Canadians responded to President Trump’s first round of tariffs a year and a half ago with a grass-roots effort to bruise the United States, boycotting alcohol, vegetables and cross-border travel.
They rallied around the flag, inspected grocery labels like detectives and shopped local, all while Prime Minister Mark Carney looked across the ocean for new trade partnerships. Across the country, Canadians had elbows up, an idiom of defiance ignited by the Canadian comedian Mike Myers that has its roots in hockey.
They won’t be dropping elbows any time soon, as new and threatened tariffs endanger jobs and the existence of companies both large and small.
“We’re standing our ground not to be bullied on the world stage and pushed around,” said Daniel Fehr, a plant-accessories shop owner in Steinbach, Manitoba, who stocked his U.S. warehouses ahead of the trade negotiation deadline. When the warehouses sell out, his company, Daniel’s Plants, will ship only domestically. He is unable to absorb the new cost of doing business in the United States.
“The ultimate, harsh reality is, it’s real people’s businesses and lives that are affected by this big game of chicken,” Mr. Fehr said.
A patriotic, survivalist and defiant mood has settled over much of Canada as Mr. Carney pulled his negotiators out of Washington and imposed matching retaliatory tariffs.
Some Canadians who have closely followed the saga over tariffs since the United States first imposed them in March 2025 say the latest more aggressive levies have inspired a matching mind-set.
“It makes us giddy, I think, to come and have a showdown,” said Loys Maingon, a retired biologist in Courtenay, British Columbia. “At this point, we’ve had enough.”
Last Saturday, the Trump administration began punishing Canada for what it perceives as discriminatory trade treatment and slapped a 50 percent tariff on $20 billion worth of Canadian exports. They include a mishmash of hundreds of products, like buoys, textiles and Christmas lights.
Canadian negotiators had used the initial threat of these tariffs as an impetus to get the Americans back to the negotiating table. Over the last few weeks, the talks aimed at achieving a better deal for both countries, and Mr. Trump extended the initial deadline by three days to allow negotiators time to sort out the paperwork.
Just hours before the midnight deadline last Friday, Mr. Carney told his officials to walk away. “You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked,” he told reporters the next morning.
This time around, as Mr. Carney said, Canada finds itself in a stronger position, having established new economic ties over the last year, including an auto agreement with South Korea, tariff rollbacks with China and a landmark deal to export energy to Germany. Canada also reset diplomatic ties with India, producing a deal to restart uranium exports.
Perhaps standing a little taller because of it, Canadian political leaders have been assertive, if not aggressive, over the past few weeks.
“If you’re picking fights with Canadians, then you don’t have a friend in the world,” David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, told reporters. Wab Kinew, the premier of Manitoba, urged Canada to fight. “We’ve got the upper hand,” he said.
But it was Doug Ford, the Ontario premier who emerged as “Captain Canada” during the first wave of tariffs, who took things to a pugnacious place, inviting Mr. Trump to “kiss” his backside, a statement he made multiple times during media appearances on Monday. Mr. Trump seems to have taken notice, jabbing back at Mr. Ford in a social media post and also threatening to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America.
“We don’t know how far the escalation will go,” said Keenan Sprague, the president of Sprague Foods, a cannery in Belleville, Ontario. While canned foods aren’t affected by the latest batch of tariffs, they were included in the 10 percent tariffs introduced in June. Mr. Sprague worries that could change at a moment’s notice.
Some Canadian companies will need to use domestic suppliers. Monique Muller, the owner of Magical Memories Gifting Co., a giftware shop in Delta, British Columbia, is concerned some could take advantage by increasing prices, which could be especially devastating to artisanal companies owned by women.
“I hope that I can survive it, but time will tell,” Ms. Muller said.
For Jordan Skulmoski, a third-generation beekeeper and founder of TNJ Farms near Edmonton, Alberta, the timing could not be worse. Near the end of honey harvest season, beekeepers are arranging to sell their products commercially by the barrel.
Canada’s prairie provinces export the most honey of all of Canada’s provinces. About 56 percent of the honey Canada exported last year went to the United States; it is the top foreign market for Canadian honey, followed by Japan.
“The thing about bees is everybody always forgets about us,” said Mr. Skulmoski, compared with other sectors of agriculture.
For the first time in several years, prompted by the tariffs, Mr. Skulmoski has opted to put his honey in jars and sell it directly to consumers at his local farmer’s market rather than take a hit on cross-border shipping.
“The downside of that is, I’m waiting,” he said. “I’m sitting on my honey and waiting for it to sell, rather than selling it all at once.”
