INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana’s most important trade partner is now a country we are at “war” with.
When Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a trade memorandum with Ontario Premier Doug Ford in 2024, the numbers told a compelling story about Indiana’s economic ties with Canada, our best friend and neighbor. Hoosier company exports to Canada totaled $13.9 billion in 2023, including $1.8 billion in vehicle parts, $1.5 billion in automobiles, $1 billion in trucks, more than $500 million in iron and steel products and $238 million in pharmaceuticals.
This is where I invoke Cher’s “snap out of it” slap-in-the-face moment with Nicolas Cage in the movie “Moonstruck.”
According to a Canadian government analysis, Indiana’s exports to Canada declined to $12.7 billion in 2025, coinciding with the year when President Donald J. Trump launched what he described as his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
“Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years,” Trump posted Monday on social media, announcing he is assaulting Canada with tariffs he is making up as he goes. “On January First, 2027, Tariffs on all Cars, Trucks, both large and small, Automotive Parts, and Steel, will be increased to 50%.”
The insults have mounted against one of our closest allies — a nation that stood beside us during two world wars and alongside American forces in more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump has repeatedly called for the annexation of Canada as our “51st state” and has referred to its prime minister as “governor.” This week, he even called for renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.”
This rhetoric from an American president is more akin to that of a high school sophomore.
After Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley warned that those 25% emergency tariffs on Canada and Mexico would “blow a hole” in the U.S. auto industry, which is highly integrated among these three North American neighbors. Auto parts manufactured in Indiana are known to cross the Ambassador Bridge (and now the Gordie Howe International Bridge) between Michigan and Ontario a half dozen times during a vehicle’s assembly process.
Trump’s 50% tariff is tantamount to a $25 billion tax on U.S. automakers, their suppliers and, ultimately, you, the consumer. A new GMC Sierra or Ford F-150 will cost you about $5,000 more than it did in the pre-tariff era.
A White House fact sheet released Tuesday said about Canada, “FACT: Canada alone imposed discriminatory 25% tariffs and company-specific quotas on U.S. motor vehicles — measures applied to no other country. As a result, U.S. vehicle exports to Canada crashed 22% over the last year.”
The conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board described Trump’s tariff enterprise as the “dumbest trade war in history.”
These Hoosier exports to Canada are disturbing because they have declined from $14.9 billion in 2022. That $1.8 billion in exported auto parts shrank to $1.6 billion in 2025; auto exports were flat, while truck exports fell to $792 million from $1 billion.
This past Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded, telling his nation, which shares a 5,000-mile demilitarized border with the United States, “We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes its signature is written in pencil.
In the book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” authors Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reveal the “ad hoc” process in developing Trump’s tariffs.
“No meaningful staff work had been done at the Commerce Department, and there was little clarity on just what the President hoped to achieve,” the authors write. “Those working outside his immediate circle were forced to guess about his intentions.”
At a Jan. 31, 2025, Oval Office tariff-planning meeting, Trump realized he had forgotten to include China — the world’s second-largest economy. “Where are they?” he asked. Off the top of his head, he added, “Put them in for 10%.”
As I observed in a 2025 column, the basis for this trade war with our most loyal allies came down to the whims of our president.
So now we watch the whims of Trump take on Indiana’s most profound trading partner and best friend. And just as Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to justify his “Liberation Day” tariffs was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in February, his use of Section 338 and 232 tariffs against Canada will spark a challenge similar to the one brought by Evansville attorney Joshua Claybourn. Asked if there would be a future filing, Claybourn told me Tuesday: “Yes, indeed.”
But this goes way beyond commerce. For young Hoosiers, the first “foreign” country most of us traveled to was Canada. We honeymooned at the Canadian Horseshoe Falls at Niagara. For much of this past century, we Hoosiers saw Canadians as our cousins, if not siblings, most of the time in peace and, during crises, brothers in arms.
On April 29 in Buffalo, New York, before a Buffalo Sabres-Boston Bruins NHL game, the mic cut out as singer Cami Clune attempted to sing our neighbor’s national anthem, “O Canada.” As The Guardian observed, the crowd of nearly 20,000 filled the silence. The majority were American “and knew all the words. As the anthem progressed, the crowd grew louder with cheers.”
So we’re at war with Canada? The only way that could happen is if America lost its Hoosier common sense.
Snap out of it!
Brian A. Howey is an opinion columnist for State Affairs Indiana and the founder of Howey Politics Indiana. His writing offers analysis and opinion shaped by decades of experience covering Indiana politics. Email him at howey@stateaffairs.com.
