‘we’re Not Like Some Small Country You Can Push Around’

Months of tariff-fueled tensions with the U.S. have left Canada feeling defiant.

“We're not like some small country that you can push around,” François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of innovation, science and industry, said on today’s POLITICO Tech podcast. “You're picking up on the wrong guy.”

Champagne and other senior Canadian officials are in Washington on Thursday trying to halt a full-blown economic war. Trump leveled 25 percent tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum this week, and Ottawa fired back with tariffs of its own on metals, sporting equipment, computers and more.

The latest tit-for-tat is part of a broader trade war between the Trump administration and America’s largest trading partner, one that Champagne argues will hurt workers and companies on both sides of the border — and force Canada to do business elsewhere.

“Canada is the only G7 country which has a free trade agreement with all the other G7 nations,” Champagne said. “So, it's very easy for us to pivot to other markets.”

But Champagne hopes a “reset” under Canada’s soon-to-be prime minister, Mark Carney, will make such threats unnecessary. Carney, a former central banker who was picked to lead the Liberal Party on Sunday, kicked off his new job with a message for Trump: “Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form.”

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