“This isn’t the end of anything,” said Christopher Ragan, the emeritus McGill University economist and author of Canada’s most widely used postsecondary economics textbook. “It’s the beginning of another policy tantrum from Donald Trump. He wanted a political win and didn’t get it. And the question now may be: If he can’t deal with little Canada, what can he do? But this shows we’re not prepared to cave to American pressure.”
Prof. Ragan said this episode may be a symbolic turn to a world in which countries everywhere grow more protectionist.
“If you care about your industries and supply chains, you may have to pay an economic price,” he said. “If we’re going to diversify our trade away from the U.S., there may be a price to pay. But it may lead to more economic security for us all.”
“Canada is not our enemy − any suggestion otherwise is ridiculous,“ Republican Governor Phil Scott of Vermont said. “At a time of growing economic and geopolitical uncertainty, the United States should be strengthening this partnership, not weakening it.”
Read the whole article by David Shribman at the Globe and Mail.