Trump Has Lost All Restraint - at the Expense of Canada and the Global Population

It is a letter that only Donald Trump could write: pompous, aggressive, economically dangerous. In his latest message to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the US president announced plans to raise tariffs on Canadian imports to 35% - a drastic step that not only shakes bilateral relations but further undermines the world’s confidence in the economic judgment of the United States. The measure was not born of any real economic emergency, but from Trump’s deep-seated obsession: Canada must finally "crack down on fentanyl smuggling" - even though his own agencies confirm that the proportion of the drug coming from Canada is vanishingly small. What is labeled as an anti-drug initiative is in fact a geopolitical retaliation. And an attack on one of the oldest alliances in the West. Back in March, Trump had already imposed an initial round of 25% tariffs on Canadian goods. Now comes the escalation. Starting August 1, the rate is to rise to 35% - precisely at a time when the fragile global economic recovery depends on trust and stability. Financial markets reacted immediately: futures fell, investors pulled back. The recent gains in the S&P 500 could prove to be a false hope if Trump actually follows through on his threats.

The tone between the neighbors is growing harsher. Canadian leader Carney remained notably diplomatic and stated that his country continues to work toward a viable trade framework with the United States - not without emphasizing that "significant progress has been made in the fight against fentanyl." But anyone reading between the lines can sense the new chill. Canada has long since begun to reorient itself: away from the overbearing partner to the south, and toward more reliable friends in Europe and the United Kingdom. Carney’s photo post with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on X was a subtle rebuke of the US as a trustworthy partner. The subtext was clear: Canada is open to the world - but no longer to Trump’s unpredictability. For Trump, meanwhile, Canada seems to have become the projection screen for his resentments. In his message, he doesn’t just speak of drug flows but complains of trade barriers, deficits - and even suggests that Canada behaves like an economic enemy. Yet the trade deficit with Canada is primarily the result of US imports from the Canadian oil industry - a strategic interest that apparently no longer fits into Trump’s worldview. Mark Carney was elected in April on a promise to defend Canada’s interests with “elbows up.” Since then, he has done exactly that - with quiet determination and clear distance from Trump’s martial tone. When he visited the White House in May, the meeting with Trump was outwardly cordial - but the president immediately made it clear that no argument would persuade him to lift the tariffs. “Just the way it is,” Trump said. No dialogue, no deliberation, no insight. Just: full stop.

For Daniel Béland, a political scientist at McGill University in Montreal, this is a blow to any form of reliable diplomacy. “It shows how difficult it is for Canada to negotiate with a president who regularly issues threats and is barely perceived as a credible negotiating partner,” Béland said. And Canada is not alone. Trump is currently sending tariff letters like a blackmailer sends form threats: 23 countries have received them in recent days - sometimes 25%, sometimes 50%, sometimes more. Especially absurd: Brazil is to be hit with 50% - in response to the trial of former President Bolsonaro. A blatant violation of the principle of state sovereignty and an attack on the core tenets of the UN Charter. China’s Foreign Ministry aptly described Trump’s policy as “coercion, bullying, and interference in internal affairs.” Trump portrays himself as a global tariff overlord, but his self-declared strategy collapses under its own contradictions: supposedly, China is to be isolated - yet instead of forging an alliance of Western democracies, Trump is targeting precisely those partners that would be needed for such a strategy. Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Japan - all are on his list. And even the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), once intended as a shield against arbitrary tariffs, now risks being hollowed out by 2026. The arbitrariness of Trump’s policy became evident in April. At the time, he announced the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs, which sent markets into a panic. Within days, he backpedaled, promising a 90-day negotiating period with only a 10% base tariff. But he has since quietly ramped things up again - 15%, 20%, 35%. All at his own whim. Asked by NBC, he said flatly: “All countries are going to pay. Whether it’s 20 or 15%.” No strategy, just a gut feeling. Canada has already experienced this firsthand. When Ottawa proposed a digital tax on US tech giants, Trump abruptly suspended talks - and forced Carney to backtrack. An unprecedented act of economic coercion. What remains is the image of a US president who no longer distinguishes between economic necessity and personal grudges. Trump is wielding the world’s largest economy as a tool for punishment - whether over Google taxes, health data, or the shadow of Bolsonaro. He has turned free trade into a weapon, and international agreements into scraps of paper. And yet, this may not just be a crisis in US-Canadian relations. It is a deeper erosion of trust in a world order that should be based on rules, reliability, and predictability. Donald Trump seems well on his way to destroying all of that - piece by piece, tariff by tariff.