Be Pleased at America's Greed

The Canadian Shield.

Days! I have spent days wanting to write about Canada's attempts to negotiate a reduction in these coercive tariffs. But the news kept changing: an impending deal, a different impending deal, then no deal at all. So I sat on my hands.

I want to be clear about this: These were not normal trade talks. They were attempts to ratchet down a trade war Trump started, under threat of even more tariffs. Canada was being asked to hand over lasting concessions in exchange for reducing the severity of an attack that shouldn't have existed in the first place.

We'll give you all this if you shoot a little less.

When Canada walked away and the talks fell apart, I had hoped that it had always been Carney's intent to not accomplish anything.

I'm not so sure that's true. We apparently came disturbingly close to a deal, until Trump added final text that was too much for us to take. This is vintage Trump bargaining: get close to the deadline, then demand more.

But had he not done so, we would have ended our retaliatory actions in exchange for a mere reduction in tariffs. No wonder they went after more: There was blood in the water. Canadian red.

Be pleased at America's greed. It stopped us from making a mistake.

Carney now sounds like someone who understands the problem. He says America's behaviour has called “into question the reliability of any deal.” America, he says, has changed. Washington has learned to use “economic integration as a weapon,” while its signature is “written in pencil.”

Carney also objected to a late American demand that could have restricted Canada's freedom to make trade arrangements with other countries. That isn't tariff relief. That's leverage over Canadian sovereignty.

And the actual CUSMA negotiations are still ahead of us. These weren't them. Washington is trying to collect Canadian concessions before we even reach that table. Anything we surrender now is something we cannot bargain with later.

My concern is that Carney seems to understand exactly what kind of negotiating partner this is—and yet was still prepared to make a deal on those terms.

We are at war. CUSMA is in place for another 10 years. We have time to negotiate. It's going to hurt, but this is more than a trade war. It's a fight to retain sovereignty. One that will require sacrifice on our part.

We need to remember that Trump's deadlines are not our deadlines. There is no compelling reason to accept a bad deal simply because Trump drew a line in the sand with a Sharpie.

I know that some Conservatives argue they would have had a deal last year. That we have a long-standing relationship with America that matters. That Trump won't last, so make a deal now we can renegotiate later.

This is a mistake. Yes, we may see some improvements after the midterms—assuming those aren't interfered with. Maybe Trump will be gone soon. But Trump did not invent the forces behind this. He harnessed them. The people enabling him will remain long after he is gone.

Liar, Liar, Poopy Pants on Fire

If Canada is negligent because its forests burn, then by Donald Trump’s own standard, the United States is the greater failure.

The United States has less forest than Canada, but vastly more people, money, equipment and institutional capacity with which to manage it. Yet American wildfires still burn at least as much land, on average, as Canadian wildfires do.

The numbers are not close when it comes to the resources available.

Using the same United Nations definition for both countries, Canada had approximately 346.8 million hectares of forest in 2023. The United States had about 309.8 million hectares. Canada therefore has approximately 37 million more hectares of forest. That's about 12% more. (World Bank Open Data)

Canada had an estimated population of 41.4 million on April 1, 2026. The United States had approximately 342.6 million people on July 1. The United States therefore has more than eight times Canada’s population with which to support the protection of a smaller forest area. (Statistics Canada)

Put another way, Canada has approximately 8.4 hectares of forest for every resident. The United States has about 0.9 hectares per resident. Canada must manage more than nine times as much forest per person.

The financial disparity is even greater. World Bank figures put the 2024 American economy at about US$28.8 trillion, compared with approximately US$2.24 trillion for Canada. The United States economy is nearly 13 times larger. (DataBank)

Despite all those advantages, the United States does not keep its forests and wildlands from burning any better than Canada does.

The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre’s 2023 report placed Canada’s ten-year average at 2,718,762 hectares burned annually.

Using the National Interagency Fire Center’s published American totals for the preceding ten completed years, 2013 through 2022, the United States averaged approximately 7.18 million acres burned annually. That converts to roughly 2.91 million hectares—about 188,000 hectares more per year than Canada’s average. (National Interagency Fire Center)

So the United States has less forest, more than eight times the population and nearly 13 times the economy. It has only about one-ninth as much forest to manage per resident. Yet it still loses at least as much land to wildfire as Canada does.

By Trump’s standard, that is not merely negligence. It is negligence with every conceivable advantage.

Trump either does not know these facts or does not care. The accusation is not a serious assessment of Canadian forest management. This is cheap “America First” theatre, built for an audience he has trained to mistake hostility for strength and repetition for evidence. Canada is declared negligent, the United States is excused for doing worse, and tariffs are presented as punishment for a problem America cannot solve within its own borders. The contradiction does not trouble him because consistency is not the point. The point is to manufacture another foreign threat he can solve with threats of tariffs and annexation, flatter American superiority and rely on his followers never checking whether the charge survives contact with reality.