Letters: Yes, the trade war is about economics, but it's more about sovereignty - National Post
Edmontonians sing the national anthem during Canada Day celebrations at the Alberta Legislature on July 1, 2026. Photo by David Bloom / Postmedia NewsArticle content‘National identity now matters as much as economic well-being to a large share of the country’Sign In or Create an Accountor View more offersArticle contentRe: Doug Ford’s veto of a U.S. trade deal cannot stand — John Ivison; and Trade war was never about sovereignty — Michael Higgins, both Aug. 31
Reading John Ivison’s Sept. 1 column on the trade talks and Michael Higgins’ column on the same immediately afterwards was edifying. They both grasped the immediate economic cost of the ongoing trade war. But one largely missed the deeper national anger over the attacks on our sovereignty. Together they illuminated why the collapse of Canada-U.S. negotiations is not just another trade spat.
Like Ivison, Canadians are not stupid. They get that it is about the economy: jobs, GDP, supply chains, the risk of auto tariffs climbing to 50 per cent if Canada accepts terms that violate the letter and spirit of the 2018 CUSMA, terms Ottawa has long called illegal under the agreement. Accepting them would mean endorsing the principle that a signed free-trade deal is written in pencil, erasable whenever Washington feels like it. That is the economic and legal heart of the resistance.
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But national identity now matters as much as economic well-being to a large share of the country. Call it hubris. Call it misguided. It is real. The “51st state” threats, the “governor” jibes, the casual insults directed at Canadians as being “nasty,” are affecting us. Maybe none of it should matter, and reason should win out over passion, but when a U.S. president can order the renaming of Lake Ontario, the body of water shared with Canada’s most populous province, to “Lake America,” the message is unmistakable: Washington defines the map, the terms, and the identity of Ontarians.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford may be playing partisan politics. But Canadians largely do not mind. The alternative, appearing as a country whose major industries can be slowly dismantled, whose cultural and language protections can be bargained down, whose sovereignty can be subordinated, cuts deeper than a temporary GDP hit. A GDP decline registers on a spreadsheet. A sense of self does not.
This is about more than a trade war. It is about who gets to define Canada’s place and its own self-identification. Canadians are being undeservedly maligned, mistreated, and they know it. Higgins focused on the economic arithmetic and found the walk-away costly. He is not wrong on the numbers. He simply does not reach the heart of the dispute: for many Canadians, a diminished sense of independence, the freedom to be true to ourselves, is the more meaningful loss.
