(Image via pressdemocrat.com)

Business Manager: Brendan Flaherty

Email: bflaherty1@umassd.edu

Having neighbors that you don’t particularly like can be a struggle from time to time. Working with their wants and needs can be both cumbersome and daunting.

Although most times, neighbors can come together to work out and solve their issues rather than creating more.

This however, does not seem to be the case for the U.S. and Canada. Tensions between the great neighboring countries have continued to rise due to the implementation of various tariffs, controversial statements made by Donald Trump, and poor communication.

It will come as no surprise to many that Donald Trump’s questionable leadership style has caused many to become angered with the state of American politics, both domestically and internationally. 

It all started when President Trump decided to add tariffs to the U.S.’s trading partners in an attempt to garner more revenue for the U.S. In doing so, he added 25% tariffs to the steel and aluminum imports from Canada.

Canadians have responded to the pressure to conform by boycotting the U.S. in every way possible.

As reported by NBC, “Two-thirds of Canadians said they’d significantly reduced their purchases of American products in stores.”

They have also since planned to avoid the U.S. by skipping flights in and out of the country and, in some cases, have even gone as far as cancelling trips to the U.S. altogether.

On top of the frustration, the Canadian people are also fearful of the U.S. due to perceived hostility towards neighboring countries. Many believe the U.S. has fostered a hostile environment, raising concern about the possibility of being denied entry into the country.

Canadian travel agents, like Micheline Dion, have gone as far as cautioning people from going into the U.S. entirely, advising against any sort of travel around or in the U.S. for the time being, as mentioned by Salon.

Going back to the root cause of all this frustration and anxiety, is the fact that there are now added tariffs on Canadian goods, sponsored and put into place by President Trump.

It would not be far-fetched to say that the treatment of the Canadian people from the current U.S. president has been received as unappealing and disrespectful.

President Trump went on to say that “Canada only works as a state,” and, “We don’t need anything they have.”

Of course, a comment like this required a response from Canadian officials, especially the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney.

Mark Carney, who was officially sworn in on March 14th, stated in his first speech as the newly elected Prime Minister that, “We will never, ever, in any way shape or form, be part of the United States. America is not Canada.”

This trade war between the U.S. and Canada has left both sides in a sort of stalemate. Trump refuses to back down from the newly imposed tariffs and Carney refuses to negotiate any deals with Trump until Canada is respected and recognized as a sovereign country. 

This will be a hard deal to overcome because of the new position that Carney has been put in. Navigating the tense stream of politics and hatred for their once allied neighbors will be a tough role to fill. 

Carney continues, “In the end, Americans are going to lose from American trade action and that’s one of the reasons I am confident that there will be that discussion with the appropriate amount of respect and the breadth…”

Only time will tell which leader has the stronger backbone to uphold their values and plans, and which one might fold under the pressure in this tense political climate between the two countries.