Western Standard - September 01, 2026


The Bourbon & Harley Strategy： How Canada Fights Trump’s Tariffs


Episode Stats


Length

2 minutes

Words per minute

164.27

Word count

346

Sentence count

29


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Look, when you're responding to tariffs, there are generally two approaches.
00:00:05.580 One approach is a tit-for-tat approach.
00:00:07.920 You tariff my pork, I tariff your pork.
00:00:10.140 You tariff my beer, I tariff your beer.
00:00:12.580 You do this to me, I do this.
00:00:14.160 You punch me in the nose, I punch you in the nose.
00:00:16.340 Not the face, the nose.
00:00:17.780 Not the ear, the nose.
00:00:19.660 Then there is a different approach.
00:00:21.500 It tends to be a more strategic approach.
00:00:24.280 I like to call it the bourbon and Harley-Davidson's approach.
00:00:28.760 So you tariff us on things that are sensitive to us.
00:00:33.520 We tariff you on other things, not necessarily pork for pork, but you're really protective about your bourbon and your Harley Davidson.
00:00:43.000 These are iconic items that you like to export.
00:00:47.220 And particularly, these are things that are produced in Republican states or if it's a Biden government in Democrat states.
00:00:54.540 So it's a more strategic approach of equivalency, not a straight up one for one or A for A.
00:01:01.220 What we saw here was something of a hybrid of two approaches.
00:01:05.380 First, Canada's retaliatory tariffs were all drawn from the basket of goods that the U.S. just tariffed.
00:01:12.680 But within that basket, they were strategically selected.
00:01:17.200 So, for example, flatware, cutlery from New York State.
00:01:21.500 Why? Because there's a big plant and Canada is a big importer of their stuff. My flat where Oneida is made by this New York state plant. Seafood from Maine, another swing state. We've got midterm elections coming up in the States. So it's not one for one, A for A, tit for tat, but it is selective within there to try to maximize the political pressure on Trump allies.
00:01:49.500 allies. So if they want to win New York, if they want to win Maine, if they want to win other swing
00:01:54.720 states, we want to inflict a little bit of economic pain on the ground so that their congressmen,
00:02:00.020 their senators, their governors start to complain to Trump saying, you know, ease up, give this a
00:02:05.900 bit of a break.