Canada spent $6.4 billion building the Gordie Howe International Bridge. Then agreed to share the toll revenue with the United States for fifteen years. Then scrapped the digital services tax. Then killed the Netflix tax. Then pulled its own retaliatory tariffs off the table. A reporter asked Carney what Canada got back for all of that. He couldn’t name one thing. Not a reduced rate, not a delayed deadline, not a handshake agreement scribbled on a napkin. Six and a half billion dollars and a stack of policy surrenders bought exactly zero goodwill from a man who doesn’t sell it.
Five days from now, on August 19, a 50% tariff lands on Canadian dairy, lumber, alcohol, furniture, and about $20 billion worth of everything else. The ribbon cutting for the bridge happened last month in Windsor. American officials were uninvited after the tariff announcement. So Canada built a bridge to a country that won’t stop charging it to exist, opened it without the neighbours, and now gets to watch its own goods get taxed on the way across. There’s a word for someone who keeps giving and never gets anything back. Several words, actually, but this is a family blog. The Aug 19 deadline is not a negotiation. It’s a countdown to the next concession.