As Trump’s tariff threat looms, what would a US-Canada ‘trade war’ mean?
Al JazeeraExperts say 25-percent US tariffs along with retaliatory measures by Canada would hurt economies of both countries. “Twenty-five-percent tariffs on everything going to the United States would be devastating to the Canadian economy.” Michael Davenport, an economist at Oxford Economics, said in a late November report that blanket 25-percent US tariffs, combined with proportional retaliatory measures by the Canadian government, would push Canada into a recession in 2025. “Canada’s energy, auto, and other heavy manufacturing sectors would be hardest hit by the blanket US tariffs because of the high degree of cross-border trade in these industries,” the report said. An October report for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Business Data Lab noted that Canada is the primary export market for 34 US states — making them “surprisingly dependent on Canadian trade”. Davenport, the Oxford Economics economist, echoed that in his report, saying that blanket tariffs would harm the US economy and the US-Canada trade relationship, and “directly fly in the face of the USCMA”.