The report by Quebecor media quoted two unnamed sources from Fréchette’s government who said American government officials had attempted to negotiate tariffs with Quebec directly.
This incident aside, doesn't Quebec already have special rights within the confederation to manage certain international relationships? E.g. quasi-diplomatic General Delegation in Paris, Francophone offices overseas, certain aspects of immigration to Quebec?
Doesn't Canada have trade barriers literally between their own provinces? I'm not sure Canada has a lot of ground to stand on here, if provinces are arguing about trade between themselves. Why not negotiate independently? They are free agents.
Correct on all counts. I don't know how much control Quebec City has over international[1] tariffs, however.
So the shocking allegations boil down to
* US attempt to talk to Quebec City about tariffs, and
* a US think tank publishing something in February 2026 about how the US might benefit from the (meaningful, longstanding, legal) Quebecois pro-sovereignist sentiment.
Meanwhile, no shortage of announced Canadian intentions, in the first Trump administration and during the current trade war, to "target the red states" with tariffs to influence US politics, and no shortage of self-hating American Redditors cheering this on because Trump = bad, so anything that other countries do against the US = good.
[1] I have to specify this, because Canada does not have internal free trade! In some ways, trade with the US is freer than intra-Canada trade. Yet more proof of how as Paul Krugman wrote, Canada is closer to the US than to itself <https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/eh/>.
Meanwhile, no shortage of announced Canadian intentions, in the first Trump administration and during the current trade war, to "target the red states" with tariffs to influence US politics, and no shortage of self-hating American Redditors cheering this on because Trump = bad, so anything that other countries do against the US = good.
Yes, meanwhile something completely different happens somewhere else. All sorts of different things are always happening all over the world. Luckily we don't see Canada trying to negotiate tariffs with individual states, or else the thing you mentioned might be similar to the situation we're discussing.
Also, as an aside, it's rude to dismiss the majority of Americans, who overwhelmingly oppose the harmful tariffs and the related government mismanagement of the economy, as "self-hating American Redditors". They likely love their country at least as much as those who favor destroying the economy and Americans' finances in the name of unprecedented partisan brinksmanship and power grabs.
I think a significant portion of the political culture war does revolve around this idea of anti-partiotism.
There is a vocal population that say america is evil, as are it's institutions, laws, and principles. This faction is particularly dominant in places like reddit.
A patriot can see faults in what their country does, as everybody and every organization of bodies makes mistakes. A patriot seeks atonement for those mistakes, to make things right, and come back stronger, with more support from the world.
It seems you're confusing patriotism with jingoism: "we're the greatest country in the world, we never make mistakes, so we don't need to learn from them, suck it victims, everyone is in a grand conspiracy against us because they're jealous, everything bad is bad because of that conspiracy", etc, that sort of thing. That's how you get the sort of "patriots" that one could find in 1939 Germany. I guess some people want that.
I agree that a patriot can be cognizant of shortcomings and Im not advocating jingoism.
I think there is a class of people who are less interested in constructive reform, and more interested in seeing america fail. They would rather everyone suffer then improve and thrive. Maybe they do see that as a form of atonement.
Also, as an aside, it's rude to dismiss the majority of Americans, who overwhelmingly oppose the harmful tariffs
OP didn’t say everyone who opposes the tariffs. He said people who support Canada openly stating they will impose retaliatory tariffs on red state products specifically, which is meddling with internal U.S. politics.
retaliatory tariffs on red state products specifically, which is meddling with internal U.S. politics
As you said, they are retaliatory tariffs. This is no more meddling in politics than pissing into the wind and getting wet. Retaliatory tariffs were a foreseeable result of policy they voted for, and now the results have splashed them.
There's no reason they shouldn't be disproportionately concentrated on those who caused them. In fact, that approaches an ideal world, right? One in which negative externalities are primarily borne by those responsible for them? And importantly, there is no negotiation, no quid-pro-quo. It is just the law of nature manifesting (you attack someone, it is expected that they will retaliate). There's no way to change that law.
There's a popular American republican trope that those who support higher taxes should be the exclusive ones paying those higher taxes. That's precisely what's happening here (tariffs = taxes). Everybody is getting what they want, except the majority of people who want a sane, fair, and predictable tariff regime built upon a foundation of mutual respect between equals – but at least this gets us closer to that. In a crap world, I can see that being progress worth celebrating.
But I think we need to be handling it differently. We need to make some structural changes, because the reality is that every global power center is going to be waging covert trade war against red states going forward. We need something comprehensive that makes individual states difficult to target. Because this response strategy is just a new reality. And will be the reality even if the left gets into power in the US. They won't let up. It's not in their interests to do so.
It's just reason number 5 million that the reality of conservative rule has fallen so far short of the promise of conservative rule for the US. I'm not certain there was any plan put in place to anticipate and mitigate likely responses. (And punishing trade policies targeting red states was an entirely predictable response.) Just gross ineptitude from the conservatives to not be prepared for that.
I don't even agree with their policies, but for Christ's sake, if you're gonna pursue those policies, wargame all that out and be prepared.
Now we gotta suffer through amateur hour while the keystone kops drive our country into the ground for two more years. This sucks.
This story is evolving rapidly as some evidence is showing up that it's the CAQ (the party currently in power) that first tried to push the existence of the DARC blog post to the journalists, then informed CSIS when they didn't report it since it seems to be just one blog post from a think tank, not a coordinated effort.
It appears that the interference is actually by the federal liberals to benefit their own provincial branch by disparaging the clear leaders in the current race.
The report by Quebecor media quoted two unnamed sources from Fréchette’s government who said American government officials had attempted to negotiate tariffs with Quebec directly.
