Elbows up: How Canadians are fighting back against Trump’s tariffs

Replacing Californian tomatoes with Italian tomatoes. Ohio-made pepperoni with meats produced in Ontario and Quebec. Coca Cola with sparkling water, sweetened with Canadian maple syrup.

At the end of January, as US President Donald Trump ramped up threats to annex Canada and wreck its economy with tariffs, Graham Palmateer, who runs a pizza joint in Toronto’s west end, told his customers he’d be making some swaps to his fridges and shelves: no more products produced in the United States, or by American companies.

“At one point I just figured, that’s enough, I’m going to do this,” Palmateer, the owner of Gram’s Pizza, told CNN.

An unfamiliar emotion has been brewing in normally polite Canada: anger.

Since Trump first threatened to enact sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports and began referring to the US’ northern neighbor as the 51st state, animosity toward the US and its leader has been mounting.

Canadians have canceled vacations south of the border and loudly booed “The Star-Spangled Banner” at sports events. An ice hockey game between the two countries last month quickly turned into a geopolitical event as players on both sides threw fists.

Others, like Palmateer, have boycotted US products – not always an easy task in a country that has been economically tied to its southern neighbor for decades, with trade exceeding $760 billion last year.

Trump’s targeting of Canada has given rise to a rare moment of unity in a country that just months ago was facing a political crisis as the public’s frustrations over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership reached boiling point, prompting the longtime leader to announce his resignation.

Trump’s actions have fueled a surge in Canadian patriotism and disrupted the country’s politics in an election year, giving a surprising boost to the floundering ruling Liberal Party and forcing opposition Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre – long considered a shoo-in for Canada’s next prime minister – to rethink his messaging.

“We, as Canadians, we don’t go out and try to create fights,” said Torontonian Dylan Lobo, who runs online directory Made in Canada, which has seen a surge in traffic in recent months as Canadians look to support domestic brands in response to Trump’s threats.

“It’s an attack on Canada,” he said.

Canadians boycott US products
After months of warnings, Trump on Tuesday slapped 25% tariffs on nearly all Canadian goods, sending markets plummeting and driving Canada-US relations to a new low.

Almost immediately, Canadian leader Trudeau responded with matching tariffs on 30 billion Canadian dollars ($20.8 billion) worth of American goods, with potentially more to come.

“Canadians are reasonable and we are polite but we will not back down from a fight — not when our country and the well-being of everyone in it is at stake,” Trudeau said Tuesday.

Trump said he told Trudeau on a Wednesday telephone call that the Canadian leader hadn’t done enough to curb fentanyl crossing the border — despite the minuscule amount that arrives in the US from its northern neighbor. Trump suggested after the call — which he said “ended in a ‘somewhat’ friendly manner” — that the outgoing Trudeau could be using the tariff issue to “stay in power.”

Later in the week, the US president announced brief reprieves from the tariffs for automakers, and for goods that fall under the North American free trade agreement negotiated during Trump’s first term, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

But for many, the two months of back-and-forth with Trump on tariffs have irreparably damaged ties.

“The relationship has been changed forever,” British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters this week.

“We’ve got friends, family and relationships that have gone back for generations across the border. We love our American family members,” he added. But Canadians “will never again put ourselves in the position of being so dependent on the United States.”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump’s repeated threats against Canada – punctuated by him mockingly referring to Trudeau as “governor” – have struck a nerve in the country, America’s longtime friend and ally.