America’s Rebuke of Trump Won’t Swiftly Restore Canada-U.S. Harmony

Canada was, unusually, drawn into the U.S. midterm campaigns this year, including on the issues of election interference and the trade war.

But how much the tariffs on Canadian goods influenced the result is open to discussion. More important, Canadians should not expect a swift end to the trade war with the United States when the next Congress gets underway in January, with Democrats controlling both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Not surprisingly Mr. Trump’s trade war bubbled up in campaigns in some border states, including Maine and Michigan. Last month, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, announced that she had successfully lobbied the White House to lift 50 percent tariffs on products such as corrugated paper, refrigeration equipment, plywood and packing machinery — items that are widely used by farmers.

It wasn’t much of a win for Canada. The Trump administration merely imposed new tariffs on other Canadian products including cocoa powder, vinyl flooring, shampoo and canoes. It also wasn’t a win for Ms. Collins. Her three-decade tenure came to an end on Tuesday night when she was swept away in the wave of anti-Trump sentiment.

Ana Swanson, my colleague in Washington who covers trade, told me that tariffs in general and those on Canada in particular were minor issues in a campaign dominated by larger questions.

“People thought the Canada tariffs were a waste of time, so that got some airtime from the candidates,” Ana said. “It was also a safe way for Democrats to criticize tariffs, because other tariffs may have had some support among their bases but the Canada tariffs were almost universally viewed negatively.”

To get a sense of what will follow the Republican wipeout, I also spoke with Inu Manak, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington who is originally from Surrey, British Columbia.

“There’s so much stuff that Democrats could do with trade that could be just as bad as President Trump — maybe not as erratic but at the same time just as bad,” she said. “When you hear things like ‘We don’t like Trump’s arbitrary tariffs,’ I think that’s a signal that they still like tariffs.”

Not only do the Democrats have a history of being more protectionist than Republicans, but many of their key supporters, like the United Auto Workers, are also tariff enthusiasts.

Still, Ms. Manak said there may be some hope on tariffs for Canada — if not the rest of the world.

“Tuesday indicated that the public is quite annoyed at the taunting of Canada and the approach to Canada economically, which doesn’t make any sense from the American perspective,” she said. “There’s space for change.”

The first hurdle Canada will have to overcome if it goes looking for relief from the new Congress will most likely be getting American lawmakers to actually focus on the trade war.

“It’s going to be really very difficult when you have all these people coming in, all these new faces in Congress, who have very different ideas about what agendas they want to pursue,” Ms. Manak said. “But, at the end of the day, they’ve got to get something done because people are frustrated. This is not what they signed up for. They wanted to see a growing economy that was for everybody. They did not want any wars and they certainly did not want to be in a trade war with Canada.”

Ms. Manak said she was skeptical that Congress would challenge Mr. Trump’s damaging tariffs of up to 50 percent on Canadian steel, aluminum and autos, all of which were brought in as national security measures. Historically, she said, Congress has been reluctant to second-guess the use of national security measures by presidents.

Instead, Ms. Manak expects Democratic lawmakers to turn their attention to the 50 percent tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on a wide array of Canadian products in July. To bypass Congress’s control over tariffs in that case, Mr. Trump dusted off a never-used provision of a nearly century-old trade law.

If Congress passes a bill striking down those tariffs, Ms. Manak said, it may be possible for the Democrats to gather enough support from Republicans in the Senate to overturn the presidential veto that will inevitably follow.

All of that is down the road. And none of it means Canada is done dealing with the Trump administration on trade.

Mr. Trump’s ability to issue executive orders will remain in place for the next two years, as will his veto powers. There is also no obvious sign that he will feel restrained by Congress, the courts or any other outside force.

Indeed, on Friday, Mr. Trump made Stephen Miller his chief of staff. A fierce partisan, Mr. Miller was the chief architect of Mr. Trump’s divisive immigration policies and asserted this year that Greenland rightfully belonged to the United States.

For the first time since Canada walked away from trade talks in Washington in August, putting relations in a deep freeze, there were signs this week of a thaw. On Sunday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a social media post that after conversations with Mr. Trump, officials in the two countries were moving toward restarting talks.

He later indicated that the U.S. side had backed off on some issues, but that list did not appear to include the steel, aluminum and auto tariffs.

“If President Trump makes headway on negotiations with Canada before the new Congress comes in, then the Democrats have to decide: Do we still want to move forward with a trade reform agenda?” Ms. Manak said.

Ian Austen reports on Canada for The Times. A Windsor, Ontario, native based in Ottawa, he has reported on the country for two decades. He can be reached at [email protected].

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