The Detroit–Windsor, Ontario region was poised for an economic and psychic boost courtesy of the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge this summer. Travelers would save time transiting the border, tolls would be cheaper, and even cyclists and pedestrians could make the trip.
But the White House had so poisoned the atmosphere surrounding the bridge—demanding and securing new concessions on revenues, even though Canada fronted all the costs—that Michigan and Ontario ended up holding separate celebrations. Ontario Premier Doug Ford headlined the Canadian ribbon-cutting, featuring various provincial and national dignitaries and members of Gordie Howe’s family. Michiganders had Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) cruising across the span a couple of days later in a Michigan-made Mustang convertible.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s unpopular deal, though it got the bridge open, created a major headache for his government. And this split screen ended up being another chaotic prelude to a new phase of the U.S.-Canada relationship, worthy of—to riff off Doug Ford—a lifetime’s worth of Saturday Night Live skits. During this midterm campaign season, Democratic and Republican candidates will now literally have to decide which side of the border they’re on—now that Canada’s “dollar for dollar” retaliatory tariffs are in effect.
After sidelining the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—Canada and Mexico had hoped for a renewed 16-year deal, but had to settle for annual reviews until the trade agreement expires in ten years—the White House surfaced a new irritant, the century-old Section 338 tariffs. Under this zombie tariff scheme, the president was able to levy a 50 percent duty on Canadian dairy products, alcoholic beverages, and other baskets of commodities that “discriminate” against American goods.
Dollar-for-dollar tariffs match the duties that the Trump administration has imposed on Canadian goods and will affect about $28 billion in imports.
Negotiations aimed at avoiding the tariffs led to President Trump proclaiming that “a deal” was imminent. But “a deal” usually means “no deal,” where the White House is concerned. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick joined the American negotiators coming back to the table, this time with additional demands: a new tariff rate on certain trucks, veto power over Canada’s free-trade deals with other countries, eliminating the requirement that streaming companies commit 15 percent of Canadian earnings to promoting Canadian streaming content, and stripping French-language labeling from U.S.-bound Canadian products.
The last demand was made while three by-election campaigns were in progress. Fresh off the capitulation on the Gordie Howe International Bridge, Carney had little choice but to drop out of what had passed for negotiations. He didn’t go quietly. “The attitude of the United States in these discussions and subsequent ones is that the core Canadian industries would be subsidiaries of the United States industries or would be gradually wound down in Canada,” Carney said. “We’re not going to accept those terms.”
Carney’s Liberal Party would ultimately win all three seats and maintain its majority in Parliament, including one in Quebec where a longtime Conservative Party lawmaker lost. If the American trade team intended to make headway on their demands and help Conservative Party candidates by treating Canada like a unilingual vassal state, it didn’t work.
As the temperature of the trade war rises from simmering to boiling, the situation has devolved into finger-pointing, new geographic designations, body-shaming insults, Al slop, and meme generation that would wear out a middle-school principal, much less the leader of a sovereign nation. The meme-generating administration may be amusing themselves, but they’ve made life practically impossible for Republicans trying to win re-election or even gain offices, particularly in the northern border states where the trade war is manifestly unpopular.
Much of this fury has been concentrated in Michigan, where tariffs have cost the state about $23 billion ($5,619 per household) since 2025, according to a National Taxpayers Union Foundation Tariffs Tracker analysis. That’s the third-highest amount in the country, behind only California and Texas.
Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (who is running for governor to replace Whitmer, who is term-limited) have pummeled their Republican opponents. “If you’re starting a trade war with Canada, it’s because you’re the asshole,” El-Sayed said Monday. He’s criticized Rep. Mike Rogers, his Republican challenger, for backing Trump, and called the trade war with Canada “a war on Michigan because we have to pay the price every day for goods that shouldn’t cost as much as they do.” Rogers has supported using the Gordie Howe Bridge as a bargaining chip in the trade disputes.
Benson, like El-Sayed, regularly lauds the historic friendship with Canada. She calls the tariffs the “John James tax,” so named for her opponent in the governor’s race, Rep. John James, who represents Michigan’s Tenth Congressional District. There’s no real way for a Republican like James to justify this month’s antics, so he hasn’t tried. “We need the negotiators to go back to the table, stop acting like children, and negotiate a fair, mutually beneficial reciprocal deal,” James said last week. The crisis facing Republican candidates, however, is that even offering up critiques of the administration’s conduct, however reasoned and on point, fails to help them.
Vice President JD Vance jetted into Michigan to stump for Rogers and James, fresh off a trek to Maine. The vice president first appeared in Brewer, Maine, south of Bangor, and had quite a bit to say about cross-border trade, explaining that “what we’re trying to do here is just make sure that Maine actually gets a fair deal.”
He compared Canada to China, a tactic that the White House uses in its quest to demonize Canada with American audiences who fail to understand why a historic ally has been labeled a political and economic rival. At one point, Vance held forth for three minutes on Maine’s trade with Canada. “If you look at the amount of tariffs that have been applied not just on Maine but on a lot of our northern states that are doing cross-border trade with Canada, Canada and China have been the two worst countries when it comes to trade policy anywhere in the world,” he said.
He also slammed Canadian dairy policies that result in a 250 percent tariff on U.S. dairy products. Audience members applauded and cheered Vance, who never mentioned that that rate applies only when the U.S. exceeds its duty-free dairy quotas under the USMCA.
Maine candidates have pointed out inconsistencies. “You should not have to worry about a narcissist like Donald Trump that puts tariffs on one day, the next day takes them off, you have no idea what this man is doing, but he is hurting our state and our economy,” Troy Jackson, Maine’s Democratic candidate for governor, said last week referring to the president’s pause before implementing the 50 percent duty.
Meanwhile, once in front of a Michigan audience in Sterling Heights, a northern suburb of Detroit, Vance did not mention Canada.
In an EPIC-MRA statewide poll of 600 Michiganders in June, 48 percent of respondents opposed tariffs on imported goods and an overwhelming majority believe that American consumers pay most of the cost of imported goods, while farmers, the auto industry, and retailers are “feeling the impacts.” Overwhelming majorities also believe that the tariffs contribute to the affordability crisis.
The impact of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs will vary widely. In the northern border states, non-fuel exports to Canada range from a low of 11 percent of Washington state goods to a high of 77 percent of North Dakota goods. Just about every sector, from motor vehicles to lobsters, will be hit.
Rates of 15 percent, 25 percent, and 50 percent will be imposed on a wide range of products, including but not limited to steel, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, electronics, and dairy. These dollar-for-dollar tariffs match the duties that the Trump administration has imposed on Canadian goods and will affect about $28 billion in imports.
Canada’s gambit is that Americans have had just about enough of life in the memeverse, and that they’ll soon find out how important Canada is when already-high prices ascend yet again. The Carney government’s moves, in tandem with the Iran war, the midterm elections, gas prices, the approaching heating oil season, and potential inflationary pressures, may force Trump trade negotiators to come back to the table with more than concepts of a plan.
