Trump, trade wars and working class unity

Trump’s latest round of tariffs will result in a huge hit to an already weakened Canadian economy. It is difficult to accurately estimate the exact impacts but economists warn of tens of thousands of job losses. Canada was already in a “technical recession” according to Mark Carney and this latest attack will exacerbate the situation significantly.

According to media reports, the concessions that Trump was demanding, including having a veto over bilateral other trade deals with other countries, control of infrastructure spending and a say in the rewriting of Quebec’s language laws caused Mark Carney and his negotiating team to abandon talks and return to Ottawa. The Trump demands were ridiculous and Carney really had no choice but to end the talks

Carney has since announced that there will be “dollar for dollar” retaliatory tariffs from Canada although we don’t yet know the specifics of what goods will be targeted.

These trade wars – which are becoming commonplace for the Trump administration – will once again impact working people on both sides of the border. US workers will pay more for basics like steel, aluminum, lumber products and vehicles. Canadian workers will also suffer higher prices and the broader impacts of an economic downturn.

It is understandable that in face of these attacks, that Canadians would rally behind a nationalist sentiment — calling for an “elbows up” approach to Trump. Most of the premiers and opposition leaders treaded carefully and generally supported Carney’s move. Conservatives like Doug Ford and Pierre Polievre denounced Trump despite their previously voiced support for him.

Ford, Carney responsible for job cuts

In the face of external threats the people of most countries look to those in positions of political power to save them. The problem for working people in Canada is that Carney and Ford and the others have shown, through their policies while in power, that they have an utter disregard for working people.

If Carney is so worried about Canadian jobs he would not have opened up his term laying off tens of thousands of public sector workers. He would not have ordered striking Air Canada flight attendants off their picket lines and he would not be overseeing the largest transfer of wealth from the public sector to the billionaire oil barons and arms industries which provide comparatively fewer jobs.

Ford, likewise, has shown workers nothing but contempt. Yes, he has offered some money for construction projects which may employ people in the building trades but he has simultaneously gutted the public sector and healthcare resulting in thousands of lost jobs and workers that can barely keep up with the cost of living.

He would not be laying off almost 500 Workplace Safety and Insurance Board workers across Ontario 

He would not have forced teachers to pay for school supplies to a US multinational rather than simply paying for the supplies needed for a functioning education system. It is not believable that he is 'standing up for Canada' as he sells the Toronto waterfront and airport to a consortium owned by US financial giant JP Morgan.

Since Trump’s first tariffs we have seen Canadian political and business leaders use the threats, not to develop policies that will support workers but — quite the opposite — to use the threats as a bludgeon against people and the natural environment.

Carney defends the billionaires

Carney is calling for billions in tax dollars to be spent on a new pipeline project which will make the job bosses rich but will have further severe consequences on the natural world. As the climate crisis worsens, building more fossil fuel infrastructure will have a negative impact on all but the most wealthy.

The attacks on Indigenous Sovereignty, all wrapped up in the rhetoric of nation building, will further degrade natural systems and whip up anti-Indigenous racism which will only benefit the far-right.

Carney and all the premiers have shown through this fiasco that they represent the interests of the rich. Canadian workers need substantial supports like price controls on skyrocketing grocery costs. They need affordable housing, while Carney’s plans involve giving billions to developers that are partly responsible for the housing crisis in the first place. Workers need EI expansion and extensions to ride out the crisis. Carney is offering none of that. His main interventions in the economy are about maintaining the profits of the billionaires.

Retaliatory tariffs just extend the suffering for US workers who are equally victimized by these squabbles among the rich and powerful. We should find no appeal in worsening the lives of people in the US who are also struggling to keep themselves fed and housed. In case after case we see corporate interests on both sides of the border using the crisis of these tariffs to enrich themselves at the expense of workers.

A worker at a steel plant in Hamilton has more in common with a steelworker in Pittsburgh than they do with Carney or Trump. Postal workers on both sides of the border are fighting to protect and preserve their public service while corporate interests (often the same corporations) try to dismantle the systems.

The only long term solution to the crisis of capitalism is international workers solidarity. That means uniting to dismantle the system in both countries. Trump represents a US society in decay. He is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. Carney, likewise, represents a politics of corporate control that has characterized the era of neoliberal globalization.

That is why a nationalist response will get us nowhere. Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau oversaw a dramatic deterioration of the living standards of working people. He also did nothing to reign in the cost of living crisis. In the US under Biden workers saw income inequality rise to the highest levels since the Great Depression.

Fight Trump & Carney

None of them are on the side of working people be they Republican, Democrat, Liberal or Conservative. Building the fightback against the bosses and privatizers here and building solidarity with workers struggle in the US is the solution.

Mobilizing to support Indigenous Land Defenders on both sides of the Medicine Line who are under attack by international corporate interest is the solution.

The border won’t save us nor will Carney or Ford. Canada and the US are both states that grew rich off of genocide, slavery and exploitation. Both states belong in the dustbin of history. As we have said before, We need to call for Land Back, Indigenous sovereignty and Socialism. For the unity of First Nations and the working class—against borders and capitalism—for the protection of the natural world and  liberation for all on Turtle Island.