Canada should not respond to potential U.S. tariffs with retaliatory tariffs, as this would primarily harm Canadian consumers by driving up prices. Instead, Canada should leverage its industrial and technological capabilities to undermine the monopolistic rent-seeking of American corporations by legalizing and promoting third-party modifications, repairs, and alternative marketplaces for technology, agriculture, and other industries. By dismantling restrictive intellectual property laws—many of which were imposed under the USMCA trade agreement—Canada could become a global hub for jailbreaks, independent app stores, and right-to-repair solutions, thereby reducing dependence on U.S. tech monopolies and fostering a new high-tech economy that directly benefits Canadian consumers and businesses.
COVID was a wake up call for me. As we struggled to get masks, ventilators, and vaccines, I realized that we make incredibly little here in Canada.
I now do my best to EXCLUSIVELY buy Canadian. I’m admittedly privileged to be able to afford to, but it isn’t that much more expensive if you approach it from the perspective of buying a few quality products rather than tons of crap.
For footwear, Boulet Boots makes great summer and winter weight boots for about $300. Made just outside Trois Riviere. It’s a lot of money - but they can also be resoled, repaired and still look new in their second winter.
Most of my pants and shirts are from Common Manufacturing out of Winnipeg. $150-$200 for a shirt and $170 for a set of chinos. I used to buy Banana Republic type stuff for about half the price but I would destroy them within a year. Common offers free repairs for life but I haven’t needed to use it yet.
My belts and watch straps are from Popov Leather in Nelson, BC.
Pots and pans from Meyer in PEI.
When I tossed my black plastic kitchen tools, I replaced them with beautiful hand carved wood replacements from a local craft fair.
Every time I need something I go looking for who is making it in Canada. It’s fun, I get to support small business, and I enjoy the higher quality - even if I have less shirts.
I realized that we make incredibly little here in Canada.
I watch the show Shark Tank (US), and they ALWAYS push for “make it in China to bring down prices”, like it’s only about price.
We have the same mindset here in Canada, so products that could/should be made here are produced in China, and then shipped here (how’s that carbon footprint, now, eh?).
I also do my best to buy Made in Canada items. It hurts the wallet for sure to be paying 5-10x more for something. I only hope that it matters.
Yeah, I think Canadians need to consume less overall, but consume more Canadian products.
Sorry not spending 300 bucks on boots that have to be resoled in one year. What crappy quality.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear - I haven’t resoled the boots yet, they are years away from needing that. It’s more that I tend to wear out soles LONG before I wear out the rest of the boot. For that reason I try to buy footwear that can be resoled so that I can more use out of them.
I don’t think they were saying they need resoling every year. That would be absurd, so I hope not. The idea was that they can be resoled and repaired at all, so it’s not fast fashion. Hopefully they also use other environmentally friendly practices. The big issue here is the up-front cost.
I agree in principle. Personally, I think Canada needs to pivot hard to being much closer to the EU. However, that approach will take too much time and bear out a lot of pain before we’re done.
In the short term though, Trump is a bully so responding to tariffs with anything other than escalation is likely to attract more tariffs and economic damage.
Agreed.
Doctrow’s suggestion is a good long term approach and definitely something we should have started when Trump first tried to attack our economy.
But in the short term we also need to react swiftly and in kind. And to focus that response disproportionately on the people and industries that most strongly enable Trump and his supporters.
Working against expanding our markets and suppliers is geography, though. It takes much longer and costs much more to move goods between Canada and Europe/Asia/South America than it does to the US.
When the ruling class finishes melting the Arctic ice cap to get the oil, shipping to the EU/Northern Asia will be much faster and cheaper than now.
I agree. We could also forge better partnerships with Mexico, Central and South American countries, and Pacific island nations. Up to now I think our companies have been more exploitative (i.e. manipulating governments or bringing underpaid labour), but we could do things that are mutually beneficial instead. Strengthening less powerful neighbours is beneficial to everyone in a region (including the US, ironically), while exploitation just helps the specific corporations involved.
I’ve actually been wondering if we shouldn’t approach the EU for membership. It’s probably a pretty hard sell from the EU side, but it would send a message about turning on one’s closest ally.
I mean one of the requirments is being part of Europe. And yes the council determines what that means. But it we could be very hard to say Canada is part of Europe.
