OP-ED: Why Canada needs a disciplined approach to trade

Shannon Boschy writes, "While 75 to 80 per cent of our exports go to the United States, Carney is flapping his arms, flying far-flung around the world, while talking big about middle powers."

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Shannon Boschy is a partner in an Ottawa-Based Wealth-Management Firm. His work is rooted in behavioral finance.

After more than a decade of Trump on the world stage, we should all have a better understanding of the art of dealing with him. He takes things personally. His ego takes over. When he’s cornered, he doubles down, often at great cost. Our knowledge of this weakness, and the threat it poses, should be key in Canada’s approach to trade negotiations

2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu declared the greatest victory is the one that requires no battle. If your enemy is superior in strength, you should avoid direct confrontation. If you know your enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear.

Canada is the smaller player here and trading blows with Trump through tough talk and tit-for-tat retaliation is exactly what Sun Tzu would call foolish. The wiser path is to understand your opponent’s nature and give him a way to back down while saving face, and even a path to claiming a victory.

Trump’s track record shows what happens when you trigger his ego. From the petty name-calling and infamous public feud with Rosie O’Donnell, to his habit of nicknaming his adversaries, we know he’s a bully. He’s also infamously fragile. In 2018, he launched a trade war with China who retaliated by hammering American soybean farmers. The farmers lost their biggest market almost overnight, resulting in $28 billion in taxpayer bailouts. Later that same year, during the 35-day government shutdown in 2018–19, Trump refused to compromise on border wall funding, proudly declaring he was “proud” to do it. He ultimately caved after costing the economy $11 billion and getting almost nothing in return.

This is what we’re dealing with. As much as we are collectively incensed at his bullying, antagonizing him with counter-tariffs, name-calling, and foreign ad campaigns simply makes it worse.

You don’t lecture him. You don’t insult him. You give him a way to win and save face despite his costly errors. He needs space to back down, claim the win, and profess he was the greatest all along.

Besides knowing the self and knowing the enemy, Sun Tzu appeals to leaders to master logistics and know the terrain. For the two parties, it’s brutally simple: energy, resources, and geography.

The efficiencies of our integrated supply chain for steel, aluminum, and autos have already made both countries richer. As Poilievre correctly argues, these Section 232 tariffs make things like the F-150 more expensive for American buyers while hurting Canadians too. Pulling aluminum production from the easy-access energy and locations of Canadian production to the US is lose-lose. If we step back from our collective indignation and guide our trading partners to this realization as the leader of the opposition is doing, Trump and his negotiators will figure this out.

While 75 to 80 per cent of our exports go to the United States, Carney is flapping his arms, flying far-flung around the world, while talking big about middle powers. He’s putting 80 per cent of his energy into marginal improvements to the bottom 20 per cent of our trade; he’s focusing on small relationships across distant markets, while treating our largest, most natural trading partner like an adversary.

This is where Carney’s approach is so dangerous. He has become the avatar of an anti-American sentiment that the Liberals and Canadian media have cultivated for more than a year: in many ways, he’s a product of his audience, an emotional, affronted, “let’s stick it to Trump” mob. “Elbows up” has gone from a slogan to a policy, to an identity at the expense of the dispassionate discipline we need.

As pollster David Coletto recently noted, much of the shift toward Carney was driven by Baby Boomers’ intense fear of loss and the old wisdom holds true: what we fear, we are creating. By turning Trump into an existential threat and responding with performative toughness, we risk unnecessary suffering, hardship, and economic pain because of a predictable, capricious response.

The deep irony is that Carney is doing exactly what Trump does; one might say he’s taken a page from Trump’s playbook. On behalf of indignant Canadians, he’s taking it personally. He’s doubling down. He’s playing to his base. He’s letting ego and stubbornness drive the bus. He’s setting up for the same kind of self-inflicted losses Trump has repeatedly inflicted on America. Both men are now locked in a lose-lose game where pride matters more than outcomes.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Canada doesn’t need a tough guy and an ego. We need a pragmatist who understands Trump’s psychology and basic geography.

The wise move is obvious, but it requires putting discipline and end results ahead of political posturing.