An overwhelming majority of Canadians think their country should fight fire with fire if Donald Trump carries through on his threat to impose a sweeping 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods and services sold into the U.S. market.
A new poll from Ipsos provided exclusively to Global News found that 82 per cent of respondents agree with the statement that, should Trump tariff Canadian goods, Canada should retaliate by slapping tariffs on American imports into Canada.
Late Monday, during a rambling news conference from the Oval Office in the White House, Trump said he was ready to put a tariff — or import tax — of 25 per cent on Canadian goods on Feb. 1. He did not sign any executive orders Monday to implement that decision but, during his inauguration speech, he did say that he would make America wealthy by imposing more taxes on foreigners.
“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” Trump said.
Tariffs, though, are paid by the importing country. In other words, it would be Americans, not Canadians, who would pay extra taxes to the American government for buying Canadian goods.
Trump’s late-night comments prompted an immediate response from the Trudeau government.
“None of this should be surprising. The one thing we’ve learned is that President Trump, at moments, can be unpredictable,” Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc told reporters in Montebello, Que., where the Trudeau cabinet is in the midst of a two-day retreat on Canada-U.S. relations.
“We have spent the last number of weeks preparing potential response scenarios for the government of Canada in partnership with provinces and Canadian business leaders and union leaders. So our country is absolutely ready to respond to any one of these scenarios.”
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In a guest column published Monday morning in The Washington Post, former finance minister and Liberal leadership contender Chrystia Freeland warned Americans that Canada would hit back on Trump’s tariffs.
“The threats won’t work. We will not escalate, but we will not back down,” Freeland wrote. “If you hit us, we will hit back — and our blows will be precisely targeted. We are smaller than you, to be sure, but the stakes for us are immeasurably higher. Do not doubt our resolve.”
Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has also said he would retaliate.
“I would say to President Trump, I will retaliate with trade tariffs against American goods that are necessary to discourage America attacking our industries,” Poilievre said during an interview last week with CHEK News. “I’d rather we work together, though, because if we do, we can have a bigger, stronger economy.”
The Trudeau government, with the support of all of the country’s premiers except Alberta’s Danielle Smith, has said that all options are on the table when it comes to responding to any tariff threat from the United States — including a potential export tax on Canadian energy products, such as oil and gas.
Ipsos found that most Canadians disagree with Smith. When asked if Smith was right to insist that Canadian oil and gas exports be exempt from any Canadian response to Trump’s tariffs, 55 per cent of respondents disagreed with her while 45 per cent agreed.
Smith is in Washington, in the midst of a five-day visit where she has been meeting with U.S. political and business leaders. She is to speak to Canadian reporters early Tuesday morning.
Poilievre refused to say when asked by reporters three times last week if oil and gas exports should be part of Canada’s response to Trump’s tariffs.
Andrew Furey, the premier of the oil-producing province of Newfoundland and Labrador, told reporters last week at the first ministers meeting in Ottawa that Trump should know that Canadian energy products may factor into a Canada-U.S. trade war.
“I see energy as Canada’s queen in this game of chess,” Furey said. “We don’t need to expose our queen too early. And the opposition does need to know that the queen exists. But they don’t need to know what we’re going to do with the queen.”
About 25 per cent of the oil America consumes comes from Canada.
And yet, despite Trump’s statement Monday night that he was ready to bring in a general tariff of 25 per cent on Canadian goods by Feb. 1, most Canadians simply don’t believe he’ll follow through. Of those polled by Ipsos, 55 per cent said they believed Trump’s threat was just a bluff to get Canada to act quickly on other issues such as beefing up border security and spending more on defence.
Ipsos polled 1,001 Canadians from Jan. 17 to 20 using an online survey. The composition of the survey population was weighted to reflect Canada’s demographic makeup. Because it was an online survey, though, a margin of error cannot be calculated.
But Canadians also don’t believe the Trudeau government has a mandate to deal with Trump’s threats: 77 per cent of those surveyed said an immediate general election is required to give the winner of that election the mandate required to negotiate with the Americans.
With all three opposition parties ready to vote non-confidence in the Trudeau government upon Parliament’s return on March 24, an election is almost certain by late April or May.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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