Front Burner - The tariff trade war escalates

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

After months of back-and-forth, will-he-or-won’t-he, it’s officially on: U.S. President Donald Trump has slapped 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods, and 10% on Canadian energy. Canada has hit back with tariffs of its own — which Trump says will cause further retaliation.CBC Washington correspondent Alexander Panetta joins us for a look at what happens now. Will measures from the federal government, or any of Canada’s premiers, make any difference? What are the offramps? And how long could this all last?For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Hi, I'm Jamie Pussle. Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the golden age of America. From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. Last night, Donald Trump gave the first address of his presidency to a joint session of Congress. He listed off the many, many projects that his administration has been pursuing since

January 20th. Government slashing, tax cuts, immigration crackdowns, the elimination of trans rights and DEI initiatives. And as expected, tariffs did come up quite a few times. And whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them. Let's reciprocal back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax them. If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market.

Earlier yesterday, his administration brought in 25 percent tariffs on most Canadian imports, 10 percent on energy. He slapped similar tariffs on Mexico. We pay subsidies to Canada and to Mexico of hundreds of billions of dollars and the United States will not be doing that any longer. We're not going to do it any longer. Canada has hit back with its own tariffs. I know this feels like deja vu.

We were talking about this exact thing a month ago. And look, it is as ever in flux. So much so that it's even possible that by the time that you listen to this, some of the terms may have already changed. What is clear though, is that the trade war is very much officially on. Earlier yesterday, I spoke to CBC Washington correspondent

Alex Panetta about what could happen from here. Will any of Canada's retaliatory measures make any difference? What are the possible off-ramps here? And how long of a ride should we be buckling in for? Alex, hi. Thank you very much for being here. It's great to be back Okay, so you and I are talking around 530 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday and I will just note that we have not heard what Trump will say when he addresses Congress tonight But also Howard Lutnick Trump's Secretary of Commerce signaled in an interview just very recently

That he thinks Trump will meet Canada and Mexico in the middle. It's not going to be a pause under that pause stuff. But I think he's going to figure out you do more and I'll meet you in the middle some way. And we're going to probably be announcing that tomorrow. So somewhere in the middle. What does that even mean, you think, in the middle? And are people close to these negotiations optimistic at this hour that there is some kind of relief by Wednesday?

So here are two things we know, right? And you're right, that interview was a little unclear. It was very vague. But there are two things we can take away. Number one, these conversations have not been simple. I talked to some folks in Ottawa as well. I don't get the impression that this was the smoothest sailing, that they're looking for some sort of solution, but it didn't just suddenly pop up without a lot of back and forth phone calls today. The second thing we can glean from that is that this tariff policy,

this stuff on fentanyl on the border, this was not the long-term plan. Trump and his team have other end games in mind. And it was very interesting that when pressed by his interviewer on Fox, who also used to be a former Trump staffer, Larry Kudlow, you know, Kudlow's asking him, so you're going to, you're going to, you're going to cut the tariffs in half. You're going to make them smaller. Letnik didn't really bite on that, but he quickly pivoted to USMCA better known in Canada as KuzMA, the Continental Trade Agreement. And his answer was that Canada has a few things the United States does not like.

The agreement needs to be reviewed anyway, starting as soon as next year. But I assume they could probably speed that up a little bit. And he made clear they want to reopen Canada's dairy market. How about dairy products? I mean, talk about our dairy farmers, right? 200% on milk and milk products. And you say, what? What?

I thought there was USMCA. Yeah, there's USMCA with a lot of cheating on the side. They want to see an end to Canada's digital services tax on big American tech companies. They've got a digital tax in Canada. They try to tax our tech companies. What happened to USNCA? I'll tell you what happened to it. The Canadians like to cheat.

And he mentioned the GST. Canada has a 5% sales tax. Mm-hmm. Now, what is that? That's just being sneaky. I'm not sure if he was serious about the GST or if it's just kind of like a decoy demand, something you draw later in a negotiation.

