Trump’s Tariffs Will Make America Expensive Again

Posted on 2025/02/03 by J.W.J. Bowden

Trump admires William McKinley and his high tariffs

Protectionism Is Cool Again

Donald Trump promised to cry havoc in November 2024 as President-elect, and he hath now as President let loose the dogs of tradewar. Trump had denounced the tradedeficit between Canada and the United States, which have occurred under the trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico that he negotiated during his first non-consecutive term.[1] But the Doctrine of Trumpian Infallibility dictates that he somehow bears no responsibility for the trade agreement that he initiated and secured eight years ago and which he now finds bad.

NAFTA was always NAFTA in English, ALÉNA en français, and TLCAN en español, but this newer trade agreement that Trump forced in his first term reflects the post-truth era of caprice and stupidity in which we live, because we cannot agree on something as basic as the name of this trilateral agreement. Canada in English calls it “The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)”, while in Washington the agreement identifies itself as “The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.” The trilateral international Secretariat charged with administering the treaty between the three countries also gives it different names in English, French, and Spanish. In English, “The Agreement” identifies as both the “Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) / United States-Mexica-Canada Agreement (USMCA).” The Mexicans call it El Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (T-MEC), simply “The Treaty between Mexico, the United States, and Canada.” And Canada also calls it in French by Accord Canada – États-Unis – Mexique – a direct translation of the Canadian English name shorn of the preposition which elegantly marks the Spanish, which surprises me given the prevailing pedantry that French-speakers usually show toward their language.

On 1 February 2025, Trump issued an executive order under Article II of the US Constitution and delegated legislation pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the National Emergencies Act, the Trade Act, and the United States Code to impose a tariff of 25% on all Canadian goods and products except energy, which he shall merely tariff at a rate of 10%, as of 4 February.

Sec. 2. (a) All articles that are products of Canada as defined by the Federal Register notice described in subsection (e) of this section (Federal Register notice), and except for those products described in subsection (b) of this section, shall be, consistent with law, subject to an additional 25 percent ad valorem rate of duty. Such rate of duty shall apply with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on February 4, 2025 […]

(b) With respect to energy or energy resources, as defined in section 8 of Executive Order 14156 of January 20, 2025 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency), and as otherwise included in the Federal Register notice, such articles that are products of Canada as defined by the Federal Register notice shall be, consistent with law, subject to an additional 10 percent ad valorem rate of duty. Such rate of duty shall apply with respect to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on February 4, 2025 […].[2]

Most ominously still, Trump issued an open declaration of tradewar and warned Canada not to retaliate, or else he might escalate the tariffs yet further:

(d) Should Canada retaliate against the United States in response to this action through import duties on United States exports to Canada or similar measures, the President may increase or expand in scope the duties imposed under this order to ensure the efficacy of this action.[3]

This executive order only applies to Canada, which presumably means that Trump will soon issue additional executive orders imposing tariffs on Mexico separately. CUSMA – I’ll use the Canadian variant of the name here, I suppose, purely because it makes a pronounceable acronym – came into effect in December 2019, shortly before the pandemic.[4] Trump has, in effect, abrogated that Treaty unilaterally, killed free trade in North America, and undone decades of good will.

And yet this is not the first time that the United States has abruptly cancelled free trade and re-imposed protectionist tariffs on Canada either. In some ways, Trump has brought the United States back to its protectionist norm.

Continue reading →

Posted in History of British North America | Leave a comment

Sorry, Steve Paikin, but Mackenzie King Is Not The Longest-Serving Prime Minister in the Commonwealth

Posted on 2025/01/23 by J.W.J. Bowden

The myth which holds that Mackenzie King holds the record of “Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister” persists. Steve Paikin has outdone himself now by going so far as to claim Mackenzie King holds the record of not merely Canada’s longest-serving Prime Minister but also as “the longest-serving Prime Minister in the history of the British Empire or Commonwealth.”

This is false for two reasons. First, “Canada” as a polity extends all the way back to 1791 and not to 1867.[1] The Imperial Parliament established Upper Canada and Lower Canada in 1791, continued and combined them into the Province of Canada in 1841, and then made the Dominion of Canada the direct continuator and successor polity to the Province of Canada in 1867. Second, “Prime Minister” and “Premier” were used interchangeably in Canada to describe the head of either a federal or provincial ministry until the mid-20th century; not until Bill Davis adopted the title of “Premier of Ontario” instead of “Prime Minister of Ontario” in 1975 did the modern distinction between the federal Prime Minister and provincial Premiers emerge.[2] What we today call provincial premiers in Canada and state premiers in Australia should also count in the calculation of the “longest-serving prime minister in the history of British Empire or Commonwealth” because federated polities also matter.

