But when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau steps down in a few days, his successor will face the worst relations between the U.S. and Canada since the trade war of the Great Depression. Arguably, they are nearing a nadir not seen since the 19th century.
After a week of confusing signals from the White House, Mr. Trump said he was committed to imposing potentially devastating 25 percent tariffs on most exports from Canada, except oil and gas, which face a 10 percent tax.
If we recall when Mr. Trump first started proposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico, which now seems a very long time ago, he had two justifications. He insisted that the U.S. was being overrun by migrants and poisoned with fentanyl coming across the borders with the country’s two major trading partners.
Mr. Trudeau’s government responded with a 1.3 billion Canadian dollar package of measures to fortify the border. He named a “fentanyl czar,” gave the Mounties two Black Hawk helicopters to fly along the border, assigned a large number of their officers to border patrol and bought a variety of surveillance devices, including drones.
Matina Stevis-Gridneff, our Canada bureau chief, went to Coutts, Alberta, to see the project in action. What she found is that instead of stopping migrants coming out of Canada, the new patrols are picking up people fleeing from the U.S.
If a last-minute reprieve doesn’t come and tariffs are in effect just after midnight on Tuesday, Mr. Trudeau has made clear that Canada will retaliate with taxes of its own.
But they are not likely to make Mr. Trump immediately backtrack, nor will they reverse the plant closings or inflation that most experts and many industry leaders anticipate.
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