Tell me more about that. What, like, what is he talking about? Well, what he's been saying is that it's just kind of like a decoy demand, something later in a negotiation. Tell me more about that. What is he talking about? Well, what he's been saying is that it's a way of cheating American companies. And the best guess I can make about what he's talking about when he refers to the GST is that Canadian exporters can get a sort of a rebate on the GST they've paid within Canada and that he says it's discriminatory against US companies. But from what I understand, this is not the most aggressive value-added tax in the world and I'm quite surprised it's coming up now. It hasn't come up in any previous Canada-US trade negotiation, whether through the TPP

or the NAFTA renegotiation. It's kind of interesting it's happening now. So that makes me suspicious that maybe this is the kind of thing you hold up scare the other negotiating party and then suddenly late in a negotiation You say fine. I'll drop it if you open your dairy market and and drop your digital services tax Anyway, well, I guess we'll find that out in a few months and just for people who might be wondering right now Why we would open up our dairy market and what this digital services tax is. Just do a real quick goals notes for me. If you think those are going to be the big issues that people are talking about by tomorrow.

I would say those two things plus autos, but the autos thing is very complicated. It'll take a while to work out. But basically, the United States has some beefs with Canada when it comes to trade, no pun intended. The main historic gripes have been Canada's protected dairy sector. It is hard to import dairy products, cheese and other dairy products into Canada. And we can have a whole entire podcast about that specific issue. We could, people call it supply management.

Supply management. There are arguments for and against, it's not good economics, but there are other arguments for it, stability of prices, stability of rural communities. Anyway, the of rural communities. Anyway, the Americans hate it. So they wanted Canada to get rid of it.

Canada opened up its market like I don't know, it's opened it up about 10% in recent trade negotiations. The Americans are not happy. They say that it's not being fully respected because of the way Canada is allocating its import quotas. They just basically say Canada's cheated on the concessions it's already made and they want to further open the dairy market. They want more American cheese and dairy in Canada. That's the first thing. Digital services tax. There have been negotiations worldwide about how to tax companies, big companies like Google and Facebook that

do business across borders, including in Canada. And those talks have consistently fallen apart. So a couple of countries, France, Canada, have said to hell with it. We're just putting on our less tax unilateral. So the United States says this is unfair. It's a tax on US companies. It's a tariff basically. And Trump wants those things gone.

And so did Biden, by the way. And this was gonna be an irritant at the renegotiation of USMCA whenever it happened. But now it's looking like the United States is going to use the threat of tariff upon tariff upon tariff to say, you're going to negotiate this right now and this is what you're going to give us or we're going to give you more tariffs. All right, Alex. Right now though, we have 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods being exported to the US and 10% on energy and critical minerals.

And I know that this is something that we have been talking about for weeks now, but what parts of the country are likely to feel the pain of this the fastest and which industries will be hit the hardest? Yeah, so Ontario is ground zero for this. And I mean, it's no accident that Doug Ford has been the most focal premier, the most aggressive premier on this issue.

And that's not just because of his personality. We keep the lights on the 1.5 million homes in manufacturing in New York, in Michigan, and in Minnesota. If he wants to destroy our economy and our families, I will shut down the electricity going down to the U.S. And I'm telling you, I will shut down the electricity going down to the US and I'm telling you we will do it. We're ripping up Ontario's contract with Starlink. It's done, it's gone. His province's economy faces the greatest existential threat as a result of this. I mean you look at energy, critical minerals, so basically energy and critical minerals, that's Quebec,

you know hydro, critical minerals, and Alberta and Saskatchewan in particular, uh, that produce oil, right? So those provinces have only gotten tariffs of 10% and frankly, the United States needs those products. It'll probably buy them anyway. It doesn't reconfigure the economy of those provinces. Ontario with a 25% tariff on car parts, that's an existential threat to Ontario's economy, especially if there are tariffs on aluminum and

steel in addition to that, which could further complicate the supply chain in automobiles and then other provinces as well. I think Quebec would obviously have big problems with the aluminum tariffs, but basically Ontario faces threat upon threat. And Trump is pretty clear he wants the automobile supply chain reshored to Michigan and the rest of the United States and to the greatest extent possible out of Canada. So that's why Ontario is in significant danger. And by the way, we're going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody's ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place.

