The United States has gone rogue. There must be consequences.
Countries must form new alliances and end their dependence on US tech in response to Trump’s trade war
The United States has declared an imperialist trade war against its neighbors and some of its closest partners: Canada and Mexico. President Donald Trump hit the two countries with 25% tariffs on almost all goods, along with 10% on energy and mineral exports. More tariffs could follow in the coming weeks, and he’s justifying them all by saying they’re necessary to force his neighbors to do more to combat the trade of fentanyl. But that’s not the real reason underlying Trump’s tariff policy.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau addressed that claim in a news conference after the tariffs were imposed, explaining that the flow of fentanyl from Canada to the United States is virtually non-existent and fell by 97% in January 2025 compared to the month before. Meanwhile, US guns heading north and south are causing immense problems for its neighbors. The real reason for Trump’s trade war is much more existential. “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy,” said Trudeau, in reference to Trump, “because that will make it easier to annex us.”
Just months ago, a Canadian prime minister uttering such words with reference to the United States would have been unthinkable. For decades, Canada and the United States have become increasingly integrated, both economically and culturally, and now Canadians not only feel angry, but betrayed by a country they thought was their closest friend and ally on the planet. It’s a rift that will not heal easily, with 27% of Canadians recently saying they now see the United States as an enemy — and it requires an immediate response.
The Canadian government and provincial leaders across the country have already begun announcing various forms of retaliation. US goods will be hit with over $150 billion in retaliatory tariffs in the coming weeks, while provinces have begun pulling US-made alcohol from store shelves and grocery stores are helping citizens avoid US-made products. Quebec has begun penalizing American companies that apply for public contracts, Ontario ripped up its $100-million contract with Starlink, and multiple provinces are threatening to cut off energy supplies to the United States. Ontario alone supplies 1.5 million US customers with power. Mexico intends to levy its own retaliatory measures starting on Sunday.
These are all important moves to combat a US administration that believes there can and should be no checks on its global power and ambition. It feels it can spurn traditional allies, crush economies, and make significant threats with impunity. Trump, his team, and his powerful backers need to be shown that isn’t the case, and that means the response needs to go much further to hit a key source of American power in the 21st century: its tech industry and the billionaires who’ve aligned themselves with the MAGA project.
Hitting the tech oligarchy
A frequent response of Western governments looking to rein in countries acting outside international norms and rules is to hit their ruling classes with sanctions, as has been done in places like Russia and Venezuela. A rogue United States should be subject to similar treatment, and it shouldn’t just hit administration officials, but key private-sector figures backing what the Trump administration is doing.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has debased himself to get in Trump’s good graces, and would be on obvious target for such sanctions, as would far-right financier Peter Thiel and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. But no one is a more obvious target than Elon Musk, the billionaire once praised as a future-building genius who has now made his true nature undeniable to the public. Musk is actively working to remake the US government — in many cases to serve his own interests — and is trying to push his right-wing project internationally, including in Canada.
Since Musk’s companies are a key source of his power, they should also be in the crosshairs. Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, now running for the leadership of the Liberal Party, has proposed tariffs of 100% on Tesla vehicles entering Canada. Tesla is one place to start, and the government could look at taking over its Supercharger network too. But as the Ontario premier identified, Starlink is also a growing source of Musk’s power, and it too should be more strictly regulated, if not banned, in the country. Canada could then join an initiative like that of Europe to develop an alternative, but in the meantime put a lot more money into building out a public fiber network and connecting rural and remote communities.
Restricting US tech companies
While Musk and his companies are very visible, the reality is that many countries — including Canada — have become far too dependent on US tech products, particularly the digital services and platforms we now rely on for so much of our work, communication, and entertainment. The global expansion of the internet facilitated the international dominance of US tech companies and the expansion of US power as a result. But that trade isn’t working, and as tech billionaires push the Trump administration to lash out at any country taxing or regulating US tech companies, it’s long past time countries fought back.
Instead of giving in to US pressure, governments need to become far more ambitious with tech regulation of many forms. Countries don’t need to buy into the disingenuous framing of “free speech” being pushed by Silicon Valley and the extreme right and should adopt stronger regulations to limit the deceptive information and conspiracy theories distorting the public’s understanding of the world around them. If US platforms won’t comply, they should face the consequences — as they are more frequently in Europe — but if they continue to refuse, they should face outright bans. Tech companies need to know they will be held accountable, and that means they must respect the rules and laws in the places they operate.
