Why This Tariff War? – ‘Trump personally loathes Canada, a nation most of the world stereotypes as “nice.” Obviously not every Canadian is a nice person. But Canadians are relatively courteous on average, and the country’s social and economic policies are relatively decent by international standards.’ – Long-time U.S. newspaper columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman
A Commentary by Paul Krugman, a U.S. citizen, a former long-time columnist for The New York Times and Nobel Prize winning economist
Posted March 4th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
U..S. columnist and Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman
It seems clear to me that Trump hates Canada for (its) decency.
To be fair, there are some efforts to explain what’s happening that go beyond Trump’s personal pathology.
Some Canadians think Trump covets their mineral wealth. And there’s always the possibility that Trump knows how big Canada looks on standard maps, unaware both of the way that its land area is exaggerated by the Mercator projection [ https://substack.com/redirect/71ed15f2-0f03-447f-8140-4a5a621f61d7?j=eyJ1IjoiM3g4b3BsIn0.gTyF7RtVaWrg4_JLvD63hvYzJPuyQCsAk-UibLfp0Ec ] and the fact that much of it is tundra, and thinks, “Real estate!”
Trump also goes on about Canada’s trade surplus with the United States, which he keeps saying is $200 billion a year — it’s actually less than a third that size. And nobody has offered a coherent justification for his claim that when Canada sells us cheap oil and electricity, we are somehow subsidizing them.
Trump and his MAGA supporters and team of vile miscreants in the White House are burning with hatred for Canada.
In any case, efforts to find some kind of economic justification for Trump’s Canada-hatred have the feeling of desperate efforts to avoid the obvious. Canada is a pretty decent place, as nations go. And Trump, whom nobody would describe as a decent person, dislikes and maybe even fears people who are.
I mean, look at the people Trump has chosen to play prominent roles in his administration. I guess if you search hard enough you can find officials without a sex scandal, a financial scandal, a history of anti-semitism or racism, or a record of substance abuse in a senior position. But it isn’t easy.
It really looks as if being vile is a fundamental job qualification.
And so we’re having a trade war.
Trump appears to believe that we don’t need anything from Canada. Automobile manufacturers who rely on Canadian parts, Midwestern oil refineries that rely on Canadian oil, builders who rely on Canadian lumber, households that rely on Canadian hydropower for their electricity will soon learn otherwise.
Trump may imagine that he can bully Canada into submission.
But he can’t; Canadians of all political persuasions are furious. Doug Ford, the conservative premier of Ontario, has the right atttitude: he has threatened to cut off U.S. electricity “with a smile on my face [ https://substack.com/redirect/fff2ff4a-b30d-4729-8e27-066eeb616b97?j=eyJ1IjoiM3g4b3BsIn0.gTyF7RtVaWrg4_JLvD63hvYzJPuyQCsAk-UibLfp0Ec ].”
And remember that Canada can’t concede to U.S. demands, even if it were in a mood to do so (which it very much isn’t) because there aren’t any coherent U.S. demands; Canada has done nothing wrong!
So I don’t know how this ends. But U.S. voters will soon be feeling real pain, and I very much doubt that it will end in a Trump victory.
Trump personally loathes Canada, a nation most of the world stereotypes as “nice.”
Obviously not every Canadian is a nice person. But Canadians are relatively courteous on average, and the country’s social and economic policies are relatively decent by international standards.
And (again), it seems clear to me that Trump hates them for their decency.
View the full text of this post on the web at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-hates-canada-for-its-decency
A Footnote from Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – Stand Up For Canada by Buying Canadian and Boycotting the U.S.A.
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