Closure of SKF’s Scarborough plant, December 9, 1981. Photo by Keith Beaty/Toronto Star.

Donald Trump clearly has a bone to pick with Canada.

By threatening a devastating 25 percent tariff on most of Canada’s exports to the United States, but only 10 percent on China, Trump is signalling that Canada and Mexico are his primary targets in this trade war.

One might very well wonder why.

While it is impossible to know what is running through Trump’s mind, he is clearly intent on repatriating manufacturing jobs and deindustrializing Canada unless we become the 51st state. Otherwise, he has repeatedly said that the US doesn’t need anything that Canada sells. It should all be made in the USA. Faced with this uncertainty, Canadian-based companies are now faced with difficult choices. Some are already shifting production as most of their customers are south of the border. It is economic warfare at its most cruel.

It is like the “Nixon Shock,” only worse.

In August 1971, President Richard Nixon decided to overturn........

© Canadian Dimension