Donald Trump’s tariff wallop demonstrates the brute power of an imperial

As promised, United States President Donald Trump has imposed punishing tariffs on all exports from Canada and Mexico, leading to retaliatory tariffs from Canada.

Canada’s closest ally has torn up the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal negotiated only seven years ago. The rationale behind what the Wall Street Journal editorial board has called “the dumbest trade war in history” isn’t even clear.

The pessimistic view is that if Canada doesn’t give Trump everything he wants, he will bulldoze the country with more tariffs, sanctions on banks, enhanced border inspections and even a travel ban — everything he recently threatened to do to Colombia.

Canada’s political class is scrambling because the U.S. has long been a cultural sibling and an economic partner. But now it is toxic, threatening and untrustworthy. Will Canada sign another trade deal with Trump in office? The chances recede the longer the tariffs remain in place.

Iron-fisted

It’s never been more clear that Trump is obsessive, seldom a bluffer and always iron-fisted. He seems to have planned and executed this tariff bomb to cause maximum pain and chaos. Now he says the European Union is next on his list.

Trump is counting on his new majorities in U.S. Congress to ram through his radical right populist agenda, forcing other countries to play a role in his melodrama.

In response to Trump’s charge that the U.S. subsidizes Canadian trade, former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper pointed out that half of America’s imported oil comes from Canada, and its price is significantly discounted due to a lack of pipeline capacity. “It’s actually Canada that subsidizes the United States in this regard,” Harper said.

Nevertheless, Trump’s preferred foreign policy tactic is to hit first with economic sanctions and negotiate later. With his near total grip on U.S. government, he can now achieve all his aims through tariffs.

Read more:
Canada-U.S. tariff war: How it will impact different products and industries

The imperial presidency

Trump’s vision for his imperial presidency is organized around an old idea: the revenue tariff. Before income taxes, border tariffs were the primary source of income for government. But back then, government did a lot less.

For example, America’s 19th-century navy of wooden sailing ships was purchased with tariffs. But it would be impossible to fund modern-day health care, student loans and $13 billion aircraft carriers with tariff revenues.

A recent study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics shows the math doesn’t add up. Tariffs are levied on imported goods and are worth about US$3 trillion. American income tax is levied on incomes and are worth more than US$20 trillion. Government would have to be much smaller, and tariffs would have to be so high they would choke American trade, for tariffs to make economic sense.

And yet Trump has a broad mandate. In the summer of 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that presidents require a broadly defined “presumptive immunity from prosecution for … official acts.”

This decision has given Trump the legal clout to force the entire federal government to answer to the president himself.

Read more:
US Supreme Court immunity ruling ideal for a president who doesn’t care about democracy

War against democracy

Trump is using his vast new mandate to wage multiple wars simultaneously. These wars against the guardrails of liberal democracy require the punishment of his enemies inside his own party.

Read more:
Canada should be preparing for the end of American democracy

Republicans who have voted against Trump legislation during his first term faced high-profile challenges in the primaries as he funded their opponents. Today, the war is waged against those who are insufficiently loyal, including the highest ranks of the Coast Guard and the FBI.

The war against the administrative state involves the mass firing of independent inspectors, federal lawyers and thousands of civil servants to be replaced by foot soldiers personally loyal to the leader.

The Trump administration has sent out “deferred resignation” notices…