The surprise trade war between the United States and Canada shows no signs of resolving any time soon. Yesterday, Canada announced its own retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. For his part, Donald Trump mused about renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.”
How did the relationship between what were once two of the world’s closest partners get to this point? My colleague Matina Stevis-Gridneff, our Canada bureau chief, just co-wrote a deeply reported story with our trade reporter Ana Swanson about how the talks between the U.S. and Canada imploded.
I talked to her about how we got here, and how Canadians are experiencing this rupture.
Canada says bring it on — and braces for pain
Matina, what are U.S. officials saying about what went wrong in these talks? What are Canadian officials saying?
So Ana and I spent a lot of time working sources on both sides of the border to try to get to the bottom of what happened. And what we found is that there is no real disagreement between the two sides on the events that transpired. I think that’s important. It wasn’t just one thing on one side or the other that brought the talks down; there were real differences in priorities and values that couldn’t get resolved.
What did that look like?
The French-language issue is an interesting example. French is an incredibly emotional and foundational thing for Canada. Policies that promote and protect the use of the French language are the cornerstone of keeping the country together with Quebec. Canada actually has a law that compels streaming platforms to place French-language content more prominently for Canadian subscribers. The U.S. was pressing Canada to repeal that law.
So, to Canadian ears, when the U.S. side said, We don’t want to tell Netflix to promote Quebecois shows, they heard, “You’re trying to undermine our policy of promoting and protecting the French language.” The U.S. negotiators weren’t necessarily thinking that way — they’re thinking: “We don’t have a problem with the French language. We’re just telling you that we don’t want to tell American platforms what to do.” Now, could they have resolved this with more time? Possibly. But that’s where politics and deadlines came into play. The deadline arrived, Mark Carney looked at the deal, didn’t like what he saw, and said, We’re not doing it.
What has the fallout in Canada looked like?
For Canadians, this moment is the culmination of a shift in their relationship with America that began in 2024, with Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st state.
Canadians take that threat very seriously and have been extremely clear that they are absolutely dedicated to remaining an independent country. That’s why they elected Carney, who ran on a promise to stand up to Trump and make Canada more independent from the United States. So they were already primed to see these trade talks as about more than just aluminum and softwood lumber. They see them as about sovereignty.
The sense that Carney did the right thing is very, very wide spread. On the Sunday after the talks collapsed, 76 percent of the people polled said he was right to walk away.
That’s a wild figure.
It is. I don’t know that 76 percent of people in any country agree on anything.
By the way, Trump hasn’t done himself any favors in the aftermath. Trump talking about renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” plays right into the sovereignty issue.
Carney’s choice to walk away seems to have been viewed around the world as very symbolically charged. What’s behind that?
I think Carney wanted a deal. But when the talks ultimately collapsed he saw the political value in explaining this moment to the world.
Ever since he came into office, Carney has been trying to tell anyone who will listen that America has changed. He said it in Davos. He said it this weekend. By doing that, he situates the shift in the relationship between Canada and the United States in a much bigger context: This isn’t just about Trump and it isn’t just about Canada — it’s about America’s relationship with the world. So this was another chance to communicate that.
He’s also trying to galvanize his people.
Galvanize them how?
The coming period is going to be tough. Canadians are going to have to make sacrifices.
They’re going to have to double down on supporting Canadian goods and services. The government is going to have to spend money supporting industries and workers that are going to be hurting from this trade war.
Carney is trying to distance Canada from the United States, and that also might involve doing things not all Canadians will love. He’s making investment pitches to banks, to sovereign wealth funds. Canadians might not love the idea of a Gulf sovereign wealth fund being involved in their airports, for instance.
And he’s imposing retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. that are going to bring their own pain. (Here’s the list of goods.)
And he wants to tell Canadians all this is worth it.
Carney sees in the collapse of the talks evidence that his theory of the U.S.-Canada relationship is accurate, that his plan for Canada is the right plan, and he’s trying to seize the moment to rally Canadians behind him.
So much of what Canada will have to do to prevail in this trade war comes down to psychology. Isn’t that part of what it means to be on a war footing?
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Dolly Parton, the singer, songwriter and entertainer whose rags-to-riches story, outsize persona and prodigious talent placed her in a class by herself, died yesterday in Nashville. She was 80.
Parton was the top-ranking female singer on country radio from 1967 to 1993 and had a total of 25 No. 1 country singles, including “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You.” Her songs spoke to millions, confronting privation and loss even as they radiated possibility and hope. Here are 15 songs that capture the depth of her work.
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