From maple syrup to visas, America’s relationship with Canada reaches far beyond diplomatic agreements. Strategic political and economic decisions have helped us coexist with our northern neighbor, benefiting citizens on both sides of the world’s longest unprotected border. Recent executive orders have the potential to damage our relationship with our longest-standing ally.
Historically, Canada has been one of the United States’ strongest trading partners; political trust and reduced shipping costs created a convenient opportunity for high-volume reciprocal trade. “Canada is vital to the US economy; losing trading opportunities with them would significantly deteriorate the US’s economy,” junior Alex McClintock said. One strong incentive for our strategic partnership with Canada was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In 1994, NAFTA was implemented to increase North American trade by reducing tariffs and barriers to trade to minimize consumer prices and promote international investment.
In 2020, President Trump negotiated the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) as a replacement for NAFTA, modernizing the trade landscape over specific issues regarding digital technologies and environmental standards. As it stands, we have placed a 25% blanket tariff on all Canadian imports—increasing prices particularly in the energy and lumber sectors. USMCA protects certain domestic industries such as agriculture and automobiles from tariffs, promoting continental trade over international outsourcing. However, Alex fears these protections might not be enough.
“If Trump continues pushing tariffs on Mexico and Canada, they could look to other countries for trade, ignoring American industry and deeply harming our economy,” Alex said. With Trump in office, policy shifts come at increasingly spontaneous times. He has even threatened to leave NATO over the unequal distribution of payments.
“Even threatening to withdraw creates uncertainty and sends a questionable message to American allies. It also weakens the whole alliance structure, seeing as the United States is, arguably, the most influential member of the organization,” Social Science instructor Kevin Guay said. In addition to his economic choices, Trump’s political attitude towards Canada has been quite hostile; on multiple occasions, he’s claimed to be considering annexing it as America’s 51st State.
“I think this threat to Canada’s sovereignty paints America in a negative light on the national stage and might lead to distrust from some of our allies,” junior Finlay Sutherland said. Ideas like this have strongly damaged America’s international reputation, with a CityNews-Ledger March Poll finding that 78% of Canadians are concerned with Trump’s rhetoric. Are these aggressive economic and political actions for benefit in the short term worth destabilizing decades of peaceful coexistence with our friendliest neighbor?
