Three Furies Reawakened in Canada

The greatest challenge that new Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney will face as prime minister – and Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre will have to contend with, too – is neither a trade war with the United States nor the task of building a positive relationship with US President Donald Trump.

More serious is a related shift in the Canadian mood about relations with the United States that has revived three deep-seated Canadian reactions to the United States. 

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the Furies, goddesses of vengeance who would punish wrongs to family members and relatives remorselessly. The Furies reified the powerful human psychology of response to injustice so well that they appear in plays by Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, and later Roman playwrights Seneca and Virgil employed them in their works. 

The trade war has reawakened three Canadian Furies: retaliation, distrust, and anti- Americanism. The reappearance of these passions in Canada now will complicate US foreign policy long after the trade war, even if escalation is averted.

Retaliation fury is a demand for vengeance. Do you think that I am so helpless that you can hurt me without consequences? As the March 4th deadline for the imposition of US tariffs on Canadian imports approached, Canada drew up a retaliatory tariff list that included initial actions and later escalatory steps if needed. Once US tariffs started, Canada began to implement its retaliation.

Given the size of the US economy and its diverse array of trading partners, Canadian retaliation would be self-defeating; however, this misses the point of retaliation, which is to gain recognition of the injury and the attention of the US antagonist. As James Haley argued recently in an analysis for the Wilson Center, the Canadian retaliation list was carefully targeted to have an impact in Republican areas of the United States to ensure that Members of Congress and Senators would report to the Administration on the economic harm inflicted on their constituents.

Furious distrust follows the breach of a promise or commitment. If you lied to me once, how can I trust your word ever again? Tariff elimination had been the point of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) that was negotiated at the first Trump administration’s insistence. Then, Canada made a good-faith effort to address US concerns about trade, arrived at an agreement, and followed the new trade rules thereafter. Moreover, as part of the USMCA Canada agreed to revisit the agreement with the United States and Mexico by 2026. Why then is Canada the recipient of tariff threats rather than an invitation to begin that review? Why is China facing lower tariffs than Canada? Such questions fuel suspicion of hidden agendas, ulterior motives, and possible future attacks that linger. 

Trust is easier to destroy than to build. Shared values are regularly cited as one reason for the close US-Canadian relationship, and social capital formation depends on common values, most importantly mutual trust. The pursuit of prosperity through economic integration places a greater importance on trust, as Francis Fukuyama has argued, making Canadian distrust of the United States corrosive to economic partnership.

Washington rarely connects the dots over trade disputes that Canadians see as forming a pattern: softwood lumber, the Buy American provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum justified by the threat these commodities place to US national security, USMCA automotive rule of origin, and other disputes where the United States lost the case in an arbitral panel but refused to change its policy. In happier times, this can be overlooked, but these all return when the trustworthiness of the United States on trade is doubted.

Canadian nationalism and anti-American fury have surged in response to tariff threats. Anti-American sentiments in Canada date to the colonial period, when it was encouraged by Britain to inoculate British North America against the temptations of joining the United States. Later, it flared in response to US civil unrest during the Vietnam War when many American draft dodgers moved to Canada and found work in Canadian universities. Artists and cultural figures emphasized differences between the two countries in ways that asserted Canadian cultural distinctiveness – sometimes indulging in a Canadian cultural chauvinism that contributed to popular anti-Americanism.

Most people under 30 will not have any memory of Canadian anti-Americanism. In his 1996 book on the history of Canadian anti-Americanism, J.L. Granatstein argued that to a remarkable extent, the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and its successors demonstrated that the United States was willing to establish rules together with Canadian neighbors and then abide by them, thus countering the anti-American sentiment and fostering economic integration that made the “othering” of the Americans less persuasive.

Lust for retaliation and distrust of the United States are reactions to specific US actions. Both reflect a fury with US leaders and policies that can be contained through diplomacy and hard work by officials in Ottawa and Washington. Anti-Americanism is different, quickly spreading in society and manifested in booing of the US national anthem at sporting events, consumer boycotts of US products and vacation destinations, and conflicts within organizations where US and Canadian members participate such as university campuses, trade and professional associations.

