Caveats to my argument that Canada actually has a lot of policy autonomy: the USMCA renegotiation clause exposes Canada to coercive US economic power. And it assumes a democratic, not authoritarian/fascist US. If Trump wins, Canada’s policy space will not disappear, but it will shrink considerably.

Canada’s pre-emptive Trump strategy involves making the US aware of how much they depend on us for trade. But politically that only matters if the US voting system is competitive. If it’s not, then a president won’t really care if voters in Iowa are hurting economically from bad trade policy.