Trump’s trade pick gets an earful on Canada tariffs

There’s an old cliché that if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Alliances here shift with the political winds.

The good news for Canada is there’s fresh evidence that, right now, it has allies on tariffs. People are voicing horror at the threat to slap them across the board, currently on pause.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick for trade czar got an earful during his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, as lawmakers relayed stories from worried constituents.

The bad news? The loudest objections came from Democrats, who have about as much power as a teacup poodle in this town, at least until next year’s midterms.

Still, their pushback, paired with Republican unease, signalled one thing: Big tariffs on Canada are viewed as a political dud. No one at the hearing backed them.

“America has had its first taste of Trump’s rancid trade policy this week”: That’s how Democrat Ron Wyden helped kick off Thursday’s hearing. 

“His tariff bluff created huge uncertainty that is costing American business.… In my view, it’s an abuse of [our trade] law.”

It’s important to note that the U.S. Congress has limited power to stop a president’s tariffs, without passing a new law reclaiming its constitutional role over trade. So Thursday’s hearing didn’t signal imminent action — it was a political weather vane, showing which way the politics is blowing. 

And the message to Trump’s trade representative pick, Jamieson Greer, was emphatic: Don’t apply blanket tariffs on Canada. At most, Republicans welcome it as a negotiating tactic, useful as leverage but not as policy.

Several Republicans voiced this more slyly. Instead of directly challenging their party’s unquestioned chieftain, they cited subtle concerns.

Greer avoided taking a stance on imposing Canada tariffs in the future.

A former chief of staff to Trump’s first-term trade representative Robert Lighthizer, Greer talked about why the U.S. had turned away from liberalized trade as its default position.

He choked up while talking about his parents living in a mobile home, working several jobs to make ends meet. 

He cast reshoring manufacturing jobs as a moral enterprise, and a strategic one too, to protect supply chains in an increasingly unstable world.

“America should be a country of producers. We are more than just what we consume,” Greer said, criticizing past trade policy.

He made clear that one early priority will be renegotiating aspects of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement, as required by law; while the countries have a decade to renew it, Trump intends to move quickly.

He cited well-known Trump concerns about the existing pact. Atop that list are the method for calculating what counts as a North American car, and dairy.

“Right out of the gate, I expect we will be taking a second look at USMCA,” Greer said, while also crediting successes of the pact.

Anecdotes from the states

Adjusting trade policies, as his mentor Lighthizer did, is now the dominant position in U.S. politics, and there’s plenty of support on Capitol Hill.

What has some lawmakers concerned is that the policy is no longer being led by trade pros like Greer, but by Trump’s more freewheeling crew.

For example, high-ranking Republican Chuck Grassley essentially asked Greer: Who’s calling the shots here, you or Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whom Trump has named as his tariff point person? 

A few senators reminded Greer that his office is legally responsible for overseeing trade, and is accountable to their committee.

Greer tiptoed through the delicate office politics: He pointed out that different offices do different things, and that the Commerce and Treasury departments have a role in retaliatory actions.

The Democrats came armed with concerns.

Nevada’s senator there talked about a plunge in Canadian tourism, a particular concern for her state, which includes Las Vegas; with talk of a boycott, and a depreciated Canadian dollar, she said she worries about the impact there.

She cited an estimate from the U.S. Travel Association that a 10 per cent drop in Canadian travel would cost the American economy over $2 billion US in lost spending and 14,000 jobs; a similar drop from Mexico would double that damage.

The same senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, then talked about a call she got from a small business in Reno; a Canadian customer had cancelled a contract because of the uncertainty, costing the business tens of thousands of dollars.

“What do I say to my businesses?” she asked Greer. When Greer replied that people should trust Trump’s trade policy, as it coincided with rising incomes and low inflation in his first term, she shot back.

“So these small businesses, I’m just going to have to tell them, ‘You’re going to be a victim, unfortunately, of the trade war. Suck it up. It’s better for the country’?” she replied. 

“I’m not sure that’s an answer I want to carry back to them.… There’s got to be common sense.” 

New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen talked about tariffs driving up home heating costs $100 US. 

Vermont’s Peter Welch said he had over 150 worried businesses on a recent call — ranging from a big construction company, to organic farmers, to a woman who sourced yarn for weaving: “Every one of these people was just stunned at the implications of these out-of-the-blue threats of tariffs,” he said.

The GOP dances more delicately 

Minnesota’s Tina Smith called Trump’s behaviour reckless. She said she supports some types of tariffs, but would fight broad ones on Canada and Mexico that harm her constituents: “The ground is being cut out from under them.”

The Republicans danced a little more delicately.

“I’m not against tariffs. I just think across-the-board tariffs, for tariffs’ sake, I’m not quite so sure about [that],” said Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who proposed instead tariffs on high greenhouse-gas emitting countries, like China. 

“I’m not sure about how the law is being applied.” 

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin warned that if “we start slapping tariffs on steel,” he said, manufacturers in his state will still need certain types that aren’t made in the U.S. He also questioned how much revenue tariffs would actually generate for the U.S. 

“I’m just not seeing it. I’m an accountant. I like numbers,” Johnson said.

Greer replied that tariffs would not replace all tax revenue, as the U.S. government is now much larger than it was when federal taxes were initially introduced in 1913.

But really, the most creative criticism — a masterpiece of a passive-aggression — came from North Carolina’s Thom Tillis.

It’s worth noting that Tillis is up for re-election next year and faces a Republican primary challenge — and criticizing Donald Trump too explicitly risks being a career-ending move. Especially as he’s one of the more moderate members of his caucus.

So Tillis complimented Trump on his creative ideas for forcing recalcitrant allies to correct their wayward policies.

He said of Canada: “Putting them on notice is necessary. Because they’re acting like petulant children.… They’re taking us for granted.”

What followed was a rebuke so subtle you’d have to do a double-take to catch it.

Tillis said it’s obvious that any tariffs will be targeted, not sprayed across the economy generally. “Everyone’s got this false narrative that we’re just gonna do blunt-force tariffs across the board. It’s illogical.” 

Now wherever would people get this silly notion that Trump intends to apply tariffs across the board, on products around the world?

Perhaps it’s from his specific promise to do just that in his campaign platform, and in every campaign speech, and in his recent published orders on China, Mexico and Canada.

He’s paused the tariffs on Mexico and Canada, unlike China. And judging from the mood on Capitol Hill, American lawmakers hope they stay paused forever.