At the start of the year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called on the world’s middle powers to band together against Donald Trump. But a new trade war with the U.S. came before they were ready. Seven months after Carney called in a landmark speech in Davos on fellow democracies and supporters of free trade to join together and resist economic coercion, they have largely left him to do battle with Trump alone.
The U.S. president’s 50 percent tariffs imposed on $20 billion in Canadian goods last week should be a wake-up call to Ottawa’s allies, said one Canadian official with knowledge of the trade talks. Other countries have tried to appease Trump, the official said. But Canada, which has the most to lose since it’s so economically and geographically intertwined with the U.S., has “put out our chest.” After Carney walked away from a deal that in his view threatened Canada’s sovereignty, he vowed to fight back.
Ottawa would match Trump’s new duties “dollar-for-dollar,” he said — only for the U.S. president to menace Canada with more sweeping tariffs of 50 percent on cars, trucks and auto parts from January. At some point, the rest of the world will say enough,” said British Columbia Premier David Eby. On Tuesday, Ottawa announced a suite of retaliatory tariffs and domestic support measures meant to protect Canadian sectors caught in the crosshairs of the trade war.
The dollar-for-dollar Canadian counter-tariffs target U.S. steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics. The tariffs take effect on Sept. 8. Meanwhile, Canada’s government is rolling out C$7.5 billion in financing, liquidity and income support to sectors hit by tariffs.
Yet so far, Canada’s allies have left it in the lurch. For more than a year, the EU, Canada, the United Kingdom and other economies have talked up plans to deepen ties between the EU and an Asia-Pacific trade bloc called the CPTPP — which includes Canada, Australia, Japan and the U.K. — to counter Trump’s trade coercion. Since Ursula von der Leyen floated the idea at a summit of EU leaders in June 2025, progress on bringing the EU and the 12-nation CPTPP together has been glacial.
Following up on his Davos speech, Carney was instrumental in getting trade talks going between the EU and CPTPP. The first concrete results came in March at a World Trade Organization ministerial meeting, where the blocs launched talks on a digital trade deal and agreed to explore a pledge not to raise tariffs on one another. Bernd Lange, the chair of the EU Parliament’s trade committee, was quick to express solidarity with Canada.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
