I’m not going to lie to you, I was surprised to learn that Mark Carney brought Canada’s negotiators home from Washington last night.

I’m travelling today, but I wanted to share a few thoughts with you all. I’ll write more before Monday. I want to talk about what this means – why we could have seen it coming – and why I think it’s the right call.

First, this is real and it won’t be pleasant. Those 50% tariffs kicked in last night, on about 5% of Canada’s exports to the US — electronics, plastics, wood products and some other stuff. Jobs and livelihoods depend on that business. This isn’t a game. As Candace Lang at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce wrote on Friday night: “For a small Canadian exporter operating on tight margins, it means looking at your orders, your payroll and your employees and asking what you can still afford.”

Well, then why break off negotiations?

I’m writing this before Carney talks to reporters on Saturday, but I know this much.

First, there’s precedent. 39 years ago, at just about the same time of year, Brian Muloney brought Simon Reisman back from Washington because the Americans weren’t treating Canada seriously at the negotiating table. Mulroney always said you have to be willing to walk away from a bad deal.

Second, Mark Carney has said you have to be willing to walk away. In fact at one point he said it more strongly than that. Three days before the 2025 election, he gave an interview to Village Media. Here’s what he said about Trump: “I know the guy, I know the way he negotiates. The first offer is going to be a bad deal, and we’re going to walk away from it.”

Third, the Trump gang just kept making it clear they saw Canada as just another target for a shakedown. That’s what JD Vance said about Carney at that fundraiser in the Hamptons on Wednesday: “Carney presents this as some victory for Canada when fundamentally, they climb down on a lot of issues.”

We’ve seen it before. The Trump gang always think they’re the tough guys. They always have to be shown — by Zelensky, by Greenland, by the people of Minneapolis — what tough looks like.

Sure there’s risk in it. But the greater risk is to lose your soul.

Look at what these people have done in just the last few days. Trump threatened a think tank with a $5 billion lawsuit for publishing a report on crime rates that he didn’t like. The editor, publisher and a reporter at Stars and Stripes were fired after the editor stood up for truth in reporting. And Trump cut military cooperation with South Korea because he still has some kind of stupid crush on the dictator in North Korea.

This is who we’re up against. Yes, Americans are our closest neighbours, and our biggest customers, and a lot of them are still good people. But taking every abuse they hand us, just because they’re bigger, isn’t realism or maturity. It’s just asking for more.