'The same chaos day after day': Have we become numb to Trump's tariffs?
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Premier Danielle Smith made a few visits to the U.S. to secure a deal for Canadian energy. B.C. Premier David Eby said the cross-border economic warfare would cost his province $69 billion. Ontario Premier Doug Ford claimed the auto sector would shut down within 10 days.
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As Trump suggested the annexation of Canada in exchange for abandoning its tariff plans, a sense of panic gripped the country. A surge of patriotism, which found expression in a popular and combative hockey phrase, 'Elbows up,' washed over grocery aisles as Canadians strove to buy domestic products. People cancelled their trips to U.S. destinations.
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A day after Trump enacted blanket tariffs and then reneged, a video of a fight between a Canada goose and a bald eagle went viral. When the goose finally emerged from the clutches of the eagle and survived the day, the symbolic confrontation was widely celebrated. Trump and the response to his policies soon dominated the national conversation, allowing the Liberals to close a 20-point gap in polls and secure a surprise victory in the federal election.
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Over time, however, Trump's plans proved to be largely hollow as he reversed course, only to reimplement parts of them. The U.S. later imposed tariffs on specific sectors, including automobiles and steel and aluminum. Trump, meanwhile, continued to conditionally threaten Canada with additional import taxes unless companies moved their manufacturing operations south of the border.
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Most recently, the U.S. decided to levy a 35 per cent duty on Canadian imports that fall outside the Canada-U.S.-Mexico (CUSMA) trade agreement, which, according to an analysis by RBC, amounts to roughly 20 per cent of Canada's exports.
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Diplomatic talks on tariffs have hardly attenuated, but the patriotic zeal that galvanized Canadians seems to be losing steam.
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'We've gone back and forth and had so many different announcements and threats and actual tariffs levied, and then postponements and then ignoring deadlines and reimposing things before the deadline is over, or extending deadlines,' Mike Holden, chief economist with the Business Council of Alberta, said.
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'And every week, something new happens and there is and will be a real economic impact, but at a certain point you just tune out the noise because it's kind of the same chaos day after day.'
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