Anti-American fury will remain salient long after the trade war ends. It is part of Canadian identity, benignly captured by the common claim that defines Canadian as “not American.” An America First administration in Washington highlights distinctions between the US “us” and the Canadian “them” that will put pressure on Canadian leaders to pursue policies independently of the United States and to sometimes to work against the direction of US policies. As the smaller country, Canada will approach some US agenda items passive-aggressively to avoid a direct confrontation.

How Did We Get Here?

Fifty years ago, Canada was struggling economically, and Canadians were in a sour mood. Pierre Trudeau refashioned Canadian nationalism to counter Quebec separatism and in the process undermined the British cultural touchstones of Canadian identity. Canadian economic nationalism created tensions with the United States especially over the share of auto industry investment and jobs after the 1965 Auto Pact, which US President Richard Nixon wanted to cancel in 1968. 

Like many Canadians, Trudeau found it difficult to relate to the heated political passions in the United States that produced race riots and the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests, and demonstrations against nuclear weapons. In response to Richard Nixon’s 10-percent import surcharge imposed in 1971, Trudeau introduced economic nationalist policies to diversify trade and diplomatic relations away from the United States which he believed had become an unreliable, unfriendly, and somehow unfamiliar partner. Trudeau’s National Energy Program sought to reduce US ownership of oil and oil sands reserves in Alberta over the objections of many Albertans who resented being forced by Ottawa to sacrifice their potential to score points against the United States. 

Forty years ago, things slowly began to change with the election of Brian Mulroney at the head of a Progressive Conservative majority government. Mulroney scrapped the National Energy Program and intrusive Trudeau era investment reviews. He reached out to US President Ronald Reagan and proposed the negotiation of a bilateral free trade agreement.

The Canada – US Free Trade Agreement was controversial in both countries. In the United States, many in Congress had bitter memories of Canada’s economic policies, trade disputes, and holier-than-thou sanctimony on Vietnam and the Cold War – both topics about which offered plenty of opinions while sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella and underfunding the Canadian military. In Canada, longstanding suspicion that the United States wanted to dominate Canada and reduce it to a 51^st state and do away with Canadian culture made the free trade deal look like surrender.

The Canada – US Free Trade Agreement slowly proved those fears to be misplaced. Canada grew closer to the United States, fully integrating Canadian natural resources, energy, and manufacturing production into the US economy. Canadians benefited economically without losing national sovereignty or being forced to adopt US culture.

President Donald Trump threatened Canada with a 25 percent tariff before his second inauguration. He shares some of Nixon’s complaints about Canada’s low defense spending and taking advantage of the United States economically and adds a concern about perceived Canadian complacency about fentanyl and human. The Canadian government responded with new investments in border security and won a 30-day hold on the 25 percent tariff. But there were additional tariff threats, and the imposition of the 25 percent tariff on March 4 was a shock.

Between 1984 and 2024, there were no anti-American political parties or major political figures in national politics. In 2025, none of the parties nor their leaders will be able to be unreservedly pro-American if they hope to win. Already Carney and Poilievre have publicly rejected the idea that Canada would join the United States and the coming federal election will be determined in part by the question of which leader is best able to stand up to the Trump administration.

It would be unwise to dismiss popular Canadian sentiments triggered by the trade war. Canada is not a snowflake nation playing the victim, but a proud country furious at its unjust treatment by the United States. The broken promise of free trade was that Canada could risk closer economic integration with the United States because trade agreements would establish clear rules both sides would respect and create mechanisms to resolve disputes based on right and not might. 

Fury is an emotional response, not a rational one. The return of deep-seated Canadian fears about the true nature of their US neighbor will make US-Canadian relations more challenging to manage by coloring the perspectives of the Millennial and Generation Z cohorts who will assume leadership positions in both Ottawa and Washington in 2028 and beyond.