Democracy & government Took place
Tyranny Tuesday: 9-22-2026: Elbows Up: Mark Carney Says It's Time for Canadians to Fight Back
Tuesday, September 22, 2026, 10:00 AM PDT
Bruce R. Thompson Courthouse and Federal Building, Reno, Nevada
About
📢 Tyranny Tuesday, September 22, 2026 🚨"Elbows up" — the hockey term for bracing to take a hit and give one back has become Prime Minister Mark Carney's rallying cry for a country that never asked for this fight. For nearly a century and a half, Canada has been the United States' closest ally, most reliable trading partner, and neighbor of first resort. In under two years, the Trump administration has turned that relationship into a demonstration of what happens when trade policy is run by impulse instead of strategy swinging tariffs up and down by presidential whim, tearing at a trade deal Trump himself signed, and needling a sovereign democracy of 41 million people with talk of erasing its borders. Canadians are responding by bracing up and hitting back. Americans are paying a price too. And here in Nevada, the bill is arriving in the form of empty hotel rooms, grounded flights, and idled casino floors. 🎢 A Trade War Built on Whiplash The tariff timeline reads less like policy than like a mood chart: ● February 2025: Trump imposes 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods and 10% on energy, citing border security. ● March 2025: Tariffs take effect. Canada retaliates on $30 billion of U.S. goods, and expands that to $155 billion within three weeks. Steel and aluminum tariffs are then doubled to 50%, reportedly triggered by Ontario's threat to tariff electricity exports. ● April 2025: A new 25% tariff hits autos and auto parts. Canada matches it dollar for dollar. ● August 2025: Tariffs jump again, to 35% on non-USMCA goods this time reportedly linked to Canada's decision to recognize Palestinian statehood, a foreign-policy dispute with nothing to do with trade. ● February 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the emergency powers Trump had used to justify the tariffs. The administration pivots to a different legal authority (Section 338 of the Tariff Act) and keeps 50% duties on steel and aluminum in place, plus targeted tariffs on lumber, furniture, and copper. ● August 2026: Trump pauses the 50% Canada tariffs, announcing the two sides "have a deal." ● September 2026: The truce unravels. The White House issues a fact sheet titled "Trump Responds to Canada's Retaliation," and Canada answers by placing tariffs of up to 50% on roughly 700 U.S. goods starting September 8. "Whimsical and arbitrary," with decisions announced on social media that the president's own advisors couldn't predict. The Economist's characterization of the administration's approach Bloomberg has called the constant reversals "baffling." Businesses on both sides of the border cannot plan around a policy that changes with a tweet. That unpredictability is not a side effect it is the whole problem. 📜 Tearing Up the Deal He Called "The Best Trade Deal Ever Made" In his first term, Trump personally renegotiated NAFTA into the USMCA (2020) and took a victory lap for it. His own tariffs on Canada now conflict with that same agreement. Legal analysts find a "strong prima facie inconsistency" with USMCA Article 2.4, which bars new customs duties on goods that already qualify for preferential, tariff-free treatment. The tariffs also raise serious problems under World Trade Organization rules: singling out Canadian goods for a 50% surcharge while similar goods from other countries pass through untaxed runs headlong into the WTO's Most-Favored-Nation principle, and pushes U.S. duties above the ceilings Washington itself agreed to in its WTO tariff schedule. A president who won't stand behind his own signature on his own trade deal is not a partner other countries or American businesses can plan around. 🍁 Insulting Our Closest Friend ● February 2025: Trump says he'd like Canada to become the 51st state, arguing Canadians would get lower taxes and U.S. military protection. Asked later if it was a joke: "I still believe that," he said, adding only "it takes two to tango." ● January 2026: Trump begins referring to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as "Governor" while threatening 100% tariffs the same taunt he used against Carney's predecessor. ● May 2026: In an Oval Office meeting, Carney tells Trump plainly that Canada "isn't for sale." Trump's reply: "Never say never." ● May 29, 2026: Canada's economy slips into a technical recession, and Trump revives the 51st-state talk in the same breath. ● August 2026: Asked directly whether the administration still wants Canada to become a state, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent won't rule it out, saying only that Trump wants Canada to "come to the table" after it "rejected" an offer. This is not friendly ribbing between allies. Repeated, unretracted talk of absorbing a sovereign G7 democracy is coercive rhetoric aimed at a country whose soldiers have fought and died beside American troops in two world wars, Korea, and Afghanistan. 💸 Who Pays the Price? Council on Foreign Relations economist Brad Setser puts the direct cost of the 50% Canada tariff to the U.S. economy at roughly $10 billion "small…
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