Major Trump Donor Urges President to Walk Back 50% Canada Tariffs: Report
Key Takeaways
- •Trade talks between the United States and Canada broke down on Friday, after which President Trump announced 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian products.
- •Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney committed to retaliating against U.S. tariffs with equivalent dollar-for-dollar measures.
- •Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned of severe consequences for Canada and indicated the United States might no longer provide military protection to its NATO ally.
- •Dan Eberhart, an oil and gas executive who contributed $100,000 and raised $500,000 for Trump's 2020 campaign, urged the president to focus on winning the midterms rather than waging a trade war with Canada.
- •A Joint Economic Committee study found American households paid an average of $1,745 in additional tariff-related costs during the first 11 months of Trump's presidency.
A major donor to President Donald Trump is pleading with the commander in chief to get his “head in the game” and walk back his latest move on Canada — a decision Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng called “insanely stupid” and an “imperialistic disgrace.”
On Friday, trade talks between the United States and Canada imploded, leading Trump to impose a 50% tariff on a number of Canadian goods. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to match those tariffs “dollar for dollar”. Beyond the tit-for-tat tariffs, the Trump administration has gone scorched earth on its neighbor to the north. The rupture lands in one of the world’s largest bilateral trading relationships: the two economies are bound together by supply chains spanning autos, energy and lumber, and their trade is governed by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the pact that replaced NAFTA in 2020 and faces a scheduled joint review by its member governments in 2026.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took to Fox News Sunday to threaten Canada with “devastating” consequences if it doesn’t return to the negotiating table, going as far as to suggest the United States may no longer protect its NATO ally militarily — a pointed threat toward a founding member of the 75-year-old alliance.
“What happened this weekend wasn’t just folly and ‘Idiocracy.’ It was a scandal – an imperialistic disgrace that’s been going on far too long,” Suebsaeng wrote in an analysis published Monday in Zeteo.
To get a better understanding of what some of Trump’s backers thought about the president’s latest trade war, Suebsaeng spoke with Dan Eberhart, an oil and gas industry executive and major Trump backer who personally contributed $100,000 and raised $500,000 for the president’s 2020 re-election campaign, according to Fox News.
Eberhart was not a fan.
“We need Trump’s head in the game to win the midterms,” Eberhart told Suebsaeng. “Republicans are better off with Trump holding rallies and holding off on a trade war with Canada.”
Trump’s tariffs have been costly for Americans, who studies show have absorbed almost all of the price hikes caused by the elevated import taxes. On average, American households paid an average of $1,745 more due to tariffs during the first 11 months of Trump’s presidency, according to a study from the Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.
With November’s midterm elections now months away, the open questions are piling up: whether Washington and Ottawa return to the negotiating table, how far Carney’s dollar-for-dollar retaliation extends across the integrated supply chains both economies rely on, and how voters weigh the added costs. Eberhart’s warning makes clear that at least some of the president’s own financial backers see the Canada trade fight as a political liability heading into that vote.
