Canada has hit back at the United States with retaliatory tariffs on American summertime essentials such as Florida orange juice, ketchup and Kentucky bourbon. The tit-for-tat duties are a response to the punishing US steel and aluminum tariffs imposed at the start of June.

Canada says the move has been made with regret and very much in sorrow, not in anger against a close ally. Retaliatory tariffs do great damage to the multilateral trading system. Canadians, however, are overwhelmingly in favor of the retaliation. Escalation into an all-out trade war will be devastating to the Canadian economy, which sends about 75 per cent of its exports to the United States. Canadian patriotism, meanwhile, has flourished under hashtags like #BoycottUSA, #BuyCanadian and #VacationCanada that urge people not to buy American goods and travel packages.

Canada and the US are among the world’s two largest trading partners with an estimated $673.9 billion worth of goods and services exchanged in 2017, with the US scoring a small surplus. The United States also is the top destination for Canadian vacationers, who made 42 million trips to the US in 2017. But relations between these two neighbors have plunged to their lowest in decades.