American voters are heading to the polls on Tuesday for the U.S. midterms and many in Ottawa will be watching the results closely for what it means for the future of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and threats against Canada.
Since he took office for his second term in January 2025, Trump has repeatedly escalated his economic attacks against Canada. Democratic candidates have seized on his tariff policies and trade war against Canada, linking them to affordability struggles.
Democrats appear to be surging across the country, with some polls predicting Democratic control of the House of Representatives and the Senate being in play.
However, would anything change for Canada if Democrats sweep both chambers and win the midterms?
While Canada “historically has never been an election issue,” in the U.S., that appears to have changed this year, said University of Ottawa political science professor Emily Regan Wills.
“Canada is an election issue because Trump has made Canada into an enemy. A lot of people are like, why would you antagonize the nice guys?” she said.
Democratic candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Troy Jackson in Maine, have tried to link Trump’s tariffs against Canada with higher costs for American consumers.
“If you’re picking a fight with Canada, you’re the asshole,” El-Sayed told reporters last month.
But the cloud of uncertainty around Trump’s Canada trade policy is “unlikely” to change even if the Democrats sweep the election, said University of Guelph political science professor Julie Simmons.
The two major sets of tariffs – the Section 232 sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as well as the sweeping 50 per cent Section 338 tariffs – were imposed via executive order, not Congress.
Trump simply circumvented the U.S. Congress in imposing his tariffs on Canada.
“He can bypass Congress with his use of things like the Trade Expansion Act and the Trade Act of 1930, which have been two tools that he has used thus far. It’s unlikely that that will change,” Simmons said.
While Congress does need to approve any new treaties the U.S. enters, it can do little to curb Trump’s use of executive power to impose tariffs the way he has, Wills said.
Trump has signaled he will become more confrontational in executing his agenda in the event of a Democratic sweep.
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“I guess I’ll become Mr. Veto,” Trump told the New York Post in a podcast that released on Monday.
“In order to override that veto, the Democrats would have to have two-thirds majority in a vote. It’s unlikely that even if they do take back both the House of Representatives and the Senate, that they would have that kind of a supermajority,” Simmons.
However, the Democrats do have a big tool in their toolbox in stopping Trump’s agenda.
“A Democratic sweep does put impeachment of Donald Trump on the table,” Wills said.
“However… there’s no guarantee that an impeachment would lead to his removal from office,” she added.
Trump was impeached twice during his first time. First in 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in 2019. Later in January 2021, a week before his term ended, for inciting an insurrection.
In both instances, he was not removed from office because of the impeachment. A simple majority in the House is enough to impeach a president, but only a two-thirds vote by the Senate can remove a president from office.
Whether Democrats win both chambers or just one, Canadians should be cautious in assuming they would all be opposed to tariffs, Simmons said.
“We also have to remember that even if Congress were to become Democratic in both houses, we can’t assume that Democratic representatives would want to remove all tariffs,” she said.
“It’s incumbent upon trade negotiators in Canada to think of ways to pitch to their Democratic colleagues across the border ways in which reduced tariffs can somehow be in the interests of American voters and also American business owners,” she said.
It is also likely that Trump could become more hostile, not less, if Republicans lose control of Congress, she said.
“If the Republicans are to lose both houses, that given Mr. Trump’s narratives of the past, we can anticipate that he may turn and blame Canada for those outcomes,” Simmons said.
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has said American officials are “closely watching” Canadian politicians for signs of election interference ahead of the midterm elections.
Prime Minister Mark Carney rebutted Hoekstra and said there was “no merit” in the claims that Canada was looking to interfere in American elections.
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