Trump is squeezing Canadian workers, and Carney gave away their leverage.
Mark Carney spent sixteen months making concession after concession to Washington. He killed the digital-services tax that would have captured revenue from American tech giants operating in Canada. He rolled back the retaliatory tariffs his predecessor had put in place — the ones meant to make Washington feel the cost of its own trade actions. He shelved the streaming regulations that would have required companies like Netflix to put more money into Canadian content, meaning Canadian writers, camera operators, and production crews lost a policy that would have paid them for their work. He handed half the Gordie Howe Bridge revenue to a U.S.-controlled fund for fifteen years, on a bridge Canada built with its own money. He apologized for an Ontario ad featuring Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs. He committed $900 million to a border security plan before Trump was even sworn in for the second term.
Sixteen months of giving ground. And on Monday, Trump slapped a fifty-percent tariff on twenty billion dollars’ worth of Canadian goods anyway.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer explained the logic last week: “They really don’t get credit for doing something bad and then undoing it. It’s just good practice on their part.” That sentence tells you the whole story. Every concession Canada made, Washington categorized as Canada merely ceasing to do wrong. Not as something that required a reciprocal gesture. Not as a step toward a deal. Just Canada behaving the way Washington always thought it should — free of charge, no negotiation necessary.
Now, I run an auto shop in Georgia, and I know what that sounds like from across the parts counter. That is not a negotiation. That is a landlord telling you what the rent is going to be, and you do not get a say.
Think about what this means for the people who actually make things in Canada. The steelworker in Hamilton or the aluminum smelter worker in the Saguenay. Trump put tariffs on their products months ago. Canada retaliated — because when someone squeezes you, you push back. That is how you keep your leverage. Then Carney rolled back the retaliation. The steelworker’s tariff did not come down. His position did not improve. All that happened was Canada stopped pushing back, and Washington pocketed the concession and reached for the next one. The worker got squeezed from both sides — by the tariff and by his own government giving away the one tool that might have lifted it.
Think about the film crew in Toronto or Vancouver. Ottawa was pushing regulations that would have required streaming companies to put more money into Canadian content. That means real work — writers, editors, grips, electricians, caterers. The kind of jobs that keep a neighborhood’s restaurants open and its schools funded. The regulations were shelved. Washington had threatened retaliation. The Canadian film industry accused the government of selling them out, and they were right. Canadian content workers watched their government hand a policy win to Netflix and Disney, and they got nothing in return. No reduced tariff. No trade deal. Nothing.
Think about what $900 million for a border security plan means when your economy is in recession. Canada slipped into technical recession in June. That is not an abstraction. That is the plant that slows down and does not speed back up. That is the construction crew that gets laid off in August instead of finishing the season. That is the diner on Main Street that makes it through winter but cannot survive the uncertainty. Nine hundred million dollars committed to a border plan that did not even prevent the first round of tariffs — money that could have gone to the communities already absorbing the cost of this trade war.
Carney is not the only leader learning this lesson. From Brussels to Mexico City, governments have been making pre-emptive concessions to Washington and getting nothing back. The pattern is the same everywhere — concessions pocketed, baseline reset, next demand made. Even Canada’s own chief trade negotiator, Janice Charette, has said publicly that Washington has been pocketing “significant” concessions without offering mutuality in return.
The pattern is plain enough for anyone who has ever sat across a negotiating table, or across a parts counter. Every concession Carney made cost Canada something real. Tax revenue. Regulatory leverage. Bridge income. Film-industry jobs. Border-program dollars. And every single one was received by Washington as something Canada should have been doing for free. A concession that costs you more than it costs the other side is not a bargain. It is a handover. From your workers to their bottom line.
Seventy percent of Canadians understand this. An Abacus Data poll found nearly seven in ten want Ottawa to hold firm, even if it means more economic pain. Only one in five wants further concessions. David Coletto, the pollster, said it straight: “The mindset of most Canadians right now is one where there is little appetite for anything perceived as giving in.” The working people of Canada are reading this situation clearer than their government. They can see that holding firm might hurt in the short term, but giving ground is hurting right now, and nothing is coming back.
The provincial premiers see it too. Several of them are refusing to drop the alcohol bans their provinces placed on American products. Those bans hit U.S. producers in their distribution channels and retail margins. They are one of the few cards Canada holds that actually costs Washington something. Washington wants Ottawa to override the provinces and force compliance. That is not about beer and wine. That is about whether Canada’s own local governments get to keep the leverage they have — a sovereignty question dressed up as a trade dispute.
I spent four years in an Abrams tank with the Third Infantry Division. You learn something about smaller forces facing larger ones — if you give away your positions before the other side has paid anything for them, you have given away the only advantage you had. Carney gave away Canada’s positions one at a time. Washington watched each one go for free, and the next demand got bigger. That is not how you deal with a larger power. That is how you train one to keep asking.
There is a pattern every shop owner has seen. The guy who keeps cutting his price to hold a customer who is going to walk anyway, until there is nothing left to cut. That is what Carney has been doing. The better option was right there. Seventy percent of the country was naming it. Hold the line. Accept the short-term pain. Make Washington bear a cost for squeezing you. The government chose concession after concession instead, and the working people of Canada paid the difference.
The question ahead of the August 19 deadline is not whether Canada should negotiate. Of course it should. The question is whether to negotiate as a country with something to offer or as a country asking permission to keep what it already has. The working people of Canada — the steelworkers, the film crews, the small business owners in border towns watching their margins disappear — already know which they would choose. Their government needs to catch up.