He doesn't want to piledrive his economy. That's what you're missing. Trump keeps trying to take more and more value away from Canada in the bilateral trade relationship, whenever the mood hits him. Canada imposes reciprocal consequences when he does. That's the smart thing for them to do. They don't want to do it - they want to maintain the status quo. But if the bully keeps trying to take your lunch money, at some point you have to stand up for yourself even if it means you might get a bloody nose. You don't want the bloody nose, but the alternative is worse.

We haven't banned any Canadian products. Not a single one.

Can they say the same?

But it's not a very "best friends" approach to insist that they can't do what they think is best for their economy by accepting favorable deals on raw materials (like steel), but we get to go out and find another competing supplier of a raw material input (like crude) whenever we feel like it.

There's a lot of confusion around oil imports. You're aware we don't burn up all the oil we import, I assume: much of it is processed into something else and then sold right back to whoever sent it to us or somebody else. Much of the Canadian oil that we "import" heads right back up into Canada in the form of gas and diesel.

We also don't want steel dumping into the US market; we have the "Melt and pour" rules for a reason. Steel is another thing that it's hard to tell whether Carney is a rogue or a fool: import cheap Chinese steel, lose your mills - by the effects of cheaper competition, not by anything that we would do (other than refuse to buy it).

It's folly to do this - especially if you believe that the most important issue facing the United States in the future is rallying the world against a resurgent China.

Conflicts in general are stupid and counterproductive, as this one is. No one wins.
My sole point is that Canada is hardly innocent in all this.

This board's mileage obviously varies because no matter what happens, it's 100% Trump's fault and you lot won't give so much as a millimeter on that. That's your right.