So tomorrow, February 1, is the day that US President Donald Trump imposes a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico. Or maybe it’s a 25% tariff on everything but oil. Or maybe the tariffs are coming on April 1. Or maybe they’ll rise over time. Or maybe Canada’s panicked rental of a couple of Black Hawk helicopters to fight against an imagined (i.e., not real) border threat have changed Trump’s mind. Or maybe it didn’t.

Since Trump’s election I’ve written and talked a lot about what Trump means for Canada. But about a week ago it occurred to me that I hadn’t really said anything about Canada’s plan to retaliate should Trump follow through on his tariff threat. Strange, considering that’s pretty much been the exclusive focus of our politicians and almost all of the public debate.

On reflection, I haven’t weighed in because I don’t think the tariffs are the real problem. They’re something to be addressed, but as part of a bigger issue. They’re not the whole ball game. It’s the age-old difference between tactics and strategies, between fighting a battle and winning the war.

Plus, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that retaliation won’t address the deeper, existential problem facing Canada: that Trump, the Republicans and the United States feel completely free to violate a treaty to demand concessions at all.

Across-the-board tariffs would be a shock to the Canadian economy, no doubt. But the truth is, we could adjust to any tariff level. It might be difficult, and the resulting economy might not be as prosperous as before, but we could adjust.

What we can’t adjust to is the toxic uncertainty that Trump has injected into the relationship. If the threat of tariffs is always hanging over our heads, every action we take, every problem, domestic or international, that we try to tackle will make us wonder if we’re about to summon the Wrath of Trump.

(Full credit: This point was nicely made in a virtual panel I attended yesterday at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo. I’m not sure what. the attribution rules were for the event, so I don’t think I can identify the speaker.)

That’s the real purpose of Trump’s tariff threat. They’re not designed to secure US manufacturing or border security. Remember: Trump is fundamentally an ignorant narcissistic sociopath. He cares only for himself. He doesn’t understand (or care about) policy. He doesn’t care about any of this.

What he cares about is power and domination. And that’s what these tariff threats are designed to secure: compliance from Canada and Mexico on anything and everything. The purpose of these all-purpose tariff threats is to destroy sovereignty.

That’s the game. That’s the problem.

And this isn’t just a Trump thing. He’s supercharged it, but increased uncertainty is what you get when one undermines the international legal system, as the US has been doing for a few years now.

It’s also not something that retaliation can fix.

Hard truths in uncertain times

The hard truth: only minimizing exposure to the US can address the US threat to Canada. As I’ve written elsewhere, Canada-US integration, once our greatest asset, is now our greatest vulnerability.

So, what to do? The first step is to recognize that the game has changed fundamentally. This requires breaking habits learned over the past 40 years. In the 1980s, our response to uncertainty over US protectionism was to negotiate a trade agreement, the 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. It was succeeded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (including Mexico) and then the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). Now, we’re gearing up to renegotiate the USMCA, as required by the treaty.

Today’s uncertainty, though, is completely different from what we faced in the 1980s. Back then, the uncertainty we were dealing with centred on whether the US would go more protectionist. Now, we’re uncertain if the United States will honour any agreement it makes. Remember, these tariff threats are illegal.

When you can’t trust your partner, a new or better treaty won’t help at all. Instead, you can expect that the larger partner will use their coercive power to force the smaller partners to accept conditions that limit their room to maneuver. The USMCA already has clauses restricting monetary policy (what does that have to do with trade? Nothing.) and the ability to negotiate a trade agreement with China, the world’s other economic powerhouse.

It’s pointless to negotiate, or renegotiate, a trade agreement with the United States when the US has shown that it doesn’t feel bound to the rules, and whose renegotiation clause eviscerates the protections that a treaty is supposed to provide.

Trade agreements are no longer the answer

If step one is to recognize the situation you’re in, step two is to abrogate the USMCA in order to preserve our room to do what we need to do to protect ourselves from the real problem: an untrustworthy United States.

Minimizing our exposure to US threats will require diversifying our trade relationships and building up the Canadian economy along east-west-north lines to make it more inward-focused and resilient to external shocks. And there’s certainly much to be done in both areas (a subject for another post).

This does not mean we should ignore the United States and US interests (no matter how crazy), even if such a thing were possible. We still have shared interests, such as in security. Although fewer than before: It will be harder to justify joint international operations with a partner that has no respect for multilateralism and human rights. The suspicion would always be that the US is fighting out of rank self-interest, not to preserve a community of states or human rights.

But we need to pursue these interests in this new environment, focused always on protecting Canadian sovereignty and our ability to promote Canadian-defined interests.

So: Abrogate, diversify, reinforce. Work with the US on issues of common interest while abandoning the dream-turned-fantasy that deeper integration can be had without sacrificing Canadian independence.

To repeat: Whether or not Trump imposes a tariff tomorrow, no matter its size, the threat of tariffs will remain.

Neither appeasement nor a better trade agreement can fix this hard problem. The United States has destroyed the trust and shared values needed to sustain an integrated economy. We can mourn this needless catastrophe, but we have to recognize it for what it is and act accordingly. Otherwise, Trump will drag Canada down the same nihilistic path as he has the United States.