The wisdom of crowds: Hub readers weigh in on fighting Trump’s tariffs with China’s playbook

Rudyard Griffiths argued on Sept. 8 that Ottawa should stop matching Donald Trump’s tariffs and instead borrow from Beijing’s playbook, drafting an export-licensing regime for crude, potash and critical minerals. Roughly two dozen comments from some fifteen readers followed over two days. Read on for how The Hub community is thinking about this issue. What readers granted The premise went largely unchallenged. Bryan Moir, whose long comment anchored much of the discussion, opened with agreement: “Rudyard has the central point exactly right: matching American tariffs dollar-for-dollar is fighting a much larger economy with its preferred weapon.” Chip Marce concurred that “The basic idea of using asymmetric strategies is a good one.” Barrie Wylds wrote, “Agree that the Chinese licensing of rare earths was the most effective approach in ending (for now) the trade dispute with Trump”. Several readers pressed the point about who pays for counter-tariffs. Alan Duguid wanted the framing changed: “Mr. Griffiths should also say, with every telling, that they are imposed on Canadian taxpayers.” Kim Morton called them a new tax on Canadians, and Moir, replying to Morton, agreed that “Retaliatory tariffs are largely taxes on Canadians importing American goods”. A smaller group thought the whole debate was downstream of a bad decision. Steve Thomas said the government “should have taken the deal instead of fabricating a pretense for walking away.” Murray Robinson complained of speculation without facts from a secretive government, and Rene Wells replied that “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.” Only David Black defended the current posture, arguing that “Dragging our feet until November makes good sense as well.” Where they broke: energy is not a lever The prescription is where the thread turned. Thomas Ian Pitman put the objection most directly: “The trouble here is that energy is not an asymmetrical lever. We cannot play with our energy exports with impunity.” Eastern Canada, he noted, is a net importer of American energy, so licensing would simply open new rungs on the escalation ladder. Steve Beveridge sketched the retaliation: “Closing line 5 through Michigan and stopping US oil exports to Ontario and Quebec would destroy their economies.” Duguid raised Venezuela, arguing Washington is already cultivating heavy-crude competition: “Any attempt to restrict or potentially restrict Canadian crude sales and our reputation as a reliable supplier, will create an immediate opening for increased Venezuelan supply into the US.” Douglas Sell made the same point in eight words: “We r the small kid in the sandbox.” Potash fared no better. Marce, who admitted he would profit if it were weaponised, still doubted it would work: “Potash is great stuff, but its BIG advantage is it’s relatively inexpensive (roughly $400/MT) and available where needed.” Change that, he said, and Belarus and Russia step in. “Farmers can do without it temporarily if it becomes too expensive.” Then there was the federation. Wylds did not believe “the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan will ever agree to follow suit because it is not in their provincial interests.” Morton predicted that “Taxing the export of oil and potash will have Alberta and Saskatchewan leave Canada before it is even implemented.” BCald, who otherwise thanked Griffiths for the piece, drew the line: “Escalation though perhaps necessary out of our own sense of self worth needs to be calibrated to minimize the internal damage to the federation.” Kevin Leicht questioned the model itself, citing a Wall Street Journal piece by Scott Morrison: “China’s licensing of rare earths won in the short term, but it is paying for it in the long term, as countries find/develop other suppliers.” His conclusion: “Canada risks the same result if we overplay our hand on natural resources.” What they proposed instead: build, do not threaten Moir‘s alternative was the most developed. Licensing, he argued, “stops one move too early.” A threat needs somewhere else to sell: “We presently lack sufficient alternative capacity, so we would be threatening ourselves at the same time.” His answer was infrastructure: more LNG, a second Pacific corridor independent of Burnaby, long-term Asian customers. What Washington should fear is not another tariff on refrigerators. “It should fear Canada acquiring customers.” He drew a distinction with China that others picked up: “China possessed its asymmetric leverage before the trade war began.” Canada does not. “We largely have to build our asymmetric leverage.” That will not settle this dispute, he conceded, but it changes the next one, and “unlike retaliatory tariffs, it gets stronger with time.” BCald replied with one word: “Agreed!” Morton agreed too, though he thought Asian markets more viable than European ones. Pitman, despite his scepticism, arrived at a similar list: oil-by-rail terminals in the East, strategic reserves, a replacement for Line 5, new gas pipelines, more Pacific egress. “This is what Canada looks like as a serious global energy player regardless of our trade relationship with the U.S.” Wells preferred a deal now and diversification later: “Besides, 85% of something now is better than 100% of nothing, which is the rut where we’re currently stuck in.” The exchange worth reading The sharpest back-and-forth ran between Pitman and Marce. Pitman argued that Canada lacks enough levers to make Washington flinch first, and catalogued what the U.S. could do in return: tear up CUSMA, restrict access to top-end GPUs, delist Canadian companies, send patrols through the Northwest Passage. “The list of pains the US could exact on Canada is long and exquisite.” And the prize, he said, is modest: “It’s the right to build light trucks in Ontario; small potatoes ultimately.” Marce accepted the argument and added Mexico, which he said is now the larger American trading partner and close to its own deal. If so, “Canada may be left twisting in the wind.” His summary: “Prisoners Dilemma.” Pitman agreed the case only builds, and pointed to the investment summit a week away, a quarter of whose expected participants he said are American. Where it landed Nobody in the thread endorsed licensing as written. The division was between readers who want a deal now, readers who want to build leverage for the next fight, and readers who want both. Moir summed up his side: “China walked into the fight holding its card.” Canada, he said, is still building its own and must build faster. Pitman summed up his: “We need to be thinking a lot harder about how not to climb the escalation ladder in the first place.” Leicht spoke for the middle. “We are outgunned in this fight, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have it.” But there is a difference between holding leverage and detonating it: “Buying time while we build other markets makes sense, and using what leverage we have to expose Trump’s folly to his electorate makes sense. But pulling the pin on the grenade could well blow up in our face.” Our weekly Wisdom of Crowds article picks the essay that generated the most reader comments in the preceding week and uses those comments to summarise how The Hub community is thinking about an important issue in the news. Get your comment featured in a future edition by joining the debate that starts at the bottom of every article we publish. 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