Deals are being made. Never seen. That's a combination of the election win and tariffs. It's a beautiful word, isn't it? That, along with our other policies, will allow our auto industry to absolutely boom. It's going to boom. Spoke to the majors today. Let's talk about the speech from the Prime Minister first.

The United States launched a trade war against Canada. Their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense. So he comes out this morning and he gives the speech much like he did a month ago when we were also facing these crippling tariffs. Though I do think that it was different today and I would be interested to hear what you

think. One moment that stuck out for me was when he spoke very bluntly about Trump's comments on annexation. So we actually have to fold back on the one thing he has said repeatedly, that what he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy. Because that'll make it easier to annex us, is the second half of his thought. Now, first of all, that's never... It was astounding to hear a prime minister of Canada

speak like that about the US. Certainly, regardless of what happens in the next couple of days, an unbelievable moment in our history. What would stuck out to you about that speech? A few things. So you're absolutely correct. This was very potent language, was angry language, angry of him before.

Like when Trudeau quoted the Wall Street Journal. But Donald, they point out that even though you're a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do. We two friends fighting is exactly what our opponents around the world want to see. You talked about, you know, booing the national anthem at hockey games, basically acknowledging that this might happen, like excusing it essentially. We're going to choose to not go on vacation in Florida or Old Orchard Beach or wherever, we're going to choose to try to buy Canadian products and forgo bourbon and other classic American products. And yeah, we're probably going to keep booing the American anthem. But let me tell Americans, we're not booing you, we're not booing your teams, we're not booing your players. We're booing a policy that is designed to hurt us.

So my takeaway is, first and foremost, it's getting exhausting, right? I don't think Trudeau or any Canadian politician is easily going to stomach round after round after round of this. This is just this endless rolleraster I've written about. And it's just, at a certain point, just get fed up. Second thing that's happening is, you know, Trudeau is leaving, right? And to use a hockey term, you know, maybe he has no, no pucks left to give. But what really jumps out at me, uh, from that annexation talk you're,

you're referring to is the disconnect, right? Like I have tried asking people here in the United States about annexation, about Canada becoming a 51st state, and people look at you like you're insane for even asking it. I was like, yeah, but the president's talking about it, right? Nobody here takes it seriously, right? So it feels like you're peering through the looking glass, whereas in Canada, people are worried. They do take it seriously. And so to that disconnect is borne out in some poll data. YouGov did a really interesting survey

comparing American attitudes and Canadian attitudes on all this stuff, on tariffs, on trade, on the 51st state. And a few things from that survey I think are relevant to this Trudeau reaction today. Very few Americans, I think it's something like 18% of Americans think that any of this Trump tariff talk on Canada is in any way connected to him trying to make Canada a state of the United States. Like the vast majority of Americans, including Democrats, Republicans, independents, don't think this is what's going on here. Although, you know, Canada clearly, and Prime Minister Canada, say this is what he's trying to do to bully us into becoming a state. Americans don't buy it. The other thing that jumps out from

that survey is the anger, the rage in Canada, which I felt the other day my mom was visiting and she was talking to me about how angry Canadians are. While she's telling me the story, she's like jabbing me in the chest with her with her like with her palm I'm like cheese mom like, you know, I'm like I get it. I know Canadians are upset, right? Well that survey Shows a 50% 50% of Canadians consider the United States not a friend or make an adversary something like that Whereas the Americans who feel that way it's like a minuscule number, like 6%. Americans overwhelmingly love Canadians. So there's this massive disconnect. Canadians are angrier and they have more at stake economically.

