An overwhelming majority of Canadians believe the country’s relationship with the US has permanently changed, as President Donald Trump’s tariffs and sovereignty threats spark widespread fury in the northern nation.
Nearly 80 per cent of respondents to a poll by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg News agreed with the statement: “The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over.”
That’s a comment Prime Minister Mark Carney made during Canada’s election campaign and repeated many times. But the poll did not attribute the remark to him to avoid conflating respondents’ views of the prime minister with their feelings about the U.S. relationship.
The survey suggests that Carney, who rode a wave of anti-Trump sentiment to win the April 28 election, will get strong support for his plans to deepen alliances in Europe and Asia and bolster domestic activity to reduce Canada’s reliance on the U.S. Decoupling from the U.S. is nearly impossible, however — about three-quarters of Canada’s exports head to its southern neighbor.
Over the past six months, Trump’s tariffs and taunts about making Canada the 51st state have markedly shifted views and behaviors of Canadians. Anxiety about Trump’s threats revived support for Carney’s Liberals, who were unpopular under his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, and helped them win a fourth term. At the same time, Canadians are increasingly forgoing US vacations and American products in a show of patriotism.
Three-quarters of Canadians now say they’re less likely to purchase U.S.-made goods, the survey showed. That’s a 10 percentage-point jump from December, before US tariffs were imposed on Canadian products. That may help explain a decline in Canada’s imports from the U.S. in March, a period where inbound shipments from other countries were up.
The latest Nanos survey of 1,055 Canadians was conducted by phone and online between May 5 and 8, covering a period that included a Trump-Carney meeting at the White House. It’s considered accurate within three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Randy Thanthong-Knight, Bloomberg News
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