Canada’s Mark Carney is declaring his country at war with the United States over trade. Listen:

But Canada was never attacked. President Trump has simply demanded that our northern neighbor treat the United States like the valuable trading partner it is.

The two countries were reportedly on their way to a good deal. In fact, all sides appeared to agree that negotiations had produced an arrangement beneficial to both nations. Instead of signing it, however, Carney seems determined to set the whole thing on fire—for reasons that may have little to do with securing favorable terms for Canada.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer laid out the negotiating timeline. Listen:

Carney’s decision to launch a trade war with the United States is not reasonable. It is economic insanity—and par for the course for a country whose political leadership has drifted further from reality over the past several years.

Just look at how the Canadian government chose to respond to President Trump’s demand for fairness. Before officials even addressed the tariffs, they opened with a land acknowledgment. Listen:

That is not strength. It is progressive performance art in its purest form. In one breath, Canadian officials surrender the moral claim to their own territory. In the next, they insist they are defending Canadian sovereignty by picking a trade fight with the United States. Only a government deeply immersed in the globalist, left-wing worldview could treat those two positions as coherent.

America has finally stopped playing along.

For years, Canada has imposed punishing tariffs on American dairy farmers while enjoying broad access to the U.S. market. That arrangement is coming to an end. The secretary of agriculture has made it clear that President Trump is finished watching American producers be treated like an afterthought. Listen:

That is not aggression. It is reciprocity.

The same message is coming from the vice president, who says Canada has effectively operated as a back door for Chinese goods while treating some products from China more favorably than those from the United States. That free ride is over. Listen:

These are not complicated principles. Fair trade requires fair treatment. When one country refuses to provide it, the other has every right to respond.

Yet Ottawa’s answer has been escalation: matching tariffs, threats of broader retaliation and overheated rhetoric about Canada being “attacked.”

From a purely economic standpoint, this is madness. Canada’s prosperity is inseparably tied to the American market. Escalating a trade war with its largest customer will hurt Canadian workers, exporters and economic growth far more than it will pressure the United States.

When a policy is this self-destructive on its face, it is worth asking what the real objective might be.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has pointed toward an answer. Mark Carney rose to power by campaigning against the United States, and now he is returning to the same anti-American playbook. Listen:

Greer has filled in another part of the picture. Canadian officials claimed that the United States demanded the abolition or weakening of the French language—a charge that makes little sense in the context of a commercial negotiation. Greer says it was a manufactured distraction. Listen:

Canada walked away from a trade negotiation and then sold its public a culture-war justification for doing so.

When the numbers do not add up for your own country, look for the ideological payoff. Carney is not optimizing for Canadian jobs, investment or growth. He is optimizing for his standing within the globalist progressive left—and potentially for his ability to damage Trump politically ahead of the midterm elections.

His personnel choices make that alignment difficult to ignore.

Carney installed American Democratic operative Maia Johnson as chief operating officer of the Prime Minister’s Office and a senior adviser on relations with the United States. Johnson has a history of working for Democratic political efforts opposing Trump, including campaigns connected to Hillary Clinton and Michael Bloomberg.

An American progressive operative is now positioned inside the Canadian prime minister’s office to help shape its response to an American president. That has little to do with protecting Canadian sovereignty. It looks far more like an alliance with the same political movement that has spent the past decade trying to stop Trump.

Canada’s domestic record shows that its government is willing to impose enormous costs on its own citizens in pursuit of ideological goals. During the pandemic, officials froze the bank accounts of truckers protesting vaccine mandates. Pastors who refused to close their churches were jailed. Medical Assistance in Dying has expanded far beyond its original boundaries, prompting serious concerns about its application to people suffering from mental illness, disability and economic hardship.

A government willing to weaponize the financial system against its own citizens and continually widen the boundaries of state-facilitated death is unlikely to place hard-nosed economic interests ahead of progressive signaling.

Canada’s long-term economic projections reflect the consequences. The country is expected to rank near the bottom of advanced economies in per-capita growth for decades, as high taxes, regulation and weak productivity continue to undermine competitiveness. The situation is bleak enough to leave even the hosts at CNBC scratching their heads. Listen:

None of this is abstract to the Canadians who produce much of the country’s wealth.

In Alberta, frustration with Ottawa’s priorities has grown so intense that voters are expected to decide this October whether the province should remain in Canada or begin moving toward a binding referendum on separation.

Premier Danielle Smith has said the vote will proceed as scheduled, even as the trade confrontation with the United States intensifies. Energy-producing Albertans have watched Ottawa prioritize climate symbolism, regulatory obstruction and progressive cultural projects over the industries that pay the country’s bills. Many have simply had enough.

A country that opens its response to American tariffs with a land acknowledgment, freezes the bank accounts of protesting truckers, expands euthanasia while its growth prospects collapse, installs American Democratic operatives in the Prime Minister’s Office, invents culture-war excuses for rejecting fair trade terms and drives its most productive province toward a separation vote is not acting from strength.

It is acting from ideology.

The rational conclusion is straightforward: Escalating a trade war that will harm Canada more than the United States makes sense only if Canadian prosperity is not the primary objective.

The real objective appears to be carrying water for the globalist left, maintaining political alignment against Trump and performing progressive virtue—even as those priorities erode Canada’s economic foundation and internal cohesion. Ordinary Canadians who want jobs, energy development and competent government are not the constituency being served.

America is finished subsidizing that project.

Fairness is not optional. Reciprocity is not aggression. The United States will defend its farmers, manufacturers and workers.

Canada’s current leadership has chosen a different path. The consequences are already visible—in the economic numbers, in the increasingly desperate rhetoric and in the growing question of whether Alberta still wants to participate in the experiment.