand dollars a year. I’ve seen different estimates. But there’s also thousands, maybe tens or even hundreds of thousands, of jobs at risk. That’s going to hit — again, hit both sides of the border due to this trade war. It’s going to hit Canada more, proportionately, just because of the size of our economy. So, Canada almost certainly will go into recession immediately because of these tariffs.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Hadrian, what do you think will turn this around? And what is the response, overall, of the Canadian people?
HADRIAN MERTINS–KIRKWOOD: Right now we’re seeing from our federal government, they’re treating this like an ordinary trade dispute. They put tariffs on us, we’ll put tariffs on them. I’m not sure that’s sufficient. And we’re seeing some leaders in Canada talk about more ambitious measures, things like reducing the exports of electricity and critical minerals to the U.S., putting limits on procurement contracts, not allowing U.S. firms to do business here in different ways, pulling U.S. liquor off the shelves in some provinces. So there’s all sorts of measures on the table. If there’s one silver lining to this whole situation, it’s that Canada seems to be more unified than ever across the political spectrum that we need to really be disentangling ourselves from the U.S. economically.
AMY GOODMAN: Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, thanks so much for being with us, senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, speaking to us from Ottawa. We’ll link to your piece, “Ten Trump-proof nation-building projects for a strong, independent Canada.” Coming up, more on President Trump’s speech to Congress.
