Pip: Winding-Roads has been thinking about trade wars, neighbours, and what it actually means to pick a fight with the country that buys more of your stuff than anyone else on the planet.

Mara: That’s the territory today — the economic and political logic, or lack of it, behind the U.S.-Canada trade dispute, and what Canada’s response should look like. Let’s start with why this fight doesn’t add up.

Trump’s Trade War with Canada: Why It Doesn’t Add Up

Mara: The core argument here is simple: Canada is America’s largest export market, and the two countries have spent generations building a trading relationship that works for people on both sides of the border. Launching a trade war against that partner isn’t just unfriendly — it’s economically self-defeating.

Pip: The post quotes University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers, who calls the whole thing “Bonkers” — capital B — and that framing sticks because it’s not hyperbole, it’s just accurate.

Mara: What this means in practice is that tariffs don’t stay on one side of the border. As the post puts it directly: “Ordinary Americans, already struggling with the cost of living, can also pay more for goods and materials when trade is disrupted.”

Pip: So the people absorbing the cost aren’t the governments making the decisions — they’re workers and small businesses who had nothing to do with any of it. That’s the part that tends to get lost in the headline noise.

Mara: And the post is careful to separate the policy from the people. The line is: “We should never confuse the decisions of a government with the worth of the people it represents.” There’s genuine empathy for American families expressed here, even while the policy is being called out hard.

Pip: Which is a harder position to hold than it sounds — being angry at a decision while staying decent about the people living under it.

Mara: The response the post advocates isn’t retaliation for its own sake. It’s diversification — expanding trade with other partners, reducing dependence on a single market. Mark Carney’s message on that front is cited as resonating nationally, including in Alberta, which the post flags as significant.

Pip: Because if Alberta’s on board, that’s not a regional talking point anymore — that’s a national consensus forming.

Mara: The closing argument is that Canada can “stand firm without hatred, show strength without arrogance, and defend our country without losing our empathy.” That’s the frame the whole post is built around.

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Pip: The economic case and the values case end up being the same case — which doesn’t happen as often as it should.

Mara: Worth watching how the diversification argument develops as trade relationships actually shift. More on that when Winding-Roads picks it up next.