To my American friends.

Many of you may not realize what a heartbreaking day yesterday was for Canadians. Our best friend and closest neighbour decided to launch an assault on our sovereignty. Please know that the average Canadian has always had an open heart for the way our countries have entwined our lives, economies and cultures. We have treasured that closeness. Canada buys more American goods than any other country in the world.

Now with the stroke of a pen, one American (with the support of “some” Americans) has put at risk what we have built together over the past 100 years. This one American has taken actions which will cause pain to Canadians, which will cause reactions from Canada that will cause pain to Americans.

According to this one American, the problem is the looseness of our border security, allowing harmful quantities of fentanyl and illegal migrants to enter the U.S., lumping us together with your other neighbour Mexico. The problem is, there are no facts to back this up. In 2024 US Customs and Border Protection Service seized 21,103 lbs of Fentanyl at all borders. Only 50 of that was at the Canadian border. 0.2%! That is no reason for a world changing trade war. There must be something else going on.

This one American has also said that the $200 billion trade surplus is an unfair subsidy of Canada.  Fact checking, the trade surplus is only $55 billion on trade of $1.3 trillion. 4%. However if we remove crude oil and natural gas from this surplus it turns out that the surplus flips to the US at around $75 billion.  Canada represents a safe, secure, friendly supply of petroleum to the US. 60% of all imports to the US come from Canada. Why would you want to disrupt that?

To put all of this in context, this one American seems to have other things on his mind. He has been musing about Canada becoming the 51^st State. That is why none of these above facts matter. This one American has ruled out the use of military force (like he would consider using on Greenland or Panama) to annex Canada but has openly discussed using economic force to meet that goal. Only when we consider this line of thinking do the tariffs being implemented make any sense.

Canadians love our American neighbours. But we aren’t American. We are fiercely and proudly Canadian with no desire to be anything else. Just like Ukrainians have no desire to be Russian. You are going to see us fight back. It is going to hurt both countries and it could get ugly. We are already trying to figure out how to buy less from the US. Your anthem will be booed.

We want you to know is it isn’t personal. It is about our identity as Canadians.  Want to help?  Speak out to your representatives. This only seems to make sense to one American. Perhaps there are some rational people with courage who can help restore what has been one of the most successful partnerships the world has ever seen.