Americans don't take this this territory seriously and they're not nearly as angry. Alex, I don't know if you saw the polling that broke down the demographics around the anger, but it does help to explain your mom because it's the boomers, right? That are the angriest. It's our parents. Why do you think the Americans don't think it's serious? Why are they not buying it? That's an excellent question. I mean, one reason might be that they've got a lot of fish to fry, right? There's a lot going on here.

Like I wrote a story the other day about how Americans, like constitutional republic or constitutional democracy is hanging by a thread. And that thread is the president of the United States agreeing to respect court decisions because other aspects of the constitution are being trampled every single day. That's a major issue. You've got, you know, a mass deportation program underway. You've got, you know, people being fired on mass, bits of the federal government being chopped out like one limb after another. Like this is serious stuff that's going on and there's only

so much bandwidth any human being has. That's one reason. The second reason is the United States just simply is not as trade dependent as an economy as Canada, right? Trade makes up a larger percentage of Canada's GDP than it does the American GDP. And within that, trade across the border is more important to Canada. Like three quarters of Canada's exports go to the United States. Yes. I mean, I think 20% of US exports go to Canada, right?

So this issue, this irritant, just doesn't mean as much to the United States economically. You see that reflected in media coverage where it's a story, but it's not the story. I'll never forget covering a round of the NAFTA renegotiation in Canada. All the heavy hitters in Canadian media were all there covering it in the press room. And you had US trade reporters coming up, basically niche specialty reporters. And these folks are watching trade, like they have the CBC on in the media room or maybe CTV. I don't remember what was on, but basically it was like wall to wall coverage of the NAFTA renegotiation. Americans found this amusing, right? They're saying, what, this is like lead news here? Like it's just, it's surreal. I think that's the other factor driving the disconnect.

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Visit Canada.ca slash debt-solutions for support you can trust. A message from the Government of Canada. So when we hear politicians here talk about how we're going to fight back and how it's going to hurt Americans just as much as it hurts Canadians, how strong is that argument, right? When we say that we're going to hit back with 25% on $30 billion of goods, multiple premiers are saying they're pulling liquor from shelves. Starting today, LCBO, the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world, will begin removing U.S. products from its store shelves. And we're joining with other provinces across this country to pull American booze off of Liquor Mart shelves.

Effective immediately, our liquor stores will be pulling all red state liquor products off of the shelf. Doug Ford told the Wall Street Journal that he would place 25% tariffs on electricity to the U.S. Like, how much pressure could any of these countermeasures put on this administration in the US? So, so I was talking to an economist on TV this week who referred to Canada's retaliatory measures as a rounding error in the US economy.

And he's right. Let's just let's assume for a second that Canada applies all the measures it's threatening, all the retaliatory tariffs it's threatening. Right now it's $30 billion that's being applied and it's going to escalate to $155 billion in a few weeks. Even if Canada proceeds with all of that, it is a fraction of the damage that occurred on the US stock market as a result of Trump announcing these tariffs.

I think something like $800 billion, $800 billion, that's like basically what? Five times more than the total damage of those retaliatory tariffs was immediately inflicted in stock market losses in the United States. That's, I mean, that's just like, you know, a hundred times the retaliatory tariffs that Canada's talking about now. So maybe it contributes to it, but it's not the threat of cutting off like citrus purchases or a tariff on citrus purchases or peanut purchases from the United States. It's going to scare the, you know, the president into submission.

It's fear of his own domestic market reacting poorly. Goods being more expensive. And just explain for me why we saw that drop in the stock market. What are people reacting to? Yeah, so a few things have already occurred. Like consumer confidence has dropped. The Federal Reserve does a real-time GDP tracker, which is like showing the potential of an actual economic contraction, if not a recession, which is like unthinkable a few weeks ago. Americans are not spending as much like this, something's going on here. And then this is maybe like the water that sort of as the French say, the water that

made the vase spill over and the camel, the strother broke the camel's back, right? Where, you know, a 25% tariff on electronics, like Best Buy was talking about how its forecast now is like kind of moot because it didn't take into account the possibility of tariffs. Target, the giant retailer is talking about increasing prices within days on bananas, strawberries, avocados from Mexico, especially produce. This stuff is not coming at a great moment. The economy is already starting to feel a little bit wobbly.

