Carney accuses U.S. steelmaker of betraying Canadian workers

Mark Carney is upset that an American company is behaving like an American company. Cleveland-Cliffs spent years begging for tariffs on foreign steel, got what it wanted, and now its Canadian subsidiary is cutting jobs. The Canadian prime minister calls it betrayal. The more honest word is cause and effect.

The layoffs at Stelco are tied to Trump's tariffs, sure. But those tariffs were never meant to protect steelworkers in Hamilton, Ontario. They were meant to protect steelworkers in Ohio and Indiana, and they're working. Carney wants it both ways: he wants Canada to benefit from protected U.S. markets while his own government talks tough on American trade. When the bill arrives, he blames the CEO who lobbied for exactly this outcome. That's not a betrayal. That's a predictable result of choosing American jobs first.

What's really going on is political theater. Carney is facing an election, and nothing rallies Canadian voters like blaming Washington. Never mind that Cleveland-Cliffs is doing precisely what its shareholders and the President asked. Never mind that the tariff policy is the most straightforward thing Trump has done. Carney's accusation is a distraction from the fact that the Canadian steel industry has been living off access to U.S. markets for years. Now that access has a price, and he doesn't like the invoice.

The real affront to Canadian workers isn't Cleveland-Cliffs. It's their own leader pretending tariffs only affect the other guy. If Carney wants to help steelworkers, he can sit down with the Americans and negotiate a fair deal. Instead, he's lecturing a company for listening to the voters who put Trump back in office. That's not an argument. That's a weak hand played loudly, and Canadian workers will see through it.