Doug Ford's diplomatic foray has all the tact of a wrecking ball

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is putting Mexico on notice. Earlier this week, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election win, Ford complained that Mexico was a “backdoor” for cheap Chinese imports, including state-subsidised vehicles. He floated the idea of booting the country from the US-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement and returning to a bilateral free trade arrangement between Canada and the United States. He said Mexico should “at the very least” match tariffs on Chinese imports introduced by Canada and the United States.

Sometimes tact is overrated in politics, but sometimes it’s utterly essential. Ford has all the tact of a wrecking ball. His stated concern is North American workers whose jobs may be at risk by cheaper goods — including automobiles, both internal combustion engine and electric. Ford has been less vocal about automation and corporate austerity slashing jobs, but he’s touching on a growing point of concern and debate, and that’s good. But navigating this moment — Trump, protectionism, changing industries — is going to take some delicacy. 

Canada has recently invested billions in electric vehicles, including production, battery plants, and charging infrastructure. Ontario is home to the lion’s share of that investment, including high profile deals with Honda, Stellantis, and Volkswagen. The goal of these plans is to secure EV manufacturing and a domestic supply chain. After years of moving slowly, Canada is trying to hit warp speed to catch up. And limiting cheap Chinese EV imports that pose a threat to the domestic market and workers is one way to protect jobs and shore up a home market.

As Alex Panetta writes for CBC, the federal government didn’t get behind Ford’s comments, but they also didn’t criticise them. The feds are just as concerned about domestic markets and workers — at least in this instance — as Ford. And just as worried about Trump, who is expected to not only continue the Biden administration’s protectionist policy line, but push it much further. Trump has promised to introduce across-the-board tariffs of at least 10 per cent, and perhaps as high as 20 per cent, and Canada is desperate to avoid being lumped in with the rest of the world.

By attacking Mexico, Ford has touched on the overlapping anxieties threatening to upend political and economic relationships throughout the continent. While it’s unlikely Mexico will be dropped from the USMCA given a U.S. and big corporate preference to keep the country in the deal, Trump is a mercurial bully who’ll no doubt take aim at any country he perceives as giving China a leg-up in trade. The Republican views trade through the prism of mercantilism and trade relations as a zero-sum game — and has the disposition of a mobster who values loyalty above all else, even if it’s hopelessly misguided.

Protecting domestic workers is good policy, but executing it is tricky. Growing protectionism risks trade wars and tariffs that raise the cost of goods, which won’t be good for workers either, given that they are also consumers. Moreover, higher prices will speed up a corporate trend towards automation to drive down labour costs.

Cheap Chinese EV imports — which are more a concern in theory than fact right now, given the low number of vehicles in the country — are a case study in just how tricky the moment is. Cheaper, cleaner vehicles would be good for consumers and help us reach our emissions targets. Orthodox economists will tell you that free and open trade ought to be welcomed with enthusiasm, as they lead to a more efficient allocation of resources and lower prices. Protectionist measures, by contrast, lead to higher costs and reward slothful industries that refuse to innovate — which has been true of many industries in Canada, a laggard on research and development.

But letting Canada’s, particularly Ontario’s, auto industry and related industries collapse in the face of cheap imported goods puts workers at risk in the short and medium term, and further raises the spectre of a nasty backlash that would bring with it an odious authoritarian and xenophobic politics (think ‘Make America Great Again’). Cheaper EVs are good, but a cascade of collapsing industry is not. 

There’s no playbook for navigating what we face, nor is there a single, obvious path forward. We face a multitude of challenges: the return of Trump, the rise of authoritarian populism, a global geopolitical shift in which the American empire is in decline and previously marginalised states are asserting their place, and the existential threat of climate change.  We are living through great power politics struggles over key industries and their supply chains, with workers and consumers caught in the middle and various interests in tension, including the corporate imperative of maximising profits and limiting costs, particularly labour. 

We ought to keep labour close in mind, indeed, particularly in Ontario, which is home to a large manufacturing base in the automotive industry. Those workers face challenges from automation, global trade, and lazy employers who’d rather rely on protectionist measures and the status quo rather than compete. They risk becoming pawns in a game of cross-border chess.

Whatever challenges we face, Ford’s bombastic, half-cocked rush to throw Mexico — Canada’s fifth largest trade partner — under the bus is the last thing we need right now. The best way forward during a second Trump administration will be rooted in caution, in gaming out all the potential moves on the board, and carefully weighing trade-offs while working as much behind the scenes as possible to maximise the chances of good outcomes and minimising the chances of bad ones. And if Ford can’t rise to the moment, someone — perhaps the voters — ought to take his microphone away.