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The White House has threatened its foe Iran with a crushing “economic D-Day” in a bid to bring to Tehran to its knees – so what are we make of its imposition of 50% tariffs on Canada, a neighbour and traditional ally?
Siobhán Vipond, Executive Vice President of the Canadian Labour Congress, which speaks for more than 3 million workers, sees a common thread. “We are in an economic war”, she declares in an interview with the Byline Times Podcast. Whilst acknowledging that Canada isn’t under military threat, Vipond believes President Trump’s aim is similar – to force its erstwhile friend into submission and undermine its sovereignty.
“This is an economic attack on Canada,” she asserts. “He wants our soft lumber. He wants our water. He wants our oil and gas. He wants all of these natural resources that we have in Canada, seeing it as a market he can control and buy.” But, Vipond warns, Canadians are willing to make sacrifices to fight back, despite warnings that the tariffs might cost 90,000 jobs. “The only proper response to a bully is to push back, and the only proper response to someone who is trying to have a war with your country, economically or otherwise, is to push back, and find the allies that are going to be there, because this has to be about Canadians, Canadian workers, and our communities.”
The latest round of tariffs was triggered by Canadian PM Mark Carney’s decision to withdraw from negotiations last weekend. He said that US trade officials “asked too much, and they offered too little.” As a result, some $20 billion worth of goods – around 5% of Canada’s exports to the US – now face 50% tariffs encompassing wine, dairy products, clothing, hockey equipment and even cement. Carney has warned of “dollar for dollar” retaliation, and the sale of US liquor brands such as Jack Daniel's has already been banned in many Canadian provinces. ‘Made in Canada’ signs are prominently displayed at grocery stores, and Vipond says that consumers are taking unilateral action by refusing to buy American produce. Tourism, she adds, is also being hit by an unofficial boycott: “Canadians are saying ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do it.’ We don’t want them to go out of business, especially smaller B&Bs or campsites, but people just don’t want to travel to the United States.”
As part of the negotiations, US trade negotiators had been seeking to restrict Canada’s freedom to strike trade deals with other nations. “I mean, that’s the definition of an abusive relationship – that ‘we can be your only friend’” observes Vipond. The US also wanted to dilute requirements for its exporters to label goods in French as well as English – a clause which struck at the heart of Canada’s bilingual identity. “Our people in Canada deserve respect, and he wanted to have a say in laws that were made in Canada. That’s not how sovereignty works. That is foreign interference in the most blatant way. There’s no way we could have supported a signing of an agreement like that.”
As a trade unionist, Vipond is well aware of the downsides of globalisation; moving manufacturing offshore can cost jobs as well as reducing workers’ rights and pay. But she warns that the clock can’t simply be turned back, especially when companies have learned to operate efficiently across borders. “People are maybe not aware of how connected we are,” she says. “A car can cross the border a dozen times before it is completed, right? So when you’re pushing back and saying ‘it has to be made in America’ what does that mean? We’re decades into a strong global economy that depends on trade, and so trying to build these walls around our economy and bring everything back home doesn’t seem real. The employers are global employers. How we trade things is global.”
Canada has been developing a series of major transport and energy infrastructure projects to reduce its reliance on the US and further distance itself from the notion that it is the 51st state in all but name. Vipond says: “ We have a lot of natural resources here. We have a lot of really strong industries, and so looking for partners and continuing to grow is the right step. It does mean we have hard times in front of us, and we as the labour movement are looking to make sure that any investments have a positive impact on workers, because the communities affected by any of this should be the ones that are going to get our support.
“The world wants to invest in Canada because we are a fairly stable country, and we have a lot to offer. And so that’s the path we’re going to go down – and that’s going to be good for our members, but it’s going to be good for all workers and communities in Canada.”
Listen to Adrian Goldberg’s full interview with Siobhán Vipond here