By Anthony Joseph

Canada has found itself in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the United States; Washington being the cat, and Canada the mouse. The latest threat is another 50 per cent tariff on billions of dollars’ worth of Canadian exports.

For more than a year, Canada has lived with tariff threats, changing deadlines and economic uncertainty from our largest trading partner.

Washington cannot expect to impose tariffs on Canadian industries and then warn Canada against defending itself. We cannot sit quietly while another country damages our businesses and threatens our workers because we are afraid of making the American president angry.

As we say in Trinidad, we cannot simply sit down and take blows.

Canada has demonstrated something important: that it is stronger than many people thought. Our steel, aluminum, automotive, lumber and other industries have been hit. Yet Canada is still standing.

Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada is dependent on the United States for its existence. But this is not an imaginary line. It is an international border between two sovereign countries.

Canada does not exist because the United States allows us to exist. We are Canadians because generations of people built this country. Indigenous peoples were here long before either Canada or the United States existed. Generations of immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America and around the world then helped build the modern Canada we know today. We have our own institutions, values, culture and identity.

We don’t have an American Dream. We have a Canadian dream. An important part of that dream today is remaining Canadian. That doesn’t mean hating America. Americans are our neighbours, friends and relatives. Millions of ordinary Americans probably dislike this trade war as much as Canadians do. But friendship requires respect.

Canada has enormous resources: oil, natural gas, uranium, potash, lumber, water, critical minerals, agricultural products and hydroelectricity. For decades, the United States has benefited enormously from having a stable, resource-rich country on its northern border.

This trade war should wake us up. Instead of spending our energy wondering what Trump will do next, Canada should ask a different question: What can Canada do for itself?

We need infrastructure allowing Canadian resources and products to reach Canadian consumers and world markets without automatically passing through the United States.

That means pipelines where appropriate, ports, rail, roads, electricity transmission, refineries, manufacturing facilities, critical-mineral processing and east-west trade corridors.

Imagine thousands of Canadian steelworkers producing pipe and construction materials. Imagine workers across Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, British Columbia and Atlantic Canada simultaneously building the infrastructure required to connect this enormous country.

Instead of exporting raw materials and buying back finished products, manufacture more here. Canadian steel should build Canadian infrastructure. Canadian aluminum should go into Canadian products. Canadian energy should power Canadian industry. Canadian minerals should feed Canadian manufacturing. And Canadian workers should receive the paycheques.

We must also dramatically expand trade with Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the rest of the world. Prime Minister Mark Carney has made the point that Canada has what the world needs. He is right. But having what the world needs means little if we cannot get it to the world. That should become Canada’s great national project.

There is also something larger at stake than economics. Canadians must ask ourselves what kind of country we want. Our system isn’t perfect. Our health-care system needs improvement. We have crime, housing problems, poverty and inequality. But there are things about Canada worth defending.

We believe getting sick should not destroy a family’s finances. We believe disagreements should normally be settled without firearms. Maybe that experience stayed with me because I am Canadian. I don’t want to live in a society where carrying a gun into a restaurant feels ordinary.

We believe diversity is part of our national character. And we believe people can arrive here from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, India, China, Nigeria, Ukraine or anywhere else and become fully Canadian.

That doesn’t make Canada superior to Americans. It makes Canada different. And we have every right to remain different.

If Washington imposes another 50 per cent tariff, Canada should negotiate seriously and intelligently. We should prefer an agreement to an unnecessary trade war. But negotiations cannot be conducted on our knees.

Canada should prepare proportionate countermeasures where strategically useful. We should favour Canadian suppliers, strengthen interprovincial trade, diversify exports and accelerate infrastructure that reduces dependence on a single customer.

Retaliation should not be about anger. It should be about leverage.

Canada has spent too many decades assuming the United States would always be our safest market, closest ally and most dependable economic partner. That is why Prime Minister Carney has said we must deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.

The American people are not our enemy. They remain our neighbours, relatives, customers and friends. Our disagreement is with policies coming from Washington that threaten Canadian jobs, industries and economic sovereignty.

We should not destroy a relationship that has benefited both countries for generations. But neither should we mortgage our sovereignty to preserve it. But if America chooses to go it alone, that is America’s choice. Canada’s choice must be Canada.

Build the pipelines. Build the ports. Build the railways. Build the factories. Remove the barriers between provinces. Develop new markets. Buy Canadian whenever practical. Turn our resources into finished products here at home. And stop behaving as though Canada’s survival depends upon Washington’s approval.

The United States may be the big cat. But Canada is no mouse. We are more than 40 million people living in one of the most resource-rich countries on Earth. We have food, energy, minerals, water, technology, institutions and human talent. What we need now is the confidence to use them.

The coming years may be difficult. Industries may need assistance, and workers will need our support. But Canada has been tested before. We will survive Donald Trump’s tariffs too.

The real question is whether we merely survive, or whether this becomes the moment Canada finally recognizes its own strength.

It is time to stop playing cat and mouse. It is time for Canada to stand up as a nation.

Anthony Joseph is the publisher of The Caribbean Camera newspaper. He writes on politics, culture, and the intersection of race and democracy in Canada.       

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