Canada Implements Retaliatory Tariffs on U.S. Goods Amid Trade Dispute

The takes

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  Adam Smith

  1723–1790, Scotland (the Scottish Enlightenment: Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

  The Tariff War Across the 49th Parallel Is a Conspiracy Against the Public

  By taxing each other’s goods up to 50%, the United States and Canada sacrifice the labouring poor on both sides of the border to the vanity and clamour of favoured producers.

  The present quarrel between the United States and Canada is being fought, not with muskets along a frontier, but with duties at the customs house. The chief magistrate of the United States has imposed tariffs as high as 50% on a range of Canadian goods—dairy, alcohol, even the humble hockey stick and the luxurious perfume. The Canadian government replies in kind, with “dollar‑for‑dollar” tariffs between 15% and 50% on some $20bn of American imports, from steel and appliances to agricultural equipment and electronics. Each ministry assures its own public that it is defending national honour. Each in reality is shrinking the market which sustains the prosperity of both.

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  John Locke

  1632–1704, England (writing amid the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution)

  Tariffs Are Taxes Without Trial

  When rulers tax cross‑border trade by tweet and counter‑tax in rage, they cease to govern by known law and begin to play at arbitrary power over other men’s livelihoods.

  I read that in late August the president of the United States ordered new tariffs, some as high as fifty per cent, on Canadian goods such as dairy, alcohol, hockey sticks and perfume; that these measures cover some twenty billions of dollars in imports; that he has also threatened to stop the sale of Canadian aircraft in his country, and has publicly denounced Canada’s exchange rate as “unacceptable”. I read in turn that the Canadian government has answered with “dollar‑for‑dollar” tariffs, ranging from fifteen to fifty per cent, on hundreds of American products, and that both sides speak now of a trade war. The words are modern; the pattern is very old.

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  Niccolò Machiavelli

  1469–1527, Florence (republican secretary and diplomat, then exile, amid the Italian Wars)

  In the US–Canada Trade War, Tariffs Are the New Artillery

  This is not a quarrel over dairy and hockey sticks, but a contest of virtù between two states arming themselves with tariffs instead of cannon.

  The scene is simple enough: one president in Washington announces tariffs of up to 50% on Canadian goods – dairy, alcohol, hockey sticks, perfume – then denounces Canada’s exchange rate as “unacceptable” and threatens the sale of Bombardier jets. Ottawa answers at 12.01am with “dollar-for-dollar” duties of 15% to 50% on some $20bn of American imports, precisely aimed at sectors hit by US measures. Commentators call it a trade war. I call it something older: a struggle between two neighboring powers testing how far they can coerce each other without drawing blood. Change the weapons from galleys and pikes to percentages and you have the same game.

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