An Agreement Changes Nothing

Whatever concessions Canada ultimately makes for diplomatic purposes, Canadians need to understand what this agreement represents.

We did not ask for any of this.

Canada had a functioning trade agreement under NAFTA. Trump declared it unacceptable and forced its renegotiation. He then negotiated CUSMA, called it a triumph, praised the deal he had made—and subsequently violated it with unilateral tariffs anyway.

Now Canada is being forced back to the table again, under coercive economic pressure, after months of tariffs, threats against our sovereignty and deliberate attacks on our economic security.

I have every confidence that our negotiating team has fought like hell to protect Canadian interests. Diplomacy requires our government to reach the best agreement it can with the government occupying the White House.

Diplomacy does not require Canadians to buy anything from the United States.

Whatever agreement emerges will almost certainly leave Canada worse off than it was before Trump started this war. Unless it includes the reopening of factories that closed and moved south, compensation for the enormous economic damage already inflicted, the restoration of the trading conditions Trump destroyed, and an unequivocal American recognition of the sovereignty of Canada and every other country and territory Trump has threatened, it cannot possibly restore what existed before.

A coerced agreement does not erase the coercion.

It does not erase the 2025 National Security Strategy. It does not erase Project 2025. It does not erase the threats against our sovereignty. It does not erase U.S. claims of primacy in the Western Hemisphere or the Trump Corollary. It does not restore the investments cancelled, the factories moved, the jobs lost or the trust destroyed.

And it certainly does not give Canada any reason to believe that Donald Trump will honour this agreement when he has already demonstrated his willingness to violate the last one. In fact we can be certain he will not, even though the terms are likely to cement tariffs into the agreement.

So don’t mistake an agreement for peace.

To me, it is the formal acknowledgement of a trade war Trump started unilaterally against Canada and much of the world—and a new baseline imposed on us under duress.

Our government has to practise diplomacy.

We don’t.

Canadian consumers remain one of this country’s strongest lines of defence. Every dollar we move away from the United States makes Canada a little less vulnerable to the next tariff, the next threat and the next American president who decides our dependence is something they can use against us.

So I am asking Canadians not to relax the boycott when a deal is announced.

Redouble it.

Buy Canadian wherever you can. When you can’t, buy from countries that treat Canada as a trading partner rather than a subordinate. Avoid American products. Do not vacation in the United States. Do not voluntarily send your money into an economy whose government has spent the last year using its economic power to threaten ours.

I don’t suspect you will see any change to federal policy or activity, our strategy continues, our sights are firmly set to the east and west. But, Ottawa must negotiate.

It falls to us to keep fighting.