Blayne Haggart, Associate Professor of Political Science at Brock, wrote a piece recently published in the National Post about Trump’s tariffs and the G7 summit.

Haggart writes:

Everybody but U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters (who, lest we forget, number some 40 per cent of Americans) has rightly condemned the United States’ imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and other U.S. allies as monumentally stupid.

The tariffs are expected to be a key topic of discussion at the G7 summit in Quebec kicking off Friday.

The pretense alone — that the tariffs are all about national security — is absurd and, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put it, “insulting.”

Trudeau has accurately called this moment a “turning point in the Canada-U.S. relationship.”

But what kind of turning point are we at?

A few voices, such as James Nealon, the former U.S. embassy deputy chief of mission, argue that Canada and the United States have disagreed before and this, too, shall pass once Trump is gone.

Others, including Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom and Peter Donolo, director of communications for former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien, opine that this signals the death of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Donolo argues convincingly that we have to realize that the United States is now “an unpredictable and (economically) aggressive partner” and act accordingly.

Continue reading the full article here.