And so then you start, there's a fine line between fear and panic. So people are starting to worry and then the panic starts setting in. And then the stock market was starting to panic yesterday and add these factors together. And it's like, yeah, that's strong, the camel's back. Just to be clear here, you know, I know we're discussing the fact that experts are saying that the retaliatory tariffs are a rounding error, but do you think there was another viable option here other than to fight back with counter tariffs? Yeah, I mean, so this is the debate you'll hear between, you know, a free-market economist or frankly probably most economists and the people who actually practice trade negotiation, right? The economist will

say, you know, your neighbor's shooting himself in the foot. Is the proper response to say, you know what, I'll shoot myself in the foot to teach you a lesson, right? But then the sort of the trade practitioners, the folks who sort of do bilateral negotiations will say, you just can't live your life this way. You cannot sort of say, I'm not going to respond. I'm just going to live with a kick me sign on my back for the rest of eternity. I'm personally of the view that retaliatory tariffs are not the proverbial Trump card, no pun intended. I actually think there's other stuff Canada could do in terms of IP protections, copyright, just basically saying we won't enforce copyright on US goods until these tariffs are

gone. There's stuff that Canada could do that would scare Americans a lot more. I think than retaliation on the tariff front. You know, the granddaddy of all threats is what Ford's been talking about, like, you know, putting taxes on on on energy products that that that's the stuff that would scare Americans and get attention. And also I think it's worth noting, Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, said today, said Tuesday that while she was disappointed in Trump, to see this escalation is so disappointing, so damaging. Initially, she feels like energy, a massive lever is still off the table. I've already said that we're not going to retaliate on energy. That is such an essential product for American consumers and American businesses.

We want to make sure that we've got some 4.3 million barrels a day going into the United States. We want to make sure that that flow continues, albeit it's going to be a little bit more I would imagine that if it was on the table, it would have a bigger impact, right? Oh my god, if she threatened to cut off oil exports, it would be potentially the lead story on newscasts here. That would be the nuclear bomb. And she's refused to play it.

For reasons, I think that she has her own domestic politics in Alberta. I don't think it would be that popular necessarily, although I haven't looked at polling on this. I haven't been in Canada for a while, so I don't want to do a Canadian political punditry. But I just assume that there would be political challenges. There are also logistical challenges. If the oil leaves Canada, it goes through the United States and goes to

Eastern Canada through line five, there's only so much like you can threaten on that front without damaging Canada itself. So I think there are constraints to using that threat. Although I don't think necessarily Ford really wants to go through with this either. I think some of this stuff is like you're trying to get attention, right? And it's trying to stoke that fear, right? He's fanning the flames of economic fear in the United States because that economic fear,

which causes markets to plunge, which causes the consumer outlook to plunge, which basically imperils Trump's approval rating and is an entire, like his political leverage and his presidency, that is where Canada gets off these tariffs relatively scot-free, right? Because that could make Trump back down if he fears that it's all blowing up in his face. So that's why threatening to cut off or tax the exports of hydro or oil, I don't think Canada wants to do it. It would be potentially disastrous and also escalate our tensions with the United States to an uncomfortable degree. I don't want to know how the Americans would respond to that. So I don't think it would happen. I don't think anyone wants it to happen. But you know, there's an argument to be made for just dangling that, right? Just keeping that gun

on the table. Like Ford's keeping it on the table, clearly Daniel Smith has decided to take it off the table. We're in. Look, we have no idea if what Howard Lutnick is talking about will come to fruition, this meet in the middle scenario and what that could look like. But right now we're also staring down the barrel of more tariffs, right? And just could you try to tell people what's going on with that right now? Yeah, so the official line from the White House, right? And I have to say Trump's White House has been pretty responsive. They answer our emails. It's not always the case for the White House, right? And I have to say, Trump's White House has been pretty responsive. They answer our emails. Which was not always the case for a White House with foreign media. They've answered all our questions on this stuff.

