I have family on both sides of the Niagara River and St. Lawrence.
It’s like a marriage. Both sides have to work at it. If they don’t it falls apart. Tariffs work both ways. The US market is substantially larger than the Canadian. Yes, Canada has raw resources and the ability to value-add. That is not the issue.
The issue is that China is sending value-added parts to Canadian assembly plants to avoid tariffs on their stuff by going through Canada. What Trump wants is to have Canada stop the Chinese from dumping their products into the US via Canada.
I don’t see how Canadians benefit from having Chinese parts put into products built and labeled Made in Canada. Wouldn’t it be better if Canadians and Canadian companies did that work?
It’s not value added parts, it’s pass thru goods. China ships goods to a Canadian port and their put on a train or trucks and sent to the US. No money changes hands but it goes on the books as a Canadian export. It should be counted as a Chinese export but the US has their own way of doing things. You can read about it on the US trade website. The same website will tell you that the US has a trade surplus with Canada of about $8 billion.