Perhaps Canada should raise a toast to Jack Daniel’s and Jim Beam?
Maybe they have as much power around Donald Trump’s White House as Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy Jr. Or, at least enough sway to put a trade war — one that would hit the economies of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as Canada — on ice.
At least temporarily.
Ontario was locked and loaded for this war to start on Monday. At Premier Doug Ford’s direction, the LCBO was prepared to remove all American booze from LCBO shelves on Trump’s inauguration day should the newly minted president’s threatened 25% tariff materialize.
“I’ve sent a direction to the LCBO that if these tariffs come to clear off every bit of U.S. alcohol off the shelves,” Ford told the media. “Let’s start promoting more Ontario made wines, and vodkas, the spirits.”
The staff were waiting for the order.
“We had heard the rumours but had not seen anything official,” said one LCBO employee.
It was going to be a lot of work.
“We sell an awful lot of American product, and the customers love it,” said the staffer. “With all the American bourbons, whiskeys and California wines, it would be a lot to pull from the shelves which would hurt the Americans and leave a hole in our stores, too.”
Luckily, the order didn’t come.
Instead of signing an executive order to levy a monster tariff on Canadian goods, reports say the new Trump administration will instead review trade deficits with Canada, China and Mexico.
With the creation of Trump’s promised External Revenue Service, tariffs will likely come.
But at least the stage is set for conversation to make the tariffs more reasonable. It’s safe to say Trump got Canada’s attention with his threatened tariffs, but it’s also fair to say Canada got the 47th president’s attention with promises of retaliation, too.
You have to take your good news when you get it; this was a major victory for Canadian leaders who have been at the front of this fight.
Tariffs could, of course, still come and there will be more challenges, but credit must be given to the leaders who had to navigate tough new waters of a Trump presidency and came out on dry ground — for now, at least.
One of those who has taken this battle head on is Ford — who, from the beginning — apparently felt that Americans understand a hit to the pocketbook more than anything else. A former business owner himself in Chicago and New Jersey, the premier’s earlier threat of cutting off power to the United States didn’t go over well with some Canadians, while suggestions to remove American hooch hit a bullseye.
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It was a good point and turned out to be a good strategy.
In a conversation about tariffs with Kentucky’s “great” Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, Ford said the “first thing out of his mouth was ‘Don’t touch my bourbon.’”
As Ford said, many states’ main trading partner is Canada and Ford argued the only way to fight these tariffs is to target their products. Kentucky, for example, exports $9-billon worth of bourbon each year.
“They will feel the pain,” said Ford, adding, “we are the largest purchaser of alcohol in the entire world.”
And when Trump and his team do their study, they are going to see how important Canadian trade is to their economy.
A special hats-off must also go to the Canadians at the inauguration, who also were instrumental in getting this message across. Those include Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who has been unfairly smeared. All she has done is work hard to lobby for both Alberta and Canada and drill home the importance of our trade relationship with the U.S.
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, who was at Mar-a-Lago four times and in attendance Monday, did the same. Conservative MP Jamil Jivani is a close friend from his Harvard days with Vice President J.D. Vance and made sure Canada’s message was getting to the top.
Credit also needs to go to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his team of Finance Minister Domenic LeBlanc and other cabinet ministers, who were in Washington for the big day.
There is nothing easy about being any of these representatives. If they do nothing, they get nailed for doing nothing. If they do or say too much, then people are on them for that. The bottom line is all of the efforts worked because the new administration heard the message being sent.
Now, there is more work to do. While it’s wise to not provoke Trump — who apparently got the message loud and clear — it would be prudent to keep pressure on those governors so they understand that if those tariffs ever do come, there is no reason that Canadians need to buy their states’ big exports.
Seems those who profit from Jim Beam and Jack Daniel’s were listening. So, maybe the good people at American-made Whirlpool and Maytag will, too.