Donald Trump might have hoped his tariff war would cause people in Canada to pressure Ottawa to capitulate. If so, his plan—that part of it, anyway—has backfired.
Across the country, working people’s anger has galvanized. And why not? The tariffs threaten virtually every worker in all sectors of the economy. In the steel and aluminum industries alone, over 43,000 jobs in Canada are at risk. Similar tariffs imposed by Trump in 2018, during his first presidency, caused steel exports from Canada to the US to drop by nearly 40%.
More than three-quarters of this country’s exports go to the U.S.—about $50 billion each month. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) estimates that “blanket import tariffs would almost certainly cause hundreds of thousands of jobs lost and a recession in Canada, which could be worsened further by the return of inflationary pressures.”
Corporations in Canada started to lean on workers as soon as tariffs were threatened. National Steel Car in Hamilton, which produces rail cars, laid off around 90% of its 1,400 workers. Montreal-based pantyhose maker Sheertex laid off 40% of its 350 workers. Quebec’s South Shore Furniture cut 115 jobs and laid off over 100, then announced plans to restructure its business model because of tariff threats.
And it isn’t just layoffs. A survey of businesses in Canada, taken by PricewaterhouseCoopers, indicated that nearly one in five companies were seriously reconsidering some or all of their operation to the U.S., in direct response to the trade war.
Governments and politicians are also piling onto the “make the workers pay” wagon, with serious threats to dismantle provincial trade regulations, including supply management in agriculture. Such a move would be a boon to monopoly corporations on both sides of the border. But it would bring immediate hardship to tens of thousands of farmers, truckers, and transportation workers. It would also jeopardize the spending power and the health and safety of working people right across the country.
For if working people in Canada are so upset at the threat of 25% tariffs, how do we understand the impact of the full-scale sanctions and blockades endured by the peoples of Venezuela, or Palestine, or Cuba?
The U.S. has maintained sanctions against Venezuela since at least 2014, while Canada and the EU imposed them in 2017. The oil industry was particularly targeted. Within six years of the first sanctions, Venezuela’s oil revenues fell by 93%; during this same period, per capita income declined by 72%. Former UN Special Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas estimated over 100,000 deaths in Venezuela as a result of sanctions by early 2020.
Palestine has been subject to sanctions and blockade since at least the early 1990s when Israel imposed restrictions on movement and goods in Gaza. This intensified after Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 and Israel imposed a complete blockade on the movement of goods and people in and out of the Strip. The economic impact on Gaza has been shocking, with the World Bank estimating that Israel’s sanctions cost nearly 40% of Gaza’s Gross National Product in 1996 alone.
Currently, Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, as part of its genocidal siege of the territory. The blockade has targeted food and humanitarian aid and has produced famine conditions in the Gaza Strip.
Cuba has endured a blockade from the U.S. for over six decades. It is comprehensive, affecting all sectors of the Cuban economy, and it has been deliberately internationalized by the U.S. government. In 2023, the United Nations estimated the total economic damage to the Cuban economy to be in the “trillions of dollars” since the start of the blockade.
As working people in Canada fight against Donald Trump’s tariff war, we also need to think about the hardships felt in Venezuela, Palestine, Cuba, and elsewhere. For this is suffering that, in many cases, has been imposed (or at least condoned and tolerated) by governments of our own country.
It isn’t enough to get pissed-off at tariffs against this country—we need to build international solidarity and put a stop to economic warfare against all the peoples of the world.
People’s Voice
CONTRIBUTOR
