From business leaders to sports fans, Canada responds to trade war escalation

Like early on in the trade war, those taking in sporting events let Americans know how they felt. Canadian fans in Vancouver and Montreal booed the U.S. national anthem at the start of Major League Soccer matches on Saturday.

Buy Canadian talk was also ratcheted up. P.E.I. Premier Rob Lantz offered his support to Carney in a statement on Sunday, and asked residents to do their part.

“When you have the choice, buy local and buy Canadian,” he said in the statement. “Every dollar spent on an Island or Canadian product supports the worker who made it, the farmer who grew it, the fisher who caught it, the producer who processed it and the business that put it on the shelf. Where we spend our hard-earned money matters. Those choices add up.”

In a news release expressing support for the move, the Canadian Steel Producers Association said Canada and the U.S. have enjoyed more than 30 years of fully integrated trade and that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

In Brampton, Ont., mayor Patrick Brown echoed those words, saying more than 3,000 people remain out of work because of the shutdown of the Stellantis Assembly Plant, which was to be retooled for Jeep production before the company paused the plan in early 2025.

It then announced it was moving production of the Jeep Compass from Brampton to the U.S., and Brown says he’s glad Canada’s trade negotiators are holding firm.

“Prime Minister Carney and Minister (Dominic) Leblanc walked away from a bad deal instead of signing one that left our auto sector exposed, and Brampton knows better than almost anyone what’s at stake if we get this wrong,” Brown said in a news release.

The U.S. introduced new 50 per cent tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Canadian exports on Saturday. The new U.S. tariffs target $28 billion in Canadian goods ranging from hockey sticks and honey to essential oils and dairy products.

Carney responded that retaliatory tariffs will hit the U.S. starting next month, starting Sept. 8, after Canada walked away from what he called a “bad deal.” In a press conference on Saturday, Carney likened the negotiations to a war.

“We got attacked,” Carney told reporters on Parliament Hill.

On Fox News on Sunday, the U.S Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called Canada “a country that doesn’t have a military” and said it was taking advantage of America.

“To think that they are going to go war with Donald Trump and actually win that war with the U.S., I think it’s foolish on their part,” Duffy said.

Canadian counter-levies will target sectors such as steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics. Carney said more details on those retaliatory measures, as well as supports for affected sectors, will be announced in the coming days.

Not all leaders were cheering Carney’s promise to match Washington’s newest tariffs dollar-for-dollar, with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith noting retaliatory measures could mean Canadian farmers have to pay 50 per cent more for the equipment they need to produce our food.

Ontario Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, a longtime friend of U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, took to social media to call this a “solemn moment for hundreds of thousands” of Canadian families.

In audio from a fundraiser in Southampton, N.Y., on Wednesday, which was provided to The Canadian Press by a source who attended the private function, Vance praised Jivani for playing an active role in recent trade talks.

In response, former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney criticized Jivani for not mentioning Trump’s “constant, unprovoked attacks on our economy, and our sovereignty.”

‘But we are not cravenly surrendering in the face of constant economic and political aggression,” Kenney said on social media.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, in a statement, said his government supports Carney’s decision to enact dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs on targeted U.S. products. But he also noted it won’t be easy, saying “all tariffs hurt real businesses and kill real jobs, on both sides of the border.”

“That’s why we should be doing everything we can to avoid, reduce and remove tariffs. I believe the federal government did that, but in the end, the U.S. administration chose to stick with this failed economic policy, and Canada must respond accordingly,” Moe said.

Carney said that the U.S., “at the last hours,” introduced efforts to restrict Canada’s ability to have other trade deals. He called the move a “power play” that became an issue of sovereignty.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Friday that the U.S. and Canada had “declined” to finalize a tentative agreement, and laid the blame entirely on Canada.

Some American politicians expressed disappointment in the Trump administration for the failed deal.

“Michiganders are uniquely impacted by DC Republicans’ ongoing, chaotic tariff wars with Canada. These tariffs act as a tax hike on Michigan families and businesses by raising prices at the grocery store and the gas pump,” Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor from Michigan posted on social media.

“Michiganders literally cannot afford to keep paying these Republican tariff taxes.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 23, 2026.

— With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone

The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

From business leaders to sports fans, Canada responds to trade war escalation

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