Stop blaming Trump for Canada’s economic failures

High taxes, costly regulations and internal trade barriers are damaging our economy without any help from Trump

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called Donald Trump’s tariffs “immoral” after Canadian trade talks with the United States fell apart.

That’s quite a charge coming from a Canadian politician.

“[T]he government of Manitoba is 100 per cent behind the prime minister’s direction to retaliate against Donald Trump’s unjustified and immoral tariffs,” Kinew said at a press conference at the Manitoba legislature on Aug. 22.

The “immoral” actions Kinew referred to were the 50 per cent tariffs Trump imposed on upwards of $20 billion of Canada’s annual exports to the U.S. Yes, that is a heavy burden on the affected products, but it is only five per cent of the roughly $400 billion in total Canadian exports to the U.S.

Trump imposed those tariffs under Section 338 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930, which allows a president to impose tariffs of up to 50 per cent in response to discriminatory treatment of American commerce. The White House said Canada’s treatment of U.S. autos, alcohol and dairy justified its use.

In other words, Trump didn’t pull the 50 per cent figure out of thin air. Whether his use of the law is justified is another question, but the law itself sets 50 per cent as the maximum.

There’s a far more important number nearing 50 per cent that Trump has nothing to do with: the annual tax burden on Canadians. According to the Fraser Institute, in 2026, the average Canadian family will earn $166,790 in income and pay an estimated $72,539 in total taxes. That’s 43.5 per cent of their income.

Even worse, Fraser estimates that government spending is roughly 49 per cent of Canadian incomes.

What is more immoral? An American president erecting 50 per cent trade barriers on five per cent of imports from another country, or Canadian governments spending the equivalent of nearly half of everything Canadians earn?

And if Trump’s approach is “immoral,” how does Canada’s reciprocal response become righteous?

That’s the first problem with Kinew’s argument. Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, which he supports, will also add costs for Canadian consumers.

“Gas prices are higher than ever because of the war in Iran. Prices at the grocery store are higher than ever because of his domestic policies, and now he continues to add to your cost of living woes by bringing in more tariffs, which is a tax on you. It’s a tax on you as the American people,” Kinew explained.

But Statistics Canada disproves Kinew’s fuel price claim. Winnipeg gas prices averaged $2.05 in June 2022 and just $1.66 in the latest figures in July 2026. Even stateside, the U.S. Energy Information Administration recorded gas prices at $5.02 per gallon in June 2022 and $4.06 in August 2026.

Kinew’s grocery-price claim also needs context. In Canada, year-over-year grocery inflation was 11.4 per cent in January 2023, five per cent in December 2025 and just 3.1 per cent in July 2026.

While energy costs can feed into grocery prices, blaming Trump for Canada’s affordability problems ignores what Canadian governments themselves have done. Industrial carbon taxes, clean fuel regulations and electricity regulations make transportation and energy more expensive. Pipeline-killing regulatory regimes also handicap our energy sector’s potential.

How’s that for “immoral”?

And then there are the trade barriers Canada imposes on itself.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that internal trade barriers function like a nine per cent tariff in our own country, a barrier that rises to 40 per cent in sectors such as education and health care. The cost to GDP is $210 billion.

Trump had nothing to do with creating those barriers.

Nor can Canada put all the blame on Trump for the failure to reach a trade deal. Canada and the U.S. were very close to a deal when both sides introduced fresh demands. Canada walked away to protect aluminum exports, ensure French-language content appears first on Netflix screens in Quebec and keep the door open for new trade deals with China.

But isn’t China the country Mark Carney called Canada’s “largest geopolitical threat” in the last election?

Canada could just as easily have made concessions that expired when the Trump presidency ended, but no. The federal government won an election on giving Trump the elbow and isn’t so eager to offer him a handshake.

“History will not be kind to Donald Trump, so we should never appease him, and we should fight back,” Kinew said. “He’s got two more years left in office. We should be prepared to duke it out for two years.”

“We can fight back against Donald Trump by buying from Canadian businesses, by supporting Canadian workers,” Kinew said.

There’s nothing wrong with Canadians choosing to buy Canadian. But economic nationalism was the motivation for Trump’s tariffs in the first place. Canadian politicians cannot condemn protectionism south of the border while embracing their own versions of it at home and pretend there is a moral high ground.

There isn’t.

If tomorrow’s historians have keen insight, they may be more unkind to Canadian politicians than they are to Trump. Our politicians have willingly blamed an American president for problems created by their own misguided policies, then used public grudges against him as political cover for their failures.

Our leaders need to quit pointing fingers south and start looking in the mirror.

Lee Harding is a research fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He holds a Master of Public Policy (U of C) and a BA in Journalism, with a career spanning major networks like CBC and Global TV, as well as landmark published research on Canadian economic and social policy.