This incident aside, doesn't Quebec already have special rights within the confederation to manage certain international relationships? E.g. quasi-diplomatic General Delegation in Paris, Francophone offices overseas, certain aspects of immigration to Quebec?
I wouldn't be surprised. That would be one of many failings of the Canadian constitution/government.
What else do you have?
How about the crown of England is in charge of Canada's armed services? And new citizens have to swear allegiance to the King?
King Charles III is king of both countries. What a joke.
Doesn't Canada have trade barriers literally between their own provinces? I'm not sure Canada has a lot of ground to stand on here, if provinces are arguing about trade between themselves. Why not negotiate independently? They are free agents.
Isn't this referring to Quebec trying to negotiate with the US?
Which would be completely different from province-to-province negotiation, obviously.
Correct on all counts. I don't know how much control Quebec City has over international[1] tariffs, however.
So the shocking allegations boil down to
* US attempt to talk to Quebec City about tariffs, and
* a US think tank publishing something in February 2026 about how the US might benefit from the (meaningful, longstanding, legal) Quebecois pro-sovereignist sentiment.
Meanwhile, no shortage of announced Canadian intentions, in the first Trump administration and during the current trade war, to "target the red states" with tariffs to influence US politics, and no shortage of self-hating American Redditors cheering this on because Trump = bad, so anything that other countries do against the US = good.
[1] I have to specify this, because Canada does not have internal free trade! In some ways, trade with the US is freer than intra-Canada trade. Yet more proof of how as Paul Krugman wrote, Canada is closer to the US than to itself <https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/eh/>.
Yes, meanwhile something completely different happens somewhere else. All sorts of different things are always happening all over the world. Luckily we don't see Canada trying to negotiate tariffs with individual states, or else the thing you mentioned might be similar to the situation we're discussing.
Also, as an aside, it's rude to dismiss the majority of Americans, who overwhelmingly oppose the harmful tariffs and the related government mismanagement of the economy, as "self-hating American Redditors". They likely love their country at least as much as those who favor destroying the economy and Americans' finances in the name of unprecedented partisan brinksmanship and power grabs.
I think a significant portion of the political culture war does revolve around this idea of anti-partiotism.
There is a vocal population that say america is evil, as are it's institutions, laws, and principles. This faction is particularly dominant in places like reddit.
A patriot can see faults in what their country does, as everybody and every organization of bodies makes mistakes. A patriot seeks atonement for those mistakes, to make things right, and come back stronger, with more support from the world.
It seems you're confusing patriotism with jingoism: "we're the greatest country in the world, we never make mistakes, so we don't need to learn from them, suck it victims, everyone is in a grand conspiracy against us because they're jealous, everything bad is bad because of that conspiracy", etc, that sort of thing. That's how you get the sort of "patriots" that one could find in 1939 Germany. I guess some people want that.
I agree that a patriot can be cognizant of shortcomings and Im not advocating jingoism.
I think there is a class of people who are less interested in constructive reform, and more interested in seeing america fail. They would rather everyone suffer then improve and thrive. Maybe they do see that as a form of atonement.
OP didn’t say everyone who opposes the tariffs. He said people who support Canada openly stating they will impose retaliatory tariffs on red state products specifically, which is meddling with internal U.S. politics.
As you said, they are retaliatory tariffs. This is no more meddling in politics than pissing into the wind and getting wet. Retaliatory tariffs were a foreseeable result of policy they voted for, and now the results have splashed them.
There's no reason they shouldn't be disproportionately concentrated on those who caused them. In fact, that approaches an ideal world, right? One in which negative externalities are primarily borne by those responsible for them? And importantly, there is no negotiation, no quid-pro-quo. It is just the law of nature manifesting (you attack someone, it is expected that they will retaliate). There's no way to change that law.
There's a popular American republican trope that those who support higher taxes should be the exclusive ones paying those higher taxes. That's precisely what's happening here (tariffs = taxes). Everybody is getting what they want, except the majority of people who want a sane, fair, and predictable tariff regime built upon a foundation of mutual respect between equals – but at least this gets us closer to that. In a crap world, I can see that being progress worth celebrating.
Retaliatory tariffs aren't interfering in politics. Targeting them specifically at red states then publicizing that fact is interfering in politics.
This is actually true.
But I think we need to be handling it differently. We need to make some structural changes, because the reality is that every global power center is going to be waging covert trade war against red states going forward. We need something comprehensive that makes individual states difficult to target. Because this response strategy is just a new reality. And will be the reality even if the left gets into power in the US. They won't let up. It's not in their interests to do so.
It's just reason number 5 million that the reality of conservative rule has fallen so far short of the promise of conservative rule for the US. I'm not certain there was any plan put in place to anticipate and mitigate likely responses. (And punishing trade policies targeting red states was an entirely predictable response.) Just gross ineptitude from the conservatives to not be prepared for that.
I don't even agree with their policies, but for Christ's sake, if you're gonna pursue those policies, wargame all that out and be prepared.
Now we gotta suffer through amateur hour while the keystone kops drive our country into the ground for two more years. This sucks.
This story is evolving rapidly as some evidence is showing up that it's the CAQ (the party currently in power) that first tried to push the existence of the DARC blog post to the journalists, then informed CSIS when they didn't report it since it seems to be just one blog post from a think tank, not a coordinated effort.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2287702/caq-scrs-ingere...
she later came out and admitted it was basically made up as a desperate last attempt before the election. everyone in quebec is pissed at her lol
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2287644/frechette-inger...
Of course it was made up. From the perspective of both countries it makes zero sense.
But people love the headline. It's like catnip to them.
It appears that the interference is actually by the federal liberals to benefit their own provincial branch by disparaging the clear leaders in the current race.