For Canada and the United States, it was always going to be a bumpy summer.
Ever since the United States on July 1 declined to renew the trade deal President Donald Trump negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term, the Canadian government, and many Canadians, have been bracing for his administration to try to use pressure tactics to extract concessions on trade.
On Monday the administration did just that, upping the ante, as Trump made use, for the first time in history, of a nearly century-old provision to impose fresh tariffs on the second-largest U.S. trading partner.
But the move is more likely to elicit stoicism than panic from the Canadian side.
The tariffs, which experts expect to face legal challenges, target more than 500 Canadian goods, including cheese and hockey sticks, worth $20 billion. That’s about 2% of the entire trading relationship in goods between the two neighbors, which was worth some $720 billion last year.