Carlo Dade: Director of International Policy at University of Calgary chats 50% tariff for Canada

President Donald Trump on Monday announced sweeping tariffs against Canada, including 50% on electrical equipment and machinery which are among the steepest tariffs his administration has levied against any country.

Director of international policy at the New North America Institute, University of Calgary, Carlo Dade said they are concerned that pushing back against the tariffs would result in consequences.

"We've largely accepted that sticking our head up would get us hit hard by the Americans," he told Andrew Dickens.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, We're off to Canada, and Canadian experts are
warning of an all out trade war with America after
the latest very ballsy US tariff move over twenty billion
dollars of Canadian goods have been slapped with a whopping
fifty percent tariff by this southern neighbor, all due to
theceived discrimination on American cars, American booze, and American milk.

(00:23):
So Carlo Dave is the director of International Policy at
the New North America Institute, which is based at the
University of Calgary, and joins me now, good evening to you, Carlo,
Good morning. So how did this go down in Canada?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It went down about as well as everything else the
Americans have done to us and to others around the globe.
Not entirely unexpected. Certainly the analyst community, myself and others
have been preparing for this. But it's just another blow
in the Francois Truffau's Thousand Blows or whatever the movie was.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
You've got thirty d until the tariffs take hold. Is
there any way you can negotiate your way out of it?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Oh? Potentially, but we could also negotiate our way into
the Americans asking for even more from US. We stepping
back for a second, it's good for listeners to understand
that only two countries have attempted retaliatory trade measures or
tariffs with the US. Both those countries begin with the CE.

(01:27):
I think your leaders know or your listeners know the
other countries China. There's not much the Americans can do
to make an example out of China, but there's a
lot they can do for other countries around the globe,
with whom they're also pressuring to make care off concessions
or trade concessions or deal with irritants. So we've largely

(01:48):
expected that sticking our head up would get us hit
hard by the Americans.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
So Marc Conney says he'll do everything for Canada, but
he stopped short of talking about tip to tech tariffs.
But there are other leaders in Canada who have been
quite vocal about responding with very similar tariffs the other way.
Which way do you think you will go?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
So this is the key issue that we face, as
other jurisdictions, including New Zealand Australia don't face. In Canada,
the provinces are quite strong, especially in terms of trade issues.
There are areas of provincial responsibility where the province, well,
the buck stops with the provinces. So this lends itself
to sort of a foreign interference where the Americans gain

(02:34):
leverage by causing domestic dissension within different sectors and different provinces.
The terriffs we've had from the administration Section two three two,
terriffs which have never been exempted under the various other
cous Trade Agreement provisions, hit provinces differently. Fifty eight percent

(02:56):
of what Ontario exports to the US are covered by
those terraffs fifty five percent for Quebec, but here in
Alberta four point five percent, next door in Saskatchewan, four
Newfoundland Labrador less than one, British Columbia close to forty percent.
So you have already these provincial splits. And this is

(03:18):
not because the Administration is targeting provinces, but because not
every province in Canada makes all those Section three three
eight allows the US President to go beyond de facto
provincial tarrists too, explicitly naming provinces and tariffing only goods
that come from certain provinces. So this is a real

(03:41):
game changer for US.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Is your vice for country like New Zealand to remain
quiet because we could actually see that this could be
a boon for us if we are seen in a
bit of light. Or should should we be standing up
to these TIFFs and this tectic.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
You should prepare for the worst, hope for the best,
prepare for the worst. Specifically, look at the agreements that
twenty other countries have been forced to negotiate with the Americans,
making concessions to the US in exchange for higher tariffs.
So your baseline of holding on to what you have

(04:19):
is probably not viable in the longer term. At some
point in time, the Americans are probably going to come
to you and ask for a baseline tariff of the
type that the UK EU create. You'll work your way
through the list. So we're publishing a paper examining what
the Americans got out of those twenty agreements and what

(04:41):
Canada should be preparing for. In terms of the Americans
asking for concessions. It's not the economy of the past
exporting milk, lamb commodities. The Americans are pushing for rules
on digital trade to take control of the on the
me of the future AI technology data, So the sort

(05:06):
of buying for everyone is how much of tomorrow's trade
do you sacrifice for protecting the trade of today. And
that's something that you will to have a national debate
about you.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Okay, Carlo dada I thank you for your time today.
And Carlo is a director of international policy at the
New North America Institute that's at the University of Calgary.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
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