HUBRIS: At its core, hubris is excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence. It’s that specific brand of arrogance where a person becomes so convinced of their own importance or power that they begin to ignore warnings, reality, or the rights of others.
In almost every story involving hubris, there is a predictable arc: the person climbs too high, ignores their limits, and eventually suffers a spectacular "fall."
The “Trade War” Fog: What Actually Changed?
If you only read headlines, you’d think Canada woke up one morning and suddenly everything we sell to the United States was hit with crushing new tariffs.
That’s not what happened.
The simple truth is this: most Canada–U.S. trade is still tariff-free. Roughly 85% continues to cross the border without tariffs because it qualifies under CUSMA/USMCA rules.
So why the constant talk of “trade war”?
Because the pain is real — but it’s concentrated.
What actually changed
A smaller slice of trade is getting hit hard, and it’s coming from three places:
1) A new “fentanyl/border” tariff bucket
The U.S. imposed emergency tariffs under IEEPA: 25% on many goods (later 35%) and 10% on energy/potash — but then exempted CUSMA-compliant goods. In plain language, it’s a penalty mainly aimed at shipments that don’t qualify under CUSMA rules (or aren’t claimed properly).
2) Steel and aluminum got squeezed
The U.S. revived and escalated Section 232 tariffs on metals — a big deal for industrial supply chains, even if it’s not most of our exports.
3) Autos and lumber remain the political flashpoints
Autos have a carve-out for U.S. content in compliant vehicles, which is why many Canadian-built vehicles are less exposed than people assume. Lumber, meanwhile, is hammered by long-running trade-remedy duties that can reach eye-watering levels.
What didn’t change
What didn’t change is the basic structure of Canada–U.S. trade: the majority still moves duty-free, as it has for years. And even during the flare-up, major banks found the effective tariffs actually paid on imports from Canada were far below the scary headline rates, because most shipments stayed inside the duty-free umbrella.
So why the fog?
Because “trade war” is a useful political weapon. It’s a ready-made excuse: a villain across the border, a crisis on the news, and a convenient distraction from domestic failures that Ottawa and the provinces fully control — productivity, internal trade barriers, permitting delays, unaffordable housing, and spending discipline.
Here’s the test: when politicians talk about “trade war,” do they tell you which sectors are hit and what share of trade is actually affected? Or do they talk as if the whole economy is under siege?
Canada deserves honesty, not theatre.
Yes, certain sectors are getting hit — and the workers in those industries feel it. But for the country as a whole, the real shift is not “everything is tariffed.” The shift is: a targeted tariff and duty regime has been layered onto a mostly tariff-free trade relationship — and our politics is inflating that reality into a national fog machine.
If we’re serious, we should do two things at once:
defend the exposed sectors and push back where it counts, and
stop using Washington as a cover story for what we refuse to fix at home.
Because the fastest way to lose an argument is to exaggerate it — and the fastest way to lose a country is to stop holding our own leaders accountable.
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