Canada: PM Carney fans anti-US sentiments ahead of April 28 snap polls

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Carrying the heavy baggage of his predecessor Justin Trudeau’s extreme unpopularity, and battling against high inflation, amid Trump threats, Canada’s two-week-old Prime Minister Mark Carney is resorting the time-tested tradition to win an election: discover an enemy and arouse nationalist sentiments against it.

President Donald Trump has, of course, generously handed PM Carney the tariff tool to go hammer-and-tongs against the US, ahead of the snap polls to the Canadian House of Commons on April 28.

“His trade war is hurting American consumers and workers and it will hurt them more,” he was quoted as saying in media reports on Thursday.

President Trump said earlier on Wednesday that he was placing 25 percent tariffs on auto imports and, to underscore his intention, he stated, “This is permanent.”

“This is a very direct attack. We will defend our workers. We will defend our companies. We will defend our country,” banker-turned-politician Carney responded.

He said he needs to see the details of Trump’s executive order before taking retaliatory measures, and also called the move unjustified, saying he will leave the election campaign to go to Ottawa on Thursday to chair his special Cabinet committee on US relations.

Carney earlier announced a C$1.4 billion “strategic response fund” that will protect Canadian auto jobs affected by Trump’s tariffs.

Autos are Canada’s second largest export, and Carney noted it employs 125,000 Canadians directly and almost another 500,000 in related industries.

“Canada will be there for auto workers,” he said.

Trump previously granted a one-month exemption on his stiff new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada for US automakers.

The two-month-old President has plunged the US into a global trade war — all the while on-again, off-again new levies continue to escalate uncertainty.

“His trade war is hurting American consumers and workers and it will hurt more. I see that American consumer confidence is at a multi-year low,” Carney said on Wednesday while campaigning in Windsor, Ontario, ahead of parliamentary election.

The tax hike on auto imports starting April means automakers could face higher costs and lower sales.

Trump previously placed 25 percent tariffs on Canada’s steel and aluminium and is threatening sweeping tariffs on all Canadian products — as well as all of America’s trading partners — on April 2.

“He wants to break us so America can own us. And it will never ever happen because we just don’t look out for ourselves, we look out for each other,” Carney said.

The Canadian PM, a former two-time central banker, made the earlier comments while campaigning against the backdrop of the Ambassador Bridge, which is considered the busiest US-Canadian border crossing, carrying 25 percent of all trade between the two countries. It plays an especially important role in auto manufacturing.

The Canadian PM said the bridge carries C$98 billion in goods every year and C$281 million per day.

“Now those numbers and the jobs and the pay-checks that depend on that are in question. The relationship between Canada and the United States has changed. We did not change it,” Carney said.

In the auto sector, parts can go back and forth across the Canada-US border several times before being fully assembled in Ontario or Michigan.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province has the bulk of Canada’s auto industry, said auto plants on both sides of the border will shut simultaneously if the tariffs go ahead.

“The President is calling it Liberation Day. I call it Termination Day for American workers. I know President Trump likes to tell people ‘You’re fired!’ I didn’t think he meant US auto workers when he said it,” Ford said.

Trump has declared a trade war on his northern neighbour and continues to call for Canada to become the 51st US state, a position that has infuriated Canadians.

Canadians booed Trump repeatedly at a Carney election rally in Kitchener, Ontario.

The new PM, sworn in March 14, still hasn’t had a phone call with Trump. It is unusual for a US President and Canadian PM to go so long without talking after a new leader takes office.

“It would be appropriate that the President and I speak given the action that he has taken. I’m sure that will happen soon,” Carney said.

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said the tariffs will damage American auto workers just as they will damage Canadian auto workers.

“The message to President Trump should be to knock it off. He’s changed his mind before. He’s done this twice, puts them on, takes them off. We can suspect that may well happen again,” Poilievre said.