Canada – U.S. July 2026 –

28 July
‘You Aren’t Going to Like What Comes After America’
By Chrystia Freeland, former deputy prime minister, minister of foreign affairs and minister of finance of Canada.
(NYT opinion) …  It’s about whether Canada is prepared to accept a profound change in its relationship with the United States. It’s about whether Canada is willing to go from being an ally and a partner, in a relationship governed by treaties and rules, to being a vassal, subject to Washington fiat — like the Venezuela of Delcy Rodríguez, only with snowdrifts and hockey.
… As we did in 2018, when we responded to the first major U.S. tariff attack with dollar-for-dollar retaliation, Canada must fight back. The only thing a bully understands is strength, and Mr. Trump is keen to establish himself as the world’s apex predator.
Self-defense works best when you do it as a team, and that is why my friend and former Liberal Party parliamentary colleague Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has struck such a chord around the world with his call for middle powers to act together.
That’s the right thing for the rest of us to do, and it is happening faster than Americans may realize. But the big unknown remains what happens in the United States.

22-24 July
Trump wants trade — just not on terms anyone can decipher
By Carson Jerema, National Post managing editor, comment
Canada must focus on what it can control and that isn’t the American president
U.S. President Donald Trump’s position in his trade dispute with Canada is that this country must absorb any and all unprovoked acts of aggression and possibly even ask the Americans if they can deliver more hardship, maybe even thank the president for imposing tariffs on us. It is difficult to draw any other conclusion from the new round of tariffs Trump has pledged this week to enact on Canada.
Threats of new 50 per cent levies on a smattering of Canadian imports, ranging from cement to dairy, and from jewelry and essential oils to smartphones and gaming consoles, are intended as supposed retaliation for Canada’s supply management system, as well as the ban on American liquor sales in some provinces, and Canadian tariffs on American auto imports….
Navarro On Rebuilding Trump’s Tariff Regime (YouTube)
White House senior advisor Peter Navarro discusses the administration’s effort to reconstruct its tariff program using several trade laws after the Supreme Court struck down its previous approach. He defends new tariffs tied to forced labor in global supply chains and says separate investigations could lead to additional duties over the European Union’s treatment of US technology companies and foreign industrial overcapacity. Navarro argues the measures will help rebalance trade without producing sustained inflation and urges the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates in response to the energy-price shock from the Iran war. He speaks with Joe Mathieu on the late edition of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power”.

New Tariffs as Old Ones Expire: The Latest on Trump’s Trade War
The president has unveiled a complicated system to forge ahead with his trade war, after the Supreme Court stuck down his original levies.
(NYT) … Separately, the Trump administration took direct aim at Canada this month.
On Monday, the president announced that the United States would soon impose a 50 percent tariff on goods arriving from its neighbor, including cement, dairy products, hockey sticks, plywood, paper and wine, alleging that Canada had discriminated against U.S. industry.
To do this, Mr. Trump tapped an obscure provision of another trade law, Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which permits tariffs as a response to countries that put undue burdens on U.S. imports. The tariffs are set to take effect in August. It is unclear how this duty will interact with those imposed on Canada under Section 301.
Unlike the president’s past actions targeting Canada, this tariff will apply even to goods that are covered under the United States-Canada-Mexico Agreement, known as U.S.M.C.A. That trade deal, which Mr. Trump signed in 2018, is being renegotiated.