Elbows up: How Canadians are fighting back against Trump's tariffs

CNN

07-03-2025

Replacing Californian tomatoes with Italian tomatoes. Ohio-made pepperoni with meats produced in Ontario and Quebec. Coca Cola with sparkling water, sweetened with Canadian maple syrup.
At the end of January, as US President Donald Trump ramped up threats to annex Canada and wreck its economy with tariffs, Graham Palmateer, who runs a pizza joint in Toronto's west end, told his customers he'd be making some swaps to his fridges and shelves: no more products produced in the United States, or by American companies.
'At one point I just figured, that's enough, I'm going to do this,' Palmateer, the owner of Gram's Pizza, told CNN.
An unfamiliar emotion has been brewing in normally polite Canada: anger.
Since Trump first threatened to enact sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports and began referring to the US' northern neighbor as the 51st state, animosity toward the US and its leader has been mounting.
Canadians have canceled vacations south of the border and loudly booed 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at sports events. An ice hockey game between the two countries last month quickly turned into a geopolitical event as players on both sides threw fists.
Others, like Palmateer, have boycotted US products – not always an easy task in a country that has been economically tied to its southern neighbor for decades, with trade exceeding $760 billion last year.
Trump's targeting of Canada has given rise to a rare moment of unity in a country that just months ago was facing a political crisis as the public's frustrations over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's leadership reached boiling point, prompting the longtime leader to announce his resignation.
Trump's actions have fueled a surge in Canadian patriotism and disrupted the country's politics in an election year, giving a surprising boost to the floundering ruling Liberal Party and forcing opposition Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre – long considered a shoo-in for Canada's next prime minister – to rethink his messaging.
'We, as Canadians, we don't go out and try to create fights,' said Torontonian Dylan Lobo, who runs online directory Made in Canada, which has seen a surge in traffic in recent months as Canadians look to support domestic brands in response to Trump's threats.
'It's an attack on Canada,' he said.
After months of warnings, Trump on Tuesday slapped 25% tariffs on nearly all Canadian goods, sending markets plummeting and driving Canada-US relations to a new low.
Almost immediately, Canadian leader Trudeau responded with matching tariffs on 30 billion Canadian dollars ($20.8 billion) worth of American goods, with potentially more to come.
'Canadians are reasonable and we are polite but we will not back down from a fight — not when our country and the well-being of everyone in it is at stake,' Trudeau said Tuesday.
Trump said he told Trudeau on a Wednesday telephone call that the Canadian leader hadn't done enough to curb fentanyl crossing the border — despite the minuscule amount that arrives in the US from its northern neighbor. Trump suggested after the call — which he said 'ended in a 'somewhat' friendly manner' — that the outgoing Trudeau could be using the tariff issue to 'stay in power.'
Later in the week, the US president announced brief reprieves from the tariffs for automakers, and for goods that fall under the North American free trade agreement negotiated during Trump's first term, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
But for many, the two months of back-and-forth with Trump on tariffs have irreparably damaged ties.
'The relationship has been changed forever,' British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters this week.
'We've got friends, family and relationships that have gone back for generations across the border. We love our American family members,' he added. But Canadians 'will never again put ourselves in the position of being so dependent on the United States.'
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump's repeated threats against Canada – punctuated by him mockingly referring to Trudeau as 'governor' – have struck a nerve in the country, America's longtime friend and ally.
'I can tell you that Canadians right now are upset, we're angry, we're dismayed,' said John Liedtke, from Windsor, Ontario, which neighbors the US city of Detroit.
'I know of people who have said, 'I'm never going to step foot on that side of the border again,'' he told CNN.
Nikki Gauthier, a retired nurse living in St. Catharine's, Ontario, said she felt anger 'right off the bat,' when she heard about the 'unkind and unwarranted' US tariffs.
Gauthier said she canceled her subscription with US tech giant Amazon in favor of the Chinese online marketplace Temu, and has been carefully inspecting product labels in the grocery store and prioritizing Canadian products when she can.
'If there's no Canadian lettuce, I'll look for Mexican lettuce,' she said.
Canadian officials responded swiftly to Trump's move, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford directing workers at the province's government-run liquor retailors to remove all US products – from California chardonnay to Jack Daniel's whisky – from the shelves. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario is one of the world's largest wholesalers and sells about $1 billion worth of US liquor per year, according to Ford.
Ford told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Thursday his province is implementing a 25% tariff on electricity exports to 1.5 million Americans' homes in Minnesota, Michigan and New York next week.
This isn't the first time Canadians have fought Trump tariffs. Seven years ago, during his first term as president, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on all foreign steel imports and a 10% tariff on aluminum imports while in the middle of negotiating a free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.
The website Lobo runs was created in 2018 to support Canadian businesses and combat those US tariffs. He said he's gone from receiving four to five submissions for new businesses a day to nearly 5,000 in the past few weeks, with the site's daily traffic jumping tenfold from previous years.
'I've never witnessed such a large response from the community,' said Lobo, who runs the site solo as a 'passion project.'
Palmeteer, the Toronto pizza shop owner, said making the switch from US products – including dropping American retailer Costco as a supplier – has been relatively easy, and has been met with resounding support from his community.
'It's been a while since I've seen Canadians united about much,' Palmateer said. 'This seems to be something pretty much everybody is on the same page about.'
As Canadians' opinion of the US and its leader has plunged, their perception of their own country has improved, said David Coletto, CEO of Canadian polling and research firm Abacus Data.
In a recent survey, the number of Canadians who said they think the country is headed in the right direction hit a two-year high, up to 30% from just 19% when Trudeau resigned in January, Coletto said.
Patriotism – traditionally less overt in Canada than in the US – is on the rise. The Canadian flag, which had in recent years become associated with 2022's right-wing 'Freedom Convoy' protests opposing Covid-19 vaccines and restrictions, has been rebranded as a symbol of national pride and resistance to Trump.
Canadian flagmaker Flags Unlimited's sales have doubled from a year ago, the company's owner told CNN affiliate CBC News.
Trump's targeting of Canada was 'a shock to the Canadian psyche that just completely reoriented the way that people were seeing things,' Coletto said – so much so that it could influence the outcome of the country's next federal election.
Trudeau's replacement as Liberal leader and prime minister will be picked next week.
Among those running are former Liberal finance minister Chrystia Freeland, who negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement with the first Trump administration, and former central bank governor Mark Carney.
Under Canadian law, the next general election must be held before October, but it is likely to be called sooner.
Support for the Liberals has bounced back in recent weeks after years of decline, with recent polls showing the Conservatives' long-held lead could be narrowing.
Tensions with the US have shaped what Canadians are looking for in their next leader, Coletto said.
'We went from an environment where the public was so much looking for a change in government, to one where a growing number of people are looking to hire somebody to replace the prime minister who can help handle the effects of Trump's decision on our country,' Coletto said.
Poilievre, leader of the Conservatives, has distanced himself from Trump and refocused his message from one about Canada's internal struggles to a 'Canada first' patriotism pitch.
Made in Canada owner Lobo said he's received hundreds of thousands of emails from Canadians across the political spectrum who are angry about Trump's policies – and from Americans and Europeans who want to support Canada.
Celebrities have jumped on the bandwagon, too.
Canadian actor Mike Myers, portraying Elon Musk on 'Saturday Night Live' last weekend, wore a t-shirt with the slogan 'Canada is not for sale.'
As the credits rolled, he shared another message for Canadians. He flexed his arm and mouthed: 'Elbows up,' an ice hockey term signaling it's time to fight.
CNN's Kevin Liptak, Jeff Zeleny, Alayna Treene and Kit Maher contributed reporting.