OTTAWA — Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland argues Canada can turn the tables on U.S. President Donald Trump and avoid massive U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods by scaring key American businesses.
The former finance minister said her plan calls for the immediate release of a long list of $200 billion in retaliatory tariffs to deter Trump from making good on his threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports as soon as February.
"Trump is using uncertainty to unsettle Canadians. We must do the same," Freeland said in a media statement on Monday. "U.S. exporters need (to) worry whether their businesses will be the ones we hit."
Freeland said Ottawa should immediately consult with industry and put together a detailed retaliation plan that targets prominent American imports.
The idea is to put enough pressure on politically connected lobby groups from key states — Florida orange growers, Wisconsin dairy farmers and Michigan manufacturers — to convince them to call on Trump to drop the tariff threat.
"Our consultation list must be larger than our planned retaliation," Freeland said in her statement. "Our counter punch must be dollar-for-dollar — and it must be precisely and painfully targeted."
Freeland, who is casting herself as the leadership candidate best able to deal with Trump, is calling for a "buy Canadian" response to tariffs that would threaten to cut the U.S. off from Canadian government procurement, with the exception of defence.
Trade lawyer Mark Warner of the firm MAAW, who has past affiliations with both the Conservatives and the Liberals, said Freeland's plan works better as a political strategy than as a negotiating tactic for dealing with the much larger U.S. economy.
“I can understand why it suits for electoral purposes," he said. "She's going to stand up to the bully and there'll probably be tons of people who will go along with voting for that.
"But as a matter of substance, it's just extraordinarily silly and will lead to a very sharp response from Trump if we were to actually do anything like that.”
Freeland's trade negotiation tactic also would represent a 180-degree turn from the Liberal government's current approach.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said she plans to keep tariff negotiations behind closed doors.
"We believe that diplomacy can work, and that's why we're having private conversations and we won't negotiate in front of the public. We believe that our arguments are strong," she told reporters Monday on Parliament Hill. "We have leverage. We have, also, different levers. We are the biggest customer to the U.S."
Freeland's leadership rival Mark Carney told Radio-Canada over the weekend that Canada should retain the option of cutting off Quebec's hydro exports to the U.S. — although that's not the first card he would play.
The jostling over which Liberal leadership candidate would be the best person to lead on the trade front came hours ahead of Monday's deadline for candidates to sign up party members who can vote in the race.
Green party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault criticized some Liberal leadership candidates and MPs for backing away from their government's own carbon pricing policy. He said it shows they can't be trusted to stand up to Trump.
"When they backtrack in the face of money thrown by the Conservative party in attacking (carbon pricing), these are the people the Liberal party wants us to think that'll actually stand up for Canadians when they can't even stand up for their own values and policies," he said.
Liberal MPs Karina Gould and Jaime Battiste and former MPs Frank Baylis and Ruby Dhalla all say they are in the race to replace Justin Trudeau. But the party itself says it will not announce the official list of leadership candidates until Elections Canada confirms their registrations.
Dhalla posted on social media on Monday that she would deport "every illegal immigrant living in Canada" if she becomes prime minister.
Liberal MP Chandra Arya said on Sunday the party had denied him permission to run for the leadership, although the party did not provide a specific reason for his disqualification.
Leadership aspirants face a Thursday deadline to pay the party a non-refundable $50,000 entry fee to remain the race — part of an instalment plan to deal with a steep total entry fee of $350,000, due by Feb. 17.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2025.
— With files from Dylan Robertson and Émilie Bergeron in Ottawa.
Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press