{"id":182093,"date":"2026-08-25T10:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/182093\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T10:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T10:41:10","slug":"canadians-are-fighting-for-their-sovereignty-americans-dont-even-realize-theyre-in-a-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/182093\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadians are fighting for their sovereignty. Americans don\u2019t even realize they\u2019re in a war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about the trade dispute with the U.S. at the Davie Shipyard in Levis, Que., on Monday.ANDREJ IVANOV\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Most Americans are dozing through the unveiling of the newest, dumbest front in the trade war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump. The majority, in fact, don\u2019t even know they are at war, much less what Mr. Trump and his convoy of obsequious votaries are fighting for. <\/p>\n

According to a recent report<\/a> prepared for the New North American Initiative at the University of Calgary, only 31 per cent of Americans surveyed in the spring believe the bilateral relationship between Canada and the U.S. is negative, compared to 81 per cent of Canadians. Roughly eight per cent of Americans think Canada poses a major economic challenge to the U.S., whereas 77 per cent of Canadians think the U.S. poses a major threat to us. <\/p>\n

That was evident in the disparity in coverage of the Friday night breakdown in talks between Canada and the U.S. over Mr. Trump\u2019s then-looming, now-implemented 50-per-cent tariffs. In Canada, the coverage was wall-to-wall, and it included a Saturday morning media address by Prime Minister Mark Carney, who said the Americans \u201casked too much and offered too little\u201d in negotiations. The Prime Minister said Canada is in a trade war simply because we \u201cgot attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Coyne: The U.S. isn\u2019t negotiating trade with Canada. This is a shakedown<\/a><\/p>\n

In the U.S., by contrast, the rupture between the once-closest of allies was just one news story among many. On Sunday, Mr. Trump farted out a Truth Social post about how \u201cCanada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!!\u201d and then let another one slip on Monday that threatened to raise auto and steel tariffs to 50 per cent in January (steel tariffs, he should probably know, are already at 50 per cent). The breakdown in talks was a segment on Fox News, but so too was Meghan Markle\u2019s return to Britain and the promise of new developments in the war in Iran. After all, the U.S. still has other, similarly dumb wars to worry about. <\/p>\n

Americans aren\u2019t paying attention because they don\u2019t have to. Not yet, anyway. Fifty-per-cent tariffs on $28-billion worth of goods won\u2019t rock their economy on a national scale the same way it will in Canada (though it may be a different story in certain border states). Indeed, they very clearly have the economic upper hand. But Canadians have something equally as valuable, and perhaps, far more enduring: a reason for fighting back. A reason for fighting at all. <\/p>\n

This trade war was about sovereignty the moment Mr. Trump mused about making Canada the 51st state \u2013 when he threatened to use economic coercion to fulfil his 17th-century imperialist dreams. According to Mr. Carney, American negotiators attempted to slip in unreasonable conditions at the 11th hour of negotiations: language restricting Canada\u2019s ability to sign other trade deals, for example, and French-labelling requirements on products. As reported by the Globe<\/a> Monday, the U.S. also tried to coerce Canada to drop CanCon requirements for streamers, which is an issue about which Canadians can and should debate. It is not, however, something that foreign powers can demand of Canada in order to avoid punishing and unreasonable tariffs. <\/p>\n

Editorial: Canada\u2019s sovereignty is not negotiable<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada is fighting for its sovereignty. Americans are fighting for\u2026 more expensive cans of Coke? (Coca-Cola imports some of its aluminum for its cans from Canada, which is now subject to a 50-per-cent tariff.) Higher-priced groceries? (Though Mr. Trump recently got spooked by the high price of beef and announced he would temporarily lower tariffs<\/a>, which angered American cattle producers.) Americans are fighting for\u2026 Canada to get its fentanyl crisis under control? To stop illegal immigration? To control wildfire smoke? To fix the trade deficit? Americans don\u2019t know, because there is no logical, satisfactory answer. The impetus for all of this is Mr. Trump\u2019s bizarre, lifelong fidelity to the concept of tariffs, which is a silly reason for sacrifice, and a bad reason to fight a war. You can\u2019t rouse a country to coddle one man\u2019s ego.<\/p>\n

In spring, when gas prices peaked to around US$4.50 per gallon, Americans became sharply critical<\/a> of Mr. Trump\u2019s gambit in Iran. The Trump administration had failed to articulate what, exactly, Americans were fighting for (it was to destroy Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities, they said, but also for oil, and for regime change, and to secure the Strait of Hormuz), and why they should accept higher prices as a result. It is in Canada\u2019s best interest that the same thing happens now, especially before midterm elections in the fall. Because Canadians have something to fight for, and they know why they are fighting. That gives us a reason to endure, which can be a salve in painful times. Many Americans, on the other hand, don\u2019t even realize a war has started. And those who do still won\u2019t know what they are fighting for. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about the trade dispute with the U.S. at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[3118,135,111,3119],"class_list":["post-182093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-column","tag-dei","tag-mark-carney","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}