> If you elected a businessman or a lawyer, he/she'd tell you that Canadian exports to the US are 2x the imports from the US,
An honest one wouldn't, because it's categorically untrue.
"U.S. exports were $441 billion, while imports were $482 billion, resulting in a United States $41 billion trade deficit with Canada."
This doesn't even count the multinational tech corporations providing services in Canada through a local subsidiary, something that is not counted in balance of payments.
But this is probably culture-specific. When Finnish media describes someone as (the Finnish equivalent of) a businessman, he is almost certainly doing some shady stuff and has often also committed crimes. People described as entrepreneurs tend to be more respectable and more likely just doing legitimate business.
I'm from Lithuania and lots of people would do the same. I assumed this is some brainrot relic from soviet union, but thinking about this more, most of europe have same weird sentiment.
So you're entire point is the US economy and population is larger, so it can bully its allies and economic partners more despite having a trade surplus in excess of 90 billion (including services which simpy makes sense, especially considering the size dichotomy you point out). That's a salient point in today's political climate, the US doesn't have allies or partners anymore.
Showing just how uninformed you are, Prime Minister Trudeau resigned already, and mostly unrelated to the US. Canadians were going to vote the out the Liberals largely over increasing dissatisfaction with his leadership long before the election. His resignation is allowing new leadership to take over the liberal party (being voted on this week), and then federally we will likely be going to the polls in the coming months to decide between them and the Conservatives (who are closer to your Democrats than most of you realize)
Whichever party wins, all of them are unified in standing strong against bullying tactics. You can hurt us, but you'll be surprised how resilient we are and how willing we are to fight economically or otherwise.
We look forward to being friends with most of you again after this bullshit is over.
Trudeau does a lot of silly things. And maybe he's injected a little bit of extra drama here.
But Canada has absolutely tried negotiating. There's been a continuous stream of Canadian politicians visiting DC and trying to talk to someone - anyone. If all the provincial premiers and the minister of foreign affairs show up and the best you can offer is your assistant chief of staff of personnel or whatever, then clearly you weren't in the mood to chat/negotiate.
If your more powerful neighbor's ruler publicly threatens to annex your country, the correct course of action is to prepare for war. If anything, Trudeau is not being dramatic enough yet.
Not to pile on, but it is hard to negotiate when the other party is not clear as to what they want. In the press conference, Trudeau said as much, and added that he has reached out to Trump for further discussions and is open to good-faith negotiations.
Meanwhile, the actual stated reason for the tariffs is fentanyl, yet only 1% of it comes from Canada, and even then Canada has agreed to US demands of further securing the border.
Is it about trade deficits? Seems hard to believe, given that the USMCA was negotiated by Trump in 2018, and he hailed it as the "fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law".
Is it about bringing back manufacturing to the US? Then why is China being hit with less trade tariffs than Canada (20% total vs 25%) when the US imports around the same amount from China as from Canada?
I mean, the whole issue would be avoided of America did not voted for sociopath president who was doing bad business whole his life. Trump was literally loosing money he inherited again and again and again whole his life.
And I mean, not because he would be following laws while criminals got ahead. No, he was a fraudster who still managed to loose money.