Europe is what Europe defines itself to be. Definitely a stretch to include Canada, but if we also keep a trade agreement with the rest of North America we could be a back door to European goods to sell into the USA.
Again, WILDLY unlikely.
Hey, our border isn’t too far from Greenland!
This should *absolutely* be part of a multi-pronged response.
Imo:
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products tarriffed by #USA should immediately lose export permits to the USA. E.g. if softwood lumber is tarriffed, none can be exported to the USA for a time, and then it needs to be reviewed.
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dollar-for-dollar forced sale of Canadian corporations owned by US entities.
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Nationalize resources. The provinces have failed to guard them, monitor their exploitation, or enforce rehabilitation.
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In order to support tariffs, you must first support eliminating jobs and companies getting rid of emplyees due to lack of sales from the higher prices. Tariffs on Canadian imports means Canadians lose their jobs. Retaliating with tariffs on American imports means Americans lose their jobs.
This needs to be one part of a multi-part retaliation to the US. The trade deals between the US and Canada are worth almost 1 Trillion dollars with manufactured goods and fuels being a large part of it. With the US being so politically unstable and aggressive, we need to find new trade deals and walk away from these draconian agreements we made with the US.
Canada has major ports on both the Pacific and Atlantic coast with rail and road infrastructure linking them to the rest of the country. There is a lot we could do. Will we? Probably not. A sizable portion of our own political sphere wants to bend over and take it from Trump even though he will give no love in return.
This needs to be one part of a multi-part retaliation to the US.
Individuals should also stop looking at the US as a destination for their travels, too.
Canadians make up the largest number of visitors to the US each year, and that would account for tens of billions in lost spending.
Totally agree with Doctorow as usual that this would be ideal, but there is NO way the US would allow that without things getting much, much uglier. Maybe we could get away with the app store temporarily but I’m sure it would get shut down eventually… unless we can convince our other allies to back us first. Unless he thinks there’s a high chance of this, I think he’s underestimating the kind of response we would face-- especially given the current climate.
As he says in the article, we’ve won some trade disputes but I doubt any of them were under an ISDS. Either way though, we do definitely need to boost our own tech sector so we have self-sufficiency if things go bad.
Maybe we could get away with the app store
As a first step, we could strengthen any of our our data protection and consumer protection laws that are lower then the EU laws/regulations to bring them up to the higher standard.
there is NO way the US would allow that without things getting much, much uglier.
Or they could you know reverse the tariffs that caused the counter measures…
I guess on the one hand, it wouldn’t make a material difference because the US can and would criminalize it and the American market for the product would be non existent…
But on the OTHER hand it would make very little impact in terms of dollars and cents…
But I guess on the OTHER hand it would trigger disproportional responses because Trump is heavily funded by tech bros…
I suppose on the other hand, though, we could pivot our tech sector creating a product that will need to be locally dismantled once a friendlier president gets elected…
But, on the other hand…
I’m all for FOSS, jailbreaking, owning what is yours, right to repair… Etc etc, but trying to frame this as an appropriate or meaningful response to terriffs is nonsense. It’s drawing a line between two things that aren’t connected. And nobody would give this proposal the time of day on its own merits, the only reason it’s even making the rounds on the socials is that Cory said it.
Ye and no.
Good ideas, but also the retaliation tariffs are not planned to be on everything, the last time we saw this it was things like targeting Tennessee whisky and other specific luxury goods. While they would harm consumer choice, there are tons of alternatives in many of those categories from both Canada and elsewhere.
As soon as I heard “retaliatory tariffs” I was like Jesus fuck why? Can we maybe think for longer than three seconds about this in terms of effecting the working class citizens of Canada? Retaliate in ways that hurt American citizens and benefit us. Destabilize the country instead of just making both worse.
The classic example is a tarrif on something like Kentucky bourbon. It is targeted at a state that Trump cares about (in theory), is on something discretionary, and there’s tons of Canadian distilleries making broadly comparable products.
Personally, I’m on a Manhattan kick and am exploring the Rye Whiskey scene.
I drink Alberta premium, I’ll be fine
The tariffs are being explicitly selected to avoid harm to Canadian consumers (e.g. on items for which there are available and suitably priced alternatives) and on items which create the most effective political pressure.
Cool, I hope you’re right. But I suspect without regulation that the cost of things will go up and loblaws will use the tariffs as an excuse anyway
