Crossing the Rubicon: Trump’s 50% Tariffs = Economic War

 If the Rubicon is crossed on August 22nd, 2026, with 50% tariffs through Section 338 of the US Tariff Act of 1930 on Canada, Donald Trump would essentially be vetoing the existence of CUSMA this week - the very agreement he called the greatest trade deal in the world during his first term. It will mark the official end of the post-war rules-based system and economic order between Canada and the United States.

 Assuming that happens, we will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pete Hoekstra, Scott Bessent, and Howard Lutnick, alongside the broader machinery of the United States government and the US State Department, are declaring an explicit economic war on Canada - one that would make the US an explicit strategic enemy of Canada.

 In the face of open economic aggression, complacency is capitulation. Canadians must demand a larger slice of the international trade pie to spread potential risk beyond the United States.

 If we wake up on August 22nd to an economic attack on Canadians, we should demand immediate, calculated, and uncompromising action from Prime Minister Mark Carney: Canada must abandon its financial reliance on the U.S. dollar and arm its economy for total national sovereignty.

 Before we get to an actual plan it’s important to remember on March 4, 2025, as Trump's 25% tariffs on Canadian goods took effect, Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), appearing on CNN, alluded to military options while defending the tariff measures against Canadda: "Instead of taking kinetic action, he's taking economic action” - this reckless talk of "kinetic action" - a military euphemism for lethal force against Canada - on U.S. television panels by elected officials, combined with repeated threats of escalating tariffs and casual musings about annexation, has done what decades of constitutional wrangling never could: it has united Canada.

Day 1 After 50% Tariffs:

 Canada would immediately initiate an aggressive, pre-scheduled liquidation of its U.S. Treasury and dollar-denominated foreign reserve holdings. By executing a structured, high-volume unwind rather than an erratic fire-sale, Ottawa will steadily weaponize Washington's fiscal vulnerabilities while protecting Canadian assets. Flooding foreign exchange markets with U.S. paper on a rolling basis will systematically nudge U.S. borrowing costs higher at the exact moment the American deficit is metastasizing. Concurrently, Canada will deploy state capital to construct an independent, sovereign domestic AI and digital infrastructure, permanently insulating critical economic systems from foreign tech monopolies. If they try to bring us down, we crash them in return.

Day 2:

 Order the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) to immediately divest 100% of its holdings in American asset classes. Every cent of Canadian retirement capital will be systematically repatriated and redeployed directly into domestic equity, energy, and infrastructure markets, creating an unbreakable floor under Canadian enterprise.

Day 3:

 Execute pre-negotiated, confidential Letters of Intent with Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, New Delhi, and Berlin. Desperate to secure stable energy outside of Russia and the Middle East, these capitals will gain guaranteed access to Canadian resources - denominated strictly in Canadian Dollars.

The cascading effects will be swift:

 The Bank of Canada would receive an emergency monetary mandate to support petro-CAD settlement.

 The Toronto Stock Exchange would begin issuing global benchmark oil, gas, and mineral contracts settled exclusively in CAD.

 The Parliament of Canada would pass an emergency legislative package - combining strategic export controls, mandatory CAD clearing, and a $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund seeded by energy royalties - in a single, unified vote of confidence.

 This forces the Conservative opposition into a stark, historic choice: stand with Canadian sovereignty or align with Trump and the United States.

Day 4:

 We could unveil a preferential trade and supply framework guaranteeing long-term critical mineral, fossil fuel, and agricultural exports to India and China. Canada will no longer permit its vast natural wealth to be funneled through a single, hostile southern neighbor when global demand beckons elsewhere. We can't ignore a marketplace of 3 billion people who want to do business with us.

Day 5:

 Rather than penalizing domestic finished-goods exporters, Canada should institute targeted, non-negotiable export levies on the essential raw inputs and energy products the American economy cannot survive without:

 Impose immediate export levies on Canadian potash, nitrogen, and crop-nutrient feedstocks. The U.S. imports roughly 85–90% of its potash directly from Canada; squeezing this supply will force skyrocketing crop costs, lower yields, and acute food inflation directly onto the American consumer. Hungry, angry Americans will begin to push back against Washington.

 Implement non-negotiable export levies on every barrel of crude oil, cubic foot of natural gas, and megawatt of hydroelectric power exported south. Overnight, this will render the fuel powering American refineries and the energy powering U.S. industrial hubs catastrophically expensive - forcing critical institutions like hospitals to pay premium rates while driving severe cost inflation directly into the U.S. real estate market.

Day 6:

 We would utilize federal constitutional powers under the Peace, Order, and Good Government (POGG) clause, alongside Section 33 (the Notwithstanding Clause), to preempt provincial jurisdictional hurdles and rapidly deploy national energy infrastructure. Strategic pipeline and transmission corridors to deep-water ports in British Columbia, Hudson Bay, and Quebec will be declared national security assets to ensure uninterrupted energy exports to European and Asian markets. Using both laws together reinforces the fact that we need uncompromising national leverage, positioning energy development as a vital component of national defense.

Day 7:

 We would declare U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra persona non grata and order his departure from Canadian territory within 24 hours. Diplomatic immunity ends where sovereign interference begins - particularly after hosting fringe political actors, western separatists, and Convoy organizers on embassy grounds.

Day 8:

 Canada would need to indefinitely suspend all joint military exercises with the United States and withdraw from binational defense frameworks. Simultaneously, enact an immediate, total embargo on Canadian capital entering the U.S. defense industrial base. 100% of Canada's military procurement budget - traditionally funneled to American defense contractors - would be permanently redirected toward European allies, expanded industrial partnerships with South Korea, and domestic production. Any Canadian military personnel pushing back should be fired immediately.

 In 2016, the former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said, “We need more people - a lot more,” dreaming of a Canada with 100 million citizens. That dream must now unite us. We could call this idea, "The Mulroney Plan: Building Canada's Defense Through Growth"

 This wasn’t a spontaneous policy idea from Mulroney; it was a calculated public strategy he launched because he understood that one day the Americans would come hunting for Canada’s water, critical minerals, and energy, both fossil fuels and hydroelectricity. After Trump’s threats, a national consensus is emerging: Canada must grow - both in population and economic might - to secure our sovereignty. The federal and provincial governments should unite in purpose, rolling out a bold plan centered on population expansion and economic vitality. The linchpin must be a housing revolution. Recognizing that affordable housing is the engine of growth, all governments in Canada must abolish 100% of building height limits and also exclusionary zoning laws that block fourplex housing options. No longer shackled by single-family-only restrictions, every corner of Canada - from bustling cities to quiet towns - would open to fourplexes, multi-unit homes that balance affordability with scale. A Canada with a much larger domestic market is one that the United States can never again threaten.

 What I have laid out is cold, harsh, and calculating. But if an economic war is declared against us, we will not play defense - we will strike back with absolute aggression to cripple our opponent economically. Just as the people of Ukraine refuse to fuel Russia’s economy, Canadians cannot be expected to underwrite a hostile power to our south. We would have to shatter the planned Monroe-style dominance Washington would hope to exert over Canada. If forced into an economic collapse, we will drag the U.S. economy down alongside us, ensuring Canada goes down fighting - never bowing on bended knee. Sometimes in an existential fight, you have to let your inner psychopath shine. Who understands calculating strategy better than a former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England? If they force our hand, we will drag the U.S. economy down with us - and we would do so with a smile. As Canadian columnist Stephen Maher recently mused, sovereignty is only ever handed over once...