Canada’s government has decided to fight the Trump administration at every turn, and according to a commentary published in American Thinker, the strategy could end up costing Canadians far more than it costs Washington. The piece, written by Silvio Canto Jr. and quoting at length from Victor Davis Hanson, lays out a case that the Carney government’s posture toward the United States is less a matter of principle than of political performance — and that the bill is already coming due.
The commentary opens with a blunt framing: what do you do when you hate an American president as much as the Canadian political class seems to? Canto’s answer, as sketched in the piece, is that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has chosen to fight Trump “at all costs,” even when the cost includes damage to Canada’s own economy. He describes the mood north of the border as saturated with anti-Trump sentiment, and characterizes the governing class as using that sentiment to justify its own existence rather than to address Canada’s underlying problems of high taxes and heavy regulation.
The ‘Elbows Up’ Strategy and Its Costs
The piece borrows heavily from Hanson’s assessment, which paints a picture of a country in the grip of a fierce anti-American turn. According to the passage quoted, Canadians now boo “The Star-Spangled Banner,” tout an “elbows up” policy aimed at stopping U.S. “aggression,” and fill social media with talk of new ways to hurt American interests. Hanson’s verdict, as quoted in the commentary, is that roughly three-quarters of the country has bought into what he calls Carney’s fantasies, and that hating America has become a kind of national pastime.
From there, the commentary lists what it presents as five reasons the approach will not end well for Canada. The first is that the United States is not actually the source of Canada’s difficulties. Rather, the argument goes, America has effectively subsidized Canadian domestic policy choices for years while Canada’s own socialist and globalist policies did the real damage. The piece insists that the United States would prefer a strong Canadian partner, militarily and economically, rather than a weakened one lashing out from a position of insecurity.
The second reason concerns American public opinion. So far, the commentary concedes, most Americans have been indifferent to the spat. But as North American media coverage reveals the extent of anti-American sentiment in Canada, the piece argues, that indifference is giving way to anger — anger directed at what it calls cheap politicking and at a prime minister it says has fanned animus for his own benefit.
Isolation Abroad, Exposure at Home
The third point is about allies. For all his globalist background and internationalist gestures, the commentary contends, Carney stands alone on the world stage. Europe may applaud his defiance, according to the piece, but it has no appetite to join an anti-American campaign. When the United States insisted on symmetrical trade terms, the commentary notes, only communist China and Canada responded with counter-tariffs — a pairing that the piece treats as telling rather than flattering.
The fourth reason is the asymmetry of the relationship itself, and here the commentary turns to hard numbers. Canada relies on the United States for 72 percent of its exports, while America relies on Canada for only 15 percent of its own. That imbalance, the piece argues, makes Canada far more vulnerable if the fight continues. It also cites recent labor market figures: last month, even before the full effect of new tariffs was felt, Canada lost 42,000 jobs while the United States gained 160,000. Those numbers, as presented in the commentary, are meant to show where the pain is actually landing.
The fifth point looks ahead to the negotiating table. Because Carney walked out at the last minute, according to the commentary, it will fall to him to resume talks — especially as the damage to Canadian workers and small businesses deepens. But if he seeks to restart negotiations right after the Canadian provincial elections and the U.S. midterms, the piece argues, he will be exposed as a disingenuous politician who manufactured the fight to manipulate both Canadian and American balloting for himself and his party.
Should that happen, the commentary warns, Carney may find that what it calls the American friendship train has left the station. It also suggests he will learn that China treats obsequious outreach from Western “middle powers” as weakness to exploit rather than generosity to return.
A Message for Washington: Do Nothing
Toward the end, the commentary broadens its aim. All politics is local, it allows — but sometimes it is “loco” too, or crazy. The list of grievances it attributes to Canadian leaders runs from wrecked defenses and a diminished navy to a country that has made itself less attractive to foreign investment. It also mentions dairy, framing the dispute as one in which Trump simply wants Midwest dairy farmers to get a better deal, and mocks the idea that Canada should be outraged by reminders that it cannot defend itself.
As Carney travels from place to place, the commentary observes, plants are closing and a sense of malaise is spreading. Its prescription for the United States is notably minimalist: do nothing. Let the prime minister make a fool of himself pretending the European Union is going to save or defend Canada, the piece advises. Let him get close to China and pretend that a small economy like Canada’s is going to impress Beijing.
The closing line is personal rather than analytical. Canto writes that he expected better from Carney, then adds that Trump derangement syndrome will turn the smartest man into the dumbest one.
It is worth being clear about what this is: a pointed opinion piece, not a neutral accounting of the U.S.-Canada relationship. The claims about booing anthems and social media braggadocio are characterizations, and the five-part argument is exactly that — an argument. Still, the economic figures it leans on are the kind that tend to define how this dispute is judged over time. A trade relationship in which one partner sends 72 percent of its exports south and the other sends 15 percent north is not symmetrical, and no amount of political theater changes the arithmetic. If the commentary is right that negotiations will eventually have to resume, the question may be less about who wins the shouting match and more about which leader can afford to wait longer. On that score, the piece has a clear answer, and it is not the one Carney’s most enthusiastic supporters would want to hear.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/carney-pushes-canada-over-the-edge/