Canadians have more than one way to retaliate against Donald Trump

Ford’s talking about retaliation and, in spirit at least, many Canadians might be with him. But it may not be an option open to Mark Carney as he goes into what he described on Tuesday as an intensification of trade talks with the Trump regime.

Carney also seemed to be taking Ford’s side on the booze bans that are proving so vexatious to Trump’s government. The prime minister said if the provinces with such a ban want to restock their shelves with American booze, that’s up to them, but that it should not be offered as a simple concession.

“The decision to change that, first and foremost, will be taken by the provinces themselves each individually, and should only be taken, in my judgment, as part of an overall agreement,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday morning.

Each leader, in his own way, is hardening up against this latest Trump volley, reprising the good cop/bad cop routine that seems to be emerged from Ontario and Ottawa in the past 18 or so months. (As a bonus for Ford, it earns him better headlines than the kind he’s been getting recently, from his private jet controversy to a cabinet minister’s resignation over expense claims.)

But Ford’s not the only one talking tougher. Other premiers also spoke with a sharper edge too on Tuesday. B.C’s David Eby said there is “no way in hell” he’d abandon the booze ban. New Brunswick’s Susan Holt said all this sound and fury from Trump is an indication that Canada is getting under his skin — which she clearly thinks is a good idea.

Alberta’s Danielle Smith, meanwhile, warned that Canada had offered concessions before to Trump with no result, a more carefully worded echo of the exasperation Ford was expressing so colourfully.

That’s an important point. As things now stand, retaliation may not be the best option, but concessions aren’t either. There seems to be unity among first ministers on this.

Brian Clow, the former deputy chief of staff in Justin Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office, was at the table during the first trade dispute with Trump that produced the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.

These days, Clow is advising executives and companies on navigating Canadian and U.S. government policy, Canada-U.S. relations, trade risk, and the increasingly complex geopolitical environment.

Clow said the difference now in dealing with Trump is that there seems to be no suggestion that the Americans will offer concessions in return for what they’re demanding from Canada.

“They continue to pressure us to make a whole series of painful concessions, and they just don’t seem to be willing to let up at all,” he said.

Clow believes the situation this week rivals the low point when Trump first came to office and, bleak as it sounds, that Carney doesn’t have a whole lot of win-wins available to him.

“The set of choices facing the Carney government right now are all very challenging — and, in some respects, all negative choices,” he said.

As for retaliation, Clow warns, “It’s not so simple to say, ‘Well, let’s just retaliate across the board because it worked before,’ because I think the pain we would suffer in return from the United States would be really significant.”

It is worth pointing out, however, that if an escalation in retaliation is not an option available to governments in Canada at this point, it does remain a choice for individual Canadians. The frustration that Trump and his circle have been expressing toward Canadian retaliation fails to take into account that citizens have been doing their own form of punching back as well, rolling back their travel to the U.S. or their purchases of American-made goods.

Even if American booze did return to Canadian store shelves, how many of us would want to buy it?

That’s where Trump made a strategic mistake on Tuesday, when he said again that Canada’s survival hinges on the United States. When the president made similar remarks in Davos, Switzerland, after Carney’s memorable speech there, he didn’t get the gratitude he said he was demanding from this country — he got a backlash.

Trump may not care whether Ford thinks he’s a bully and wants to punch back. But he should care about how many Canadians agree with him.