Trump’s trade war hands Democrats a campaign-trail gift

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FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada is handing a political gift to Democrats in this pivotal battleground state.

Democratic candidates across Michigan are unifying against Trump’s 50% tariffs on an array of Canadian goods, hitching Republicans to a trade battle against a trusted neighbor that polls show is unpopular. The alignment is a helpful way for Democrats to change the subject from US-Israel policy, a topic that has bitterly split them in this state in particular.

Taking on Trump over Canada trade also helps Democrats sidestep their own past divisions on the issue. The party has long cleaved between pro-business factions and labor allies, and some Democrats — especially in Michigan — remain open to targeted tariffs, not to mention critical of free trade pacts.

But at the moment, in a swing state that counts Canada as its top export destination, Democrats are focused on where they agree.

“These tariffs are simply about [Trump’s] ego, and he wants us to have to pay for them. And Mike Rogers is going to do nothing but rubber-stamp it,” Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, told supporters Wednesday at a packed banquet hall in the Detroit suburbs.

El-Sayed spent both of his appearances in southeast Michigan decrying Rogers, his Republican opponent, as tacitly supportive of Trump’s hefty new tariffs. The levies have so far hit Canadian steel and could affect autos by January.

His opposition to Trump’s approach doesn’t extend to all tariffs, however. In an interview with Semafor after his campaign stops, El-Sayed likened past free trade agreements with Canada and Mexico, like NAFTA and USMCA, to “cancers on the American economy. I oppose them outright.”

“But the response isn’t just tariffs willy-nilly because you got mad at the prime minister,” El-Sayed added. “The response is a thoughtful, direct tariff policy, akin to chemotherapy for cancer.”

He suggested a targeted, “goal-oriented” use of tariffs to protect certain “high growth potential industries,” rolling them back when certain trade benchmarks were met.

Rogers’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

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The new tariffs’ impact on the cross-border supply chain threatens an auto industry that’s essential to the Michigan economy. Michigan exported $21.2 billion in goods to Canada last year, according to the US trade representative’s office; it’s among the US states most reliant on Canadian trade.

Industry representatives in the state are openly warning of electoral consequences for Republican candidates from Trump’s tariffs in multiple states that do significant business with Canada.

“The White House’s strategy makes it a lot more difficult … because you have to kind of explain away what this White House’s strategy is,” said the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Sandy Baruah, formerly a George W. Bush administration official.

It’s not just El-Sayed making the most of the opportunity to hammer Trump’s trade tactics.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson is linking Republican opponent John James to them at every turn, dubbing the Canada tariffs a “John James tax.”

In a battleground manufacturing-heavy House district in the Detroit suburbs, Democratic nominee Christian Hines said that “Canada is not the problem.” Hines used her opposition to the tariffs to cast her Republican opponent Mike Bouchard as a loyalist who “falls in line” with Trump.

“He’s a really nice young man, but he supports everything that this president does,” she said. “What we need is someone that’s actually going to stand up and fight for us.”

Bouchard, in a statement, framed the tariffs as one chapter in negotiations.

“For too long, adversarial nations like China have been taking advantage of Canada and America,” Bouchard said. “The President is a great negotiator and is defending American manufacturing. I am hopeful we can resolve this quickly, reach a deal beneficial to both countries, and have fair trade between us. They are an important trading partner and ally.”

The View From Canada

Across the border, Canadians are digging in for long-term pain at the hands of their onetime ally. Canada has responded with its own retaliatory tariffs and pledged an aid package for affected companies, with Prime Minister Mark Carney commanding public support for the economic pain that will result from pushing back.

“We’ve had the sand kicked in our face for the last two years, and we reached a point, because Canadians are notorious for being civil and tolerant — that it’s a breaking point now,” Mike Bradley, the mayor of Sarnia, Ontario, told Semafor in an interview in his office just across the Blue Water Bridge from Port Huron, Mich.

“If you think about it,” he added, “most of the economic consequences are going to be on both sides of the border.”

Sarnia, a petrochemical center, was already feeling the sting of Trump’s past trade clashes with Canada before the most recent escalation.

Bradley called Trump’s attempt to rename Lake Ontario “not that funny” anymore, adding a note of pessimism about the future even after a new president takes office.

The US-Canada bond is “like a relationship that goes sideways, and sometimes you can get it back on track, but it’s never usually the same as it was before,” he said.

“And sometimes you get divorced.”

The View From Republicans

Michigan Republicans have largely kept their heads down amid the trade war.

Many in the party are generally opposed to tariffs, though some have joined Bouchard in portraying the Canada levies as a negotiating tactic.

Rogers and other Republicans have focused instead on Democrats’ associations with controversial left-wing streamer Hasan Piker. El-Sayed put distance between himself and Piker on Wednesday following intraparty condemnation of Piker’s comments on American Jews.

Nicholas’s view

Democrats everywhere, and especially in Michigan, rightly see Trump’s Canada tariffs as a useful unforced error this close to the election.

But their agreement on trade isn’t guaranteed to hold should they take power in the Capitol, or reclaim the White House in 2028. Powerful allied groups like the UAW support other tariffs that are aimed at bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US, presaging tough choices ahead for the party.

Former President Joe Biden kept many of Trump’s first-term tariffs in place, after all.

Bradley, the Canadian mayor, also noticed the conundrum facing the American opposition.

“The Democrats should be hitting home runs every day, but the split in the party — you don’t know which Democratic Party is going to be winning in November,” he said.

He added a caveat on the new tariffs: “I haven’t seen one Republican of the courage to stand up, at any level elected, to say ‘We do not support this.'”

Notable

• Some of the most profitable cars made by Detroit’s automakers could be hit by the tariffs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

• The auto industry is taking a wait-and-see approach to the trade negotiations rather than lobbying the Trump administration, according to Politico.