Trade Wars Should Not Become Wars Between People.

Yesterday, I listened to British Columbia (B.C.) Premier, David Eby, urge Canadians to avoid U.S. travel and choose Canadian products over American ones whenever possible. He said, “If you have a choice, please don’t travel to the United States.… If you can choose a Canadian product instead of an American one, please choose it.”

I understood the anger behind the appeal. The United States has inflicted real and unnecessary damage on one of its closest friends and most important trading partners. Still, my heart sank, not simply because American companies could lose sales and our communities could suffer, but because a trade war between governments has become something more dangerous: a war between people. The B.C. government is strongly encouraging its citizens to limit people-to-people and commercial contact with U.S. citizens and companies.

Here in Minnesota, our children take the ice carrying hockey sticks from companies rooted in Canada, whose love of the sport mirrors our own. Some sticks are still made by Canadian craftspeople. A 50 percent tariff does not punish a government. It burdens parents already stretching family budgets—a metaphorical ball and chain around families who did not start this dispute.

Minnesotans and Canadians understand hockey. We compete fiercely. We tangle along the boards, check one another and fight for the puck. But when the game ends, we shake hands. Competition does not make us enemies.

That is the distinction our governments are in danger of losing.

There are legitimate reasons to intervene in trade: unfair dumping, national security, subsidies and strategic industries. I know markets are not always fair. Trade relationships require constant curation to remain balanced.

Legitimate protections should be surgical. Instead, we are experiencing scattershot trade policy: sweeping measures that miss their intended targets, disrupt supply chains, raise costs, and invite retaliation against our farmers, manufacturers and iconic brands.

International trade is a circulatory system made up of vital organs that governments cannot remove without consequence. The United States and Canada have built production, transportation, investment, and commercial relationships through both economies. A product called American or Canadian may contain both countries’ ideas, materials, labor, capital, and craftsmanship. Disrupt one artery and the effects reach communities far from negotiating tables.

Protectionism embodies what I call copycat syndrome. One country erects a barrier; the other retaliates. Leaders encourage consumers to reject foreign goods. Purchases become declarations of loyalty. Resentment toward a government attaches to its companies, products, and people. “Buy local” becomes something harsher: “DO NOT buy theirs!”

Economic nationalism rarely travels in one direction. When Canadians reject American brands, it becomes easier for Americans to reject Canadian brands. A boycott harming an American company today normalizes the same weapon against a Canadian company tomorrow. Workers and communities on both sides bear the consequences.

The greatest loss is trust. Tariffs can be removed and supply chains rebuilt. Trust between customers, suppliers, communities and countries is harder to restore once broken.

I saw the importance of preserving trust while serving as the founding chair of the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba in 2015. The coalition grew to include more than 100 national and state agricultural organizations and led dozens of delegations to Cuba. During our visits, American farmers naturally gravitated toward farmers in Cuban cooperatives. They needed no diplomats to explain what they shared: caring for land and water, managing unpredictable weather and producing enough food for their communities.

Those farmer-to-farmer relationships did not erase political disagreements. They kept open a human channel when official relations were strained. Farmers spoke to farmers. Business leaders spoke to business leaders. People recognized themselves in one another.

Our communities made progress through those people and commercial connections. When the U.S. government pulled back, it damaged livelihoods and relationships on both sides. We have wasted 11 years of connection, and Cuba’s people suffer today without access to relationships built through commercial diplomacy. Commerce cannot replace government or excuse injustice, but it can preserve cooperation and create pathways back to reason.

We need those pathways now.

Let the Cuba example serve as a harbinger for the U.S.-Canada relationship.

To our Canadian neighbors: many Americans understand your anger. Yet, your government also has trade protections to address. Please do not mistake our U.S. government-initiated trade war for our people’s character, or assume weakening American businesses will strengthen yours.

To Americans: let us extend the same grace. Canadian retaliation does not make Canadian citizens and businesses our enemies. Continue valuing Canadian craftsmanship, innovation and friendship, as we hope Canadians will value ours.

Buy locally when it strengthens your community. Support domestic farmers and manufacturers. But do not make nationality alone the test of whether a product, company or person deserves trust.

Demand from our policy makers disciplined negotiation, respect for allies, and honesty about who pays the price for the trade war: consumers on both sides of the border. Toughness is not a tariff’s size or a closed border. Toughness is putting in the work to make sure trade benefits both economies. We have been tough in the past by working together and forging relationships and partnerships.

Our countries share a border, intertwined economies, similar cultures and generations of friendship. We share lakes, fields, families, businesses—and hockey. We will compete and tangle along the boards. But our people are not at war.

Governments will quarrel. Citizens and businesses do not have to inherit the quarrel.

We can protect national interests without teaching citizens to distrust one another and our products, services, and brands. We can strengthen our communities without destroying connections that helped both countries prosper. We can keep buying from, selling to, learning from, and working alongside one another.

Trade wars should not become wars between people. Preventing that belongs to all of us.