And we asked, okay, so like, are these tariffs going to be compounded on top of each other? Like, are they supposed to be, you know, blended together? And they were pretty clear. No, these are separate. It's a tariff, a top tariff, right? So if you get a 25% tariff because of fentanyl and the border, and in just over a week we're supposed to get tariffs on steel and aluminum, well then it would be 50%. I've never really believed that to be feasible.

It's not feasible. It defies logic. And when it comes to this stuff, I trust this White House about as far as I could throw a Honda Civic, right? I just don't because they're changing their story every day on trade, right? In part because I don't think they've entirely settled on all the details of what they want to accomplish. And also because they're negotiating. They want something from Canada. So they're not going to lay all their cards on the table.

They want us to be afraid that we're going to face 50% tariffs in a few days. And I don't think it's real. Really unclear what exactly it is that they want from us. Which I guess, I know you've been pulling at this through the conversation, but that's also the point, right? The confusion is the point. I'm just thinking about Tuesday, we heard from JD Vance, he's still talking about fentanyl. We need to see real engagement on the fentanyl issue, on the drug issue. That is fundamentally the underlying element of these tariffs. Even though we've done all sorts of things to deal

with this relative non-issue at the border, Trump starts posting about how there are no tariffs if you move your company to the U.S. Then all of a sudden he's complaining about our banking system. Then you have Howard Lutnick talking about dairy, right? Yeah. Yeah. There was a moment late last year when I took some of the fentanyl stuff at face value. I think Canada does have a money laundering problem. I do think the triads and the Mexican cartels are doing things in Canada.

I think that, including in our real estate industry and our banking sector, I think, and Canada did all the stuff they asked for, and I no longer take it at face value. It's clearly our news. The people that you're talking to, I know you talked to a lot of people on both sides of the border, do they feel like these tariffs will be short-lived? Are they preparing to settle in here

for some kind of long haul battle? I'm not saying 50% on aluminum, long-term battle, but on aggregate, what do they think we're in for here? I honestly don't think they know. I've heard completely contradictory explanations from Trump's own team and from his supporters, like people like, you know, Newt Gingrich is saying one thing, you know, some members of Congress are saying another, Lutnik will say something different. So either they're trying to confuse us, which and I actually do think part of what they're

trying to do is to confuse us, right? I actually do believe they want us off balance as a negotiating tactic, but also because they want companies to be scared and to shift production to the United States. So there's that element, but I also believe they haven't entirely settled on the details of what they want to do. I think they have some ideas, some broad notions, but this really feels like one of those moments in history that's a fork in the road. And we might end up, there's just this broad range of outcomes before us.

Everything from a massive extended trade war where our fundamental relationship with the United States, our partnership with the United States on multiple fronts, including economics, is called into question. And we have to rethink our own role in the world. That's on one end of the spectrum Then you have you know the middle maybe the possibility of some sectoral tariffs or a short-lived tariff on steel and aluminum That gets taken off when the trade balance changes who knows right? To the other end of the spectrum where the United States creates a fortress to keep out Chinese goods and And we're inside that fortress. And that might be the best of all worlds for Canada, where we become a privileged supplier

to the United States. And Canada might ultimately see this as a happy turning point in our history. I don't, I honestly have no idea which of those three scenarios. Yeah. Like this. Hard to imagine getting to happy turning point after the speech of the Prime Minister gave today, but of course, of course, that makes sense. Alex, I think that that is where we should end this conversation today.

Are you confused? You know, I am equally unsettled. I have exited this conversation with the same level of anxiety that I went into it. And I am still confused, maybe even more confused, but it still felt good to talk it out with you. So thank you. Well, good. If you're confused, it means you're paying attention

because this is very confusing. Thank you. It's a pleasure as always. Thanks, Jamie. All right. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening.

Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBS News, head go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.