The proposed tariffs have been suspended for one month - but that's no good as any business ordering for delivery after March 1st doesn't know what they're paying. And that's the point; tariffs without actually imposing tariffs.
Legally, only Congress can impose tariffs. The President may do so only in an emergency involving national security". Hence the bogus idea that fentanyl was coming from Canada and posing a national security threat, and then the suspension of the tariffs before they came into effect, so that American businesses couldn't sue the US govt for unconstitutional use of tariffs.
Leaving the uncertainty hovering over Canada, doing damage.
So what can Canada do? The Canadian govt can build pipelines to the Atlantic, so they can export oil and gas to Europe instead of the USA. And they can get rid of inter-province barriers.
Other than that, the solution lies with Canadian businesses and consumers. They need to diversify away from the USA. Canadian aluminium and potash have an eager market in Europe, who used to buy these commodities from Russia, but can't now because of sanctions.
Oil is harder to sell because of the lack of a pipeline, but it can be trucked to the ports.
And Canadian consumers can switch to home brands, to make up for Canadian businesses not getting orders from the USA due to price uncertainty.
There is already an unofficial boycott in place as Canadians swap lists of substitutes for American goods.
Will this hurt American businesses? If the Canadians do find alternative buyers for their aluminium and potash, the US auto industry and farmers will suffer. Other than that, only small niche businesses will be impacted - breweries and distilleries, that sort of thing, as Canadians switch to home products.
We shall find out the impact of this episode in six months when national statistics are released for both Canada and the USA.