And we must not forget the former British Crown colonies in the Pacific and Caribbean which achieved responsible government and gained independence as Commonwealth Realms in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, because they also count as and have made contributions to “the history of the British Empire and Commonwealth.” I have defined Paikin’s phrase to include only the properly democratic Commonwealth Realms and parliamentary republics within the Commonwealth of Nations. On that basis I exclude Fiji because of its multiple coups and suspensions from the Commonwealth of Nations, but I have kept Grenada in the dataset because it suffered one bloodless Marxist coup and then restored itself as a Realm under its original constitution four years later after the United States invaded and deposed the Marxist usurpers. I have also excluded Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew’s continuous premiership of 31 years from 1959 to 1990 because I share Freedom House’s doubts on that country’s liberal democratic bona fides. I have also excluded Ireland because it withdrew from the Commonwealth in 1949.

Continue reading →

Posted in Caribbean Realms, Comparative, History of British North America | 1 Comment

Why John Turner “Had No Option”

Posted on 2025/01/08 by J.W.J. Bowden

My hard copy of the latest issue of the Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law arrived in the mail yesterday – delayed, presumably, by the Newmans of the postal strike – including my article on why John Turner sincerely believed that he “had no option” in 1984. Our 2025 seems poised to become another Year of Three Prime Ministers like 1993, 1984, and 1896. (1926 gave us three ministries but only two prime ministers).

Continue reading →

Posted in Appointment of PM, Caretaker Convention & Government Formation, Confidence Convention, Constitutional Conventions, Crown (Powers and Office), My Published Works | 2 Comments

Justin Trudeau Had an Epiphany and Endorsed My Doctrine on Prorogation

Posted on 2025/01/06 by J.W.J. Bowden

CPAC cut off the rest of footage showing the rest of the papers blowing away before Trudeau emerged, but this portion at least remained visible as perhaps a bad omen equivalent to Rishi Sunak’s speech in the rain in 2024.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the Prime Minister gave to me his second tactical prorogation and endorsed what I had written in 2011.

Introduction

At around 10:45 on the morning of 6 January 2025 – the Feast of Epiphany and the Day of the Three Kings – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed that he had grappled with a personal epiphany of sorts over the weekend and announced that he had advised Her Excellency Mary Simon to prorogue the 1st session of the 44th Parliament until 24 March 2025 because he intended to resign as leader of the Liberal Party and as Prime Minister and wanted to give the Liberal Party time to hold a leadership election during the intersession.[1] The press had begun to report on 5 January that Trudeau would resign before meeting the Liberal caucus on Wednesday, 8 January,[2] because the Liberal parliamentary party’s regional caucuses for the Atlantic, Quebec, and Ontario had already all publicly announced over the holidays that Trudeau should resign.[3] The Liberals elected so few MPs west of Thunder Bay in 2021, but Ben Carr, MP for Winnipeg South Centre and chair of PROC, had also called upon Trudeau to resign.[4] All this turmoil followed Chrystia Freeland’s spectacular resignation as Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister on 16 December 2024, where she accused Trudeau in an open letter of pursuing “costly political gimmicks” in the face of President-elect Trump’s threats to impose tariffs against Canada.[5]

Continue reading →

Posted in Crown (Powers and Office), Prorogation | 3 Comments

My New Article on Canadian Sub-Imperialism in the Commonwealth Caribbean 

Posted on 2024/12/27 by J.W.J. Bowden

The Canadian Foreign Policy Journal pleasantly surprised me on 18 December by publishing the electronic version of my article “From Sea to Sea to the Caribbean Sea: Canadian Sub-Imperialism in the British West Indies and Commonwealth Caribbean, 1917-2014.” I had forgotten that Taylor and Francis’s journals tend to publish an article online separately before releasing it as part of its main issue in print and online later.

Now safely concealed within the fortress of Taylor and Francis, I can only provide a brief overview of the project.

Continue reading →

Posted in Caribbean Realms, Commonwealth Realms, Comparative, My Published Works | Leave a comment