Canada is treating a 5% weighted average tariff like the 82nd Airborne is invading Ottawa. They think of duty-free access to the American market as a component of Canadian sovereignty rather than a bargained-for privilege that America is free to renegotiate. I wrote for @commonplc about why Canada's perspective is flawed: 1. Canada wasn't uniquely targeted, it was included in a global policy to rebalance our trading relationships after decades of unsustainable service as the world's consumer of last resort. When we took measures to end this role, Canada got a better deal than virtually anyone else. 2. Every other country (notably including Mexico and the EU) was able to negotiate for reduced tariffs. Unlike those countries, Canada moved straight to retaliation, signed a "strategic partnership " with China, and then unilaterally broke off talks. This suggests that the Canada conflict is driven by Canada, not the US 3. What's driving Canada? Primarily a craving for the kind of grand national purpose that prosperous liberal societies - and perhaps Canada especially - aren't very good at generating. Carney and other members of the Western governing caste used to think that fighting climate change, inequality, and systemic racism might do the trick, but Trump has given them a more politically viable purpose: realignment away from the US and towards Europe. 4. Will it work? Not as a matter of trade policy. The EU is incapable of providing demand sufficient to replace what Canada could lose from the US. Canada-EU trade is already tariff-free, Canada doesn't have the infrastructure to export energy across the Atlantic, the European ag sector is too politically sensitive to open to Canada, and on manufactured goods Europe is a competitor rather than a customer for Canada. In exchange for this exciting trade opportunity, Canada will have to align with EU regulatory commitments, the most potent growth-killer in the Western world. 5. While Canada and the EU expend massive amounts of time and resources trying to extract an extra 0.1% of GDP from integrating two no-growth economies, they are sitting under a tidal wave of Chinese exports that are going to deindustrialize them both. This is the only problem that really matters, and failing to solve it obviates anything else Canada and the EU might achieve. 6. Many have made the point that this all hurts Canada far more than the US, but we should still care. Canada is unique among our trade partners because of the amount of supply chain integration we have in key industries. A weaker, poorer Canada isn't in our interest, and a Canada desperate for new commercial relationships will be likely to double-down on attracting Chinese investment. If China gets into the production system for Canadian energy, metals, critical minerals, etc. that's a huge L for the project of de-risking North American supply chains. 7. Conclusion: Canada's policy achieves the opposite of what it intends. Canada is seeking sovereignty, but it does so by degrading its chief geopolitical asset: duty-free access to the US market. That puts Canada in a position of bargaining from weakness, and that means any new relationships it forms with the EU and China will be either low-impact or extractive. Canada will become a price-taker on growth-strangling EU regulations and predatory Chinese capital, which is the opposite of sovereignty. You can't be sovereign if you're desperate.