Well, that’s another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.
Late yesterday, Donald Trump made a series of announcements. First he took to Truth social to say that Canadians companies would be banned from US government procurement as a result of various governments in Canada banning American products.
That was just before 4:30, then just before 7pm, Trump announced a series of new tariffs and bans on Canadian products including booze.
As I wrote in column for the Sun, this will hit the distilling industry the hardest.
Of the roughly $1.5 billion CAD worth of Canadian alcohol sold to the United States each year, about $1 billion is in the spirits sector alone.
Crown Royal, made in Gimli, Manitoba, will be the hardest hit. It is said that more Crown Royal is sold in Texas than in all of Canada. This is Canada’s number one exported spirit.
We sell 93% of all our spirits exports to the United States, the Europeans and Chinese aren’t buy much Crown Royal or Canadian Club.
Speaking of not selling to the Europeans…
Carney will head to Europe next week, he’s going to announce deeper ties with the EU and address the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
As I was writing earlier today, I encourage all trade expansion, but the EU won’t replace the US - yet it feels like that is what Carney is trying to do.
Just look at the hard, cold facts. In 2025, we exported a little over $400 billion USD to the United States but just shy of $31 billion USD to the entire EU. After a decade of having a free trade agreement with the EU, our exports have only increased by $8.4 billion after accounting for inflation.
That’s a significant increase in exports to the EU, but it equals about a week’s worth of trade with the United States. Figures published by the Library of Parliament show that, as with most of Canada’s major trading partners other than the U.S., we buy far more from the EU than we sell to them: $66 billion USD last year.
The 27% increase in trade over the last decade is good, but is still tiny compared to exports to the US.
A note to consider.
We often hear that we do a lot of trade with other countries, but too often the two way trade is one sided. Just look at those European figures, they sell us more than twice as much as we sell to them.
So when reading other media, look to see if they are giving you our two way trade numbers or our exports. If we want to diversify, we need more exports, not more imports.
The impact of Canadian tariffs on the United States….
Politician after politician in Canada has vowed to match the Americans tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar. We hear that we will destroy the United States, that American consumers will feel the pinch of inflation from US tariffs and demand politicians change course.
Is any of that true?
I don’t think so and neither does Ian Lee, associate professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University.
It’s been close to 20 years that I’ve been talking to Ian on radio, on TV, on the phone. He’s a smart guy who doesn’t just show up with an opinion, he brings facts.
Here is our conversation on the tariff situation.
Mark Carney turns to history…
I found it fascinating that Mark Carney turned to Sir John A. Macdonald and the National Policy in his video yesterday. He also invoked William McKinley, whose bill while he was still in Congress, sought to impose crushing tariffs on Canada in 1890.
McKinley is an inspiration for Donald Trump, he invokes his name and his love of tariffs on a regular basis.
I didn’t expect Carney to invoke Sir John A. in a positive way.
I know most of you aren’t fans of Carney, but it’s still important to know what he’s saying and understand where he’s coming from. This video below was the subject of one of my columns if you would rather read than listen to him.
Canada is being run into the ground by the WEF clown Carney.
His manipulation of non-critical thinking voters with Trump bad’ and his attempt to harm Trumps midterms is a low move even for him. In a way it’s hard to blame voters though with the manipulation of information by media.
Canadians forget the prosperous Harper years, now we are the bottom of the G7.
We need a leader that will build Canada back and work out an effective trade deal for both countries and the only platform available is Pierre’s, which the main, liberal paid for, media ignores or trashes.
I believe that Carney has an agenda with the EU that he is not sharing with Canadians. This would be supported by the fact that he didn’t seem to want a trade deal with the US. Carney seems to be making substantive long impact decisions for Canada without our input, beyond his mandate when he was “elected”, and outside of Parliament. This is just wrong !