Doug Ford's risky trade game with Trump

A mere week ago, Ontario Premier Doug Ford shared a plan to hit back against U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs. And it was good. American liquor would be removed from the provincial liquor retailer’s shelves. The LCBO, Ontario’s monopoly alcohol wholesaler, would also prohibit retailers from buying American beer, cider, spirits, and wine. U.S. companies would be barred from bidding on provincial procurement contracts. Ontario would cancel its deal with Trump’s right hand man Elon Musk to provide rural satellite internet access. And electricity surcharges — or export bans — would be on the table. It would cost Americans billions. They’d feel the sting.

Ford made good on all these promises, including levying a 25 per cent energy export tax on electricity sent to the U.S. Then, immediately, he flip-flopped after Trump doubled aluminum and steel exports tariffs in response, and withdrew the electricity surcharge.

Whether this was a defeat or a victory remains to be seen. Ford didn’t come away entirely empty-handed. He secured a meeting, alongside Federal Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington on Thursday to discuss ending the tariff war and a potential renegotiation of the free trade deal between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Ford cast the exchange as a compromise, a chance to “let cooler heads prevail,” as he put it after Lutnick approached him to seek a deal, a sentiment the commerce secretary echoed.

It’s a risky bet. We know what Trump’s deals are worth —nothing. During Trump’s first term, he renegotiated NAFTA, transmogrifying it into the USMCA, and praising it as a historic deal. “The USMCA is the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history,” said Trump in 2020. “All of our countries will benefit greatly.”

That’s the deal he’s effectively ripping up now.

On Wednesday, Trump boasted that after he’d raised steel and aluminum tariffs to 50 per cent from 25 per cent, Ontario “withdrew their little threat.” Lutnick did some boasting of his own. But what choice do they have? The Trump administration is pathological, obsessed with looking tough for a domestic audience. That’s not uncommon in politics and foreign affairs, though Trump’s cult of performative bullying takes the practice to new, terrifying heights. 

Trump’s comment came a day after he praised Ford as “a very strong man.” But was it praise? Trump has an interest in pumping Ford’s tires. It benefits Trump to make the Ontario premier look like a giant —one he can slay with his savvy manoeuvres and dominate again, at will. 

Ford did, after all, blink when the White House upped the ante, leaving everyone back where they started. Again, politicians always want to look tough in the eyes of voters. 

In the most charitable reading of Ford’s play, he has bought a little time, a chance to hope that everybody will cool down and the tariff war can come to a peaceful end that results in a stable, long-term trade relationship. There may actually be room to make a deal — long as those odds may be. Ford can, after all, reapply the energy export surcharge any time. What matters is what comes next.

Ford says he doesn’t expect to leave Washington this week with any major tariff concessions. His goal, rather, is to build relationships. But saying that reads a lot like an exercise in expectations management. Surely, Ford must be aiming a little higher — or, at least, hoping for more. 

If Ford and Leblanc meet Lutnick and convince him to get Trump to drop, or even reduce, any of the proposed U.S. tariffs, then the premier will have secured a genuine victory for workers, consumers, and industries on both sides of the border. Even a few steps down that road would be a win. Again, that’s a really big, massive, honking if.

Our ultimate judgment of Ford’s negotiation strategy ought to depend on what he achieves, or doesn’t, and at what cost. Most elements of his initial plan remain in place, save for the electricity surcharge and ads the province was running in the U.S. attacking the Trump administration. Those measures can, and should, be put back in place quickly, if the White House won’t budge on tariffs. If Ford wrangles concessions from Trump, then we ought to welcome that. If he can’t, then we can judge him for that failure. But in the current climate, in the fog of trade war, almost anything is worth trying at least once. So, let Ford try, and we can sort out what comes next.