Free Trade

Trump's Trade War With Canada Is Costly, Absurd, and Unfunny

American consumers and businesses are being taken advantage of by Canadians who are…offering to sell us aluminum, oil, and wood? How?

Eric Boehm | 8.31.2026 10:10 AM

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(The White House/X/Steve Allen/Dreamstime)

As the Trump administration escalated its trade war with Canada last week, the White House's official Twitter account shared a photo of a bald eagle tackling a Canadian goose.

The intended message was not exactly a subtle one.

But the post did illustrate how the administration views America's economic relationship with Canada, and how President Donald Trump thinks about international trade more broadly: as a win-or-lose struggle in which America must bully its trading partners and fight its allies, lest they keep "ripping us off."

That logic completely unravels if you think about it for more than a minute. American consumers and businesses are being taken advantage of by Canadians who…are offering to sell us aluminum, oil, and wood while buying our farm goods, machinery, and ethanol? Americans and Canadians trade hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of goods every year in voluntary, mutually beneficial transactions.

But Trump doesn't want to think about it for more than a minute. He wants a fight for the sake of a........

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