By Marc Snelling / Special to the OB Rag
California’s winery casualties continue to mount as the Trump Trade War escalates. The near blockade of the Strait of Your Booze has resulted in layoffs and closures amongst California wineries, Kentucky distilleries, and other industries with Canadian export markets. The senseless damage to cross-border businesses grows along with White House rhetoric. The trade war against Canada started with a MAGA regime lie about fentanyl streaming across the Northern border, is now a year and half old.
This week the Canadian negotiating team walked away from US talks in what media are calling an escalation to an all-out trade war. Canadian’s views remain largely unchanged by recent events. Any so-called “negotiations” with the White House have long been seen as extortion through sovereignty threats. Canadians questioned not only if a deal was possible, but if a deal with the current White House would be the worth the paper it was written on. After all the deal on paper now is not being followed and it has the current president’s sharpie on it.
The end result of US bluster and tariffs is a sharp drop in Canadian trust of US government. A drop so steep that for the first time ever, Pew Research Center polling shows the average Canadian now views China (44%) as a more reliable trading partner than the USA (33%). The result is hard to fathom considering the centuries-long US-Canada alliance and that views of China were near historic lows during the COVID pandemic.
This fact was seemingly acknowledged during trade negotiations with the White House adding a last minute poison pill amendment to give the White House say over Canada’s trading partners (sovereignty). The amendments said to have come through regime cabinet secretary Lutnick also included changes to French language labelling requirements. The Vice President chimed in after the conclusion of negotiations to say Canada only exists because of US military power. The toddler-in-chief’s art of the deal response was to threaten to rename Lake Ontario Lake America.
It’s unclear how this kind of talk is expected to land in Canada. Ontario is an Indigenous name that long predates the USA and Canada. Judging by the toddler in chief’s petulant reactions it seems Canadians were expected to cower in fear and give the White House whatever, whenever. The White House’s social media took a page from Iran’s trolling with a Lego map of the US with Lake America and the Gulf of America. The AI-generated map laughably placed the US capital in North Carolina. Ask average Canadians what they think of the White House threats and you will invariably hear two words that start with f and o.
Some wineries with English/French labelled product they are paying to warehouse now have a call to make about the winds of the trade war settling down. With the Trump regime cabinet runs its mouth random casualties including California wineries pickup the check. Unless the next step is to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln to Lake America) to reopen the Stright of Your Booze and force Montreal restaurant goers to drink English-only labelled California wine, I’m not sure what the White House has in mind.
Like the war in Iran, if the White House has a strategy beyond ‘say anything no matter how perverted, reckless, or outrageous that will keep MAGA Republicans grifting’- it is not evident. The tactics of constant threats and broken promises have not only soured US relations with Canada but has divided the US itself. The wine and tourism sectors are casualties, but overall exports to Canada are not California’s biggest market. The same can not be said for roughly half of US states, particularly Northern border states like Michigan and Maine.
The US division is also evident in court actions. After the fentanyl lie fell flat, the Trump regime advanced their second sham pretense for tariffs – a never-used 1930s law. A move that has seen the White House sued by 25 US States. What US politicians of both major parties fail to understand is the grassroots nature and basic elements of the Canadian equation, particularly the so-called Canadian “ban” on US alcohol.
Senator Adam Schiff joined MAGA Republicans in calling for an end to Canada’s supposed ban of California wine. What he and others fail to understand is that the sale of alcohol is not federally governed. Each province can and has made their own decision. In Alberta and Saskatchewan US alcohol is in the bars and on the shelves. Canadians in other provinces can even buy alcohol mail-order from Alberta. With full consumer freedom to choose US wine and spirits sales are still down roughly 60%. They will continue to sink as Saskatchewan announced a 50% tariff on US alcohol after Canada walked away from talks.
The fact that Canadian drinking habits are on US leader’s radar is a testament to the power of grassroots consumer boycotts. The White House’s own figures released last month showed Canadian imports of American alcohol had dropped from $718 million the previous year to $137 million. Half a billion here, half a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money.
MAGA faithful may believe Trump when he says 95% of Canadian exports are to the US so Canada has no choice but capitulate and give up sovereignty. The real number was 75% and since tariff threats, it has dropped below 70%. Canadians have mostly made up their minds, and the overwhelming majority don’t trust any threats or promises coming from the current occupants of the US executive branch. They will respond to their neighbor’s actions as they come.
Being grouped with China and Iran as targets by the White House is the current action. It seems Canada has replaced old US enemy states. Meanwhile the Trump regime is not too busy talking shit about Canada that it can’t find time to help its new North Korean and Russian friends by drawing down American military in South Korea while the North deploys tens of thousands of troops to fight in the Ukraine War.
Canadians didn’t ask for a fight but won’t back down from one. The only question is how much damage will be done, not so much by which country to the other, but how much more damage the US will do to itself.
Marc Snelling has dual-citizenship status with Canada and the U.S., and currently resides in southwest British Columbia, Canada. Marc is a former OBcean and was once the chair of the OB Planning Board.