Governments also need to crack down on how companies have used technology to justify the degradation of hard-won labor advances, particularly by companies like Uber and Amazon. Uber pioneered a gig economy that gave new life to piece work in many parts of the world, and it’s long past time those services were told to recognize their workers as employees or get lost. Similarly, Amazon has degraded wages and working conditions in the industries it’s moved into, and put pressure on postal services like Canada Post. The company recently announced it was shutting down every single warehouse it ran in Quebec, after workers voted to form a union and provincial labor law required it to negotiate a contract with the union. Actions of that kind should be completely unacceptable.
But measures can go far beyond that. They can include rules around the amount of domestic content to display to streaming audiences, increased taxes on particular business models like digital advertising, strict regulations on how data can be collected, used, and transferred, not to mention limits on the implementations of AI tools and companies’ ability to train AI models on copyrighted workers. For far too long, US tech companies have gotten away with things that would’ve never been considered acceptable because it was framed as innovation and leading to prosperity. But by now, the rose-colored glasses are off everyone’s eyes — and it’s time to hit them where it hurts.
Building an international alliance
Simply restricting existing dominant players isn’t enough. It should be one part of a wider strategy to replace them in as many sectors as possible as a reclamation of digital sovereignty. Such a strategy will require several pieces. First among them is to ween government off its reliance on those firms. Quebec is penalizing US companies trying to get public contracts, but when a company like Amazon shuts down warehouses to avoid recognizing a union, that should be a signal that any government contracts with such a company should come to an end and alternative capacities should be developed as quickly as possible.
In Canada, many government contracts with Amazon are for cloud services. At what point does it begin to look more attractive to build up a public cloud to serve those needs and develop the technologies to serve government functions in house instead of contracting out to a foreign company? Brazil, for example, has been a leader at adopting open-source technologies for government functions to avoid that dependence on companies like Microsoft or Google. The Canadian government already has a Digital Service to develop tools to better serve its citizens, but its ambitions could be significantly broadened at the same time as there’s sure to be plenty of skilled talent in the United States looking for new opportunities abroad. An even more ambitious program would see governments recognizing the provision of technology as a key function, and start bringing tech development much closer to the communities that use it.
But one country, especially one the size of Canada, may not be successful in pursuing that objective alone. It’s much better to work together and to find allies not just to slap common, punitive regulations and taxes on US tech companies, but also to start working on an alternative technological infrastructure. As Trudeau said in his remarks, Canada’s allies understand that “everyone is vulnerable to a trade war” if the US is willing to put tariffs on its closest neighbor, ally, and friend. They shouldn’t wait until it’s too late, but begin creating the relationships and alliances to take the actions necessary to wean themselves off US dependence now.
The new technological infrastructure they develop cannot simply emulate the American model, but in another context. It needs to throw off its control on profit maximization, share price manipulation, and social control. Instead, it needs to embrace open protocols and federated infrastructures with a goal of maximizing the public good rather than creating the next unicorn. The solutions will not come from random coders, software engineers, or hackers though. Properly building out an alternative will necessitate an important role for government to finance development, direct key projects, and keep the public interest at the core of the work instead of letting corporations capture key infrastructures or tech savvy developers build things that only work for themselves.
Such an infrastructure will likely be very different than the centralized systems we have today, where a few major companies try to control virtually our entire digital experience. The decentralization such a project requires will ensure that countries have more power to shape how digital systems work in their jurisdictions to better fit their cultural and social norms, but also to allow their citizens access to a wide range of culture, information, and communication tools. There will undoubtedly be challenges on that path, but sorting through them will be far better than remaining dependent on US tech monopolies or simply switching allegiance to those emanating from China.
The US cannot be trusted
Even if the United States rescinds its tariffs and ends its trade war, it has already shown it’s a rogue state that cannot be trusted. It’s lashing out at its allies, reneging on its obligations to international institutions like the World Health Organization, not to mention the Ukrainian people, and there’s no guarantee that will change in four or eight years. The United States has spent the past century meddling in countries around the world, overthrowing their governments, financing forces that served its own interests, and enforcing punitive measures like it has on Cuba for sixty years.
That should have never been acceptable. But now, as it starts throwing its closest friends under the bus, it’s long past time to embrace — and even hasten — the end of American hegemony and the horrors it’s brought on the world. If countries that have long claimed to believe in an international rules-based order truly believe in human rights and international law, it’s time for them to break with the United States, reject their ongoing subordination to its tech dominance, find new friends and allies, and build a better tech infrastructure that enables a better world for everyone.
For those high skilled liberal IT workers and government tech workers that just got layed off. Wouldn't it be a shame for the rogue US authoritarian state, if they upped sticks and started building competing tech in "enemy" democracies in Europe, Brazil and Canada? Maybe they would even have CEOs and politicians who share more values with them too
Great analysis with naming the names that need to be dropped. Many are unaware what people like Thiel have been up to with the ridiculous valuations with developers and crypto.