What exactly is Ottawa's tariff strategy?
You don't think the Liberals would delay a deal until after an election, do you???
As he heads off to Washington, D.C., Ontario Premier Doug Ford has somehow found himself doing Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney’s job for him.
There was good staff work behind this morning’s perfunctory breakfast meeting between the two First Ministers, and I’m sure Premier Ford was only too happy to give our PM-designate some inside juice on the exciting day he had yesterday.
Premier Ford’s 11am appearance on CNBC was pitch perfect, and he was deftly able to go on live U.S. television and blame President Donald Trump for both the stock market’s woes and a coming recession and not initiate a northern excursion by the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division.
The electricity surcharge on U.S. consumers was an interesting tactic, and it got him a meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Ever gracious, Premier Ford is letting Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc tag along tomorrow.
As he told Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson of the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau: “Team Canada has risen to the challenge and proven that no one should ever underestimate the strength and resilience of the Canadian people. Together, we will get through this more united than ever before.”
As much as the incoming PMO doesn’t want a tariff deal for at least the next 60 days, it would have looked worse if Team Carney stayed home, staring at the ceiling of their new offices.
When he wakes up tomorrow morning in D.C., Premier Ford may have to announce that he’s thinking about passing his own version of the existing Build America Buy America Act. During his CNBC interview yesterday, he mentioned that a big chunk of his “$250 billion” of procurement goes to “American-based firms. That has to end. I’m sorry.” For all the President’s fair moaning about Canada’s unequal treatment of U.S. banks, what better way to remind President Trump of the unjust barriers that Canadian businesses already face in the USA than to start the legislative process at Queen’s Park to replicate the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of November 15, 2021?
Given the ~$100 billion infrastructure program currently underway at Metrolinx, for example, Ontario’s Premier could just cut-and-paste this U.S. legislation into our own books, and highlight this passage:
Establish a domestic content procurement preference for all Federal financial assistance obligated for infrastructure projects after May 14, 2022. The domestic content procurement preference requires that all iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used in covered infrastructure projects are produced in the United States.
As for the new crowd in Ottawa, our PM-designate was quoted as saying something along the lines of “Americans need to stop the rhetoric about making Canada a 51st state,” and that he’s “ready to sit down with President Trump at the appropriate time under a position where there’s respect for Canadian sovereignty and we’re working for a common approach.”
It seems to me that the appropriate time is next week, but that wouldn’t serve Mr. Carney’s political purposes. He wants to run an election campaign first, and then do a deal.
As Andrew Coyne pointed out this morning, the new Liberal Leader is accusing “Americans” of wanting our resources, when the only American pulling Canada’s chain is President Trump. Not a single member of Congress or the Senate has climbed aboard the 51st State Crazy Train. If “Team Canada has risen to the challenge,” why do we need an Tariff election?
Unfortunately for Mr. Carney, he may not be able to pull the plug fast enough.
Whatever economic / market / political pretext President Trump thought he had was destroyed by Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel late yesterday in this Master Class regarding the folly of a tariff war with Canada and Mexico:
MRM
(note: this post, like all blogs, is an Opinion Piece reflecting a personal view, and has not been reviewed or approved by any other party)
(photo credit: PO handout)