Going on attack against Canada makes as much sense as picking a fight with your best friend and neighbor, the one you share holiday meals with, the one who steps up when disaster hits the neighborhood, the one who helps make sure you and your family are safe.
Which is to say it makes no sense whatsoever.
President Donald Trump says Canada should become the 51st state. Canadians have declined. If the tiff would have ended there, no harm, no foul.
But it hasn’t ended, and the fight could soon cost Alaskans money.
Trump is throwing tariffs at Canada — and the rest of the world, for that matter — like a kid pours maple syrup on Eggo waffles. Which is to say, heavily and without restraint, unless the parents are in the room to stop the sugar rush. Congress, however, seems to have decided that the kid can pour as much syrup as he wants.
As the president heaps insults on Canada’s elected leaders and Canadians in general, the nation of about 42 million people is pushing back. And this is where Alaska could get hurt.
British Columbia’s premier said last week he intends to introduce legislation to impose tolls on commercial trucks traveling through the province from the Lower 48 states to Alaska. It’s a tit for tat over tariffs.
It’s not so much an issue in Southeast Alaska, which gets its freight by barge, not truck, but that doesn’t make it any less of a bad idea. It just means Southeast could escape the trade war this week. Who knows about next week.
Meanwhile, the Yukon Territory premier said the government-run liquor stores will stop buying from American companies, and the government will make it harder for U.S. companies to win the territory’s contracts.
Ontario’s premier said the province will begin adding a 25% surcharge to electricity bound for the United States, which has long enjoyed stable, clean, affordable power from Canada’s hydroelectric generating stations.
It’s time to call a truce. And since the United States started this backyard war, the U.S. should be the one to back off.
Alaska should support an end to the trade fight. If not for the lack of Alaska beer in Yukon Territory stores, the possibility of higher freight costs or the risk to the summer cruise ship traffic that comes north from British Columbia, then as a matter of pride.
Alaska should feel threatened about Canada becoming the 51st state. Canada is almost six times the size of Alaska. We would lose bragging rights as the biggest state in the union. “We’re No. 2” has a crummy ring to it.
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