FORUM 2025: America First Movement wants generational change; Dade says Canada’s old way of thinking must change too

Carlo Dade speaking at the School of Public Policy's 2025 Forum Speaker Series

The signs a tariff war with the United States was looming began to emerge years ago and the School of Public Policy’s Carlo Dade says they reveal how much the America First movement is prepared to ‘sacrifice’ to drive generational political and economic change.

Dade, Director of International Policy for the School, provided the observation about the state of Canada-U.S. relations during his remarks on America First & The New Right as part of the School’s 2025 Forum Speaker Series.

The tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration, against friends and foes alike, are among a multitude of Presidential Executive Orders that take on everything from global geopolitical issues to, seemingly, political pet peeves.

“Everything, everywhere, all at once – at muzzle velocity,” Dade said in summing up the current era of uncertainty. “This is generational change. The only thing that is certain is what we did in the past won’t work again.”

Dade said reading the literature produced from U.S conservative initiatives such as the America First movement and Project 2025 going back half a decade reveals an ideological   framework for what is happening now.

He also said a base of conservatives who gave President Donald Trump a second term in the White House accept there will be short-term pain for long-term gain to revive the U.S. manufacturing sector and overall economy.

“We knew that the Americans were planning tariffs. We knew they knew there would be harm to the U.S. economy if they did so,” Dade said. “They stated as much, repeatedly. They are willing to make the ‘sacrifice’ to achieve a rebalancing of the global economy and to bring jobs back to U.S. The ‘sacrifice’ line was always there.”

The New Right in the U.S. welcomes this new era uncertainty Trump has ushered in and is intent on weaponizing it, Dade said. Their goal is to drive investment, company relocation and jobs back into U.S. This premeditated “weaponized uncertainty” that has been part of thinking with in the America First movement, coupled with seemingly random uncertainty generated by President’s Trump’s “gut reactions” and changes of course.

Dade cautioned not to confuse an entrenched ideology with a cohesive plan to implement it but said Canada needs a rethink of its approach to U.S relations cognizant of the current political reality.

Dade provided more of his insights on the America First and New Right movements in a recent