William Watson: Fact-checking the Canada-U.S. word grenades

A lot of the verbal ordnance being lobbed across the 49th parallel after last week’s breakdown in trade talks needs qualification.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says it’s “foolish” for Canada to welcome a trade war with the U.S., in part because we’re “a country that doesn’t have a military.” You hope the trade war doesn’t turn into a shooting war so that the size of our military becomes relevant, but just for the record, Wikipedia does detect a military presence in Canada. The U.S. is seventh on its list of countries according to the size of their military, with 2.1 million men and women under arms, but we’re on the list, too, at 66th, just behind Guatemala and just ahead of South Sudan. Of every 1,000 Canadians, 1.6 people are on active duty. In the U.S. it’s four. Of course, U.S. active duty has been rather more active lately than Canadian, which often involves waiting for equipment to be repaired. Or bought. Or built.

Is there any chance at all the trade war will come to a shooting war? Americans might not take it very well if we taxed or even embargoed our energy exports. You start cutting off energy and people get touchy. Japan’s December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor followed Washington’s August 1941 embargo on oil and gas sales to Japan, which until then got its oil and gas mainly from the U.S. Donald Trump was so impressed by his military’s arrest and extradition of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro that he decided to attack Iran. Though that hasn’t gone as well, he might think sending in the Marines to keep Canadian power stations open and maybe haul Doug Ford’s now-famous ass off to Washington for a paddling would not be a stretch. This is a president, after all, that most Canadians think is not operating with all his chips. You’d hope saner heads would prevail but there’s not a lot of evidence they get a say these days.

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There’s also the problem that, as our own federal government website says , “Canada and the U.S. share a highly interconnected energy system,” with oil, gas and electricity flowing both ways across the border. More south than north, to be sure, but the Americans have taps they can turn off, too.

Duffy’s comment about Canada being “foolish” to welcome a trade war with the U.S. is certainly true. The U.S. economy is $32.4 trillion ( in U.S. dollars adjusted for purchasing-power differences ). Ours is $2.9 trillion (just behind Spain, just ahead of Saudi Arabia). They take 73 per cent of our exports. We take 16 per cent of theirs. We’re important to them, yes, but the relationship is asymmetric — not completely one-sided but certainly lopsided. Duffy’s boss, President Trump, posted that “The USA will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada.” Always is a long time but, OK, it’s a reasonable prediction. Feel better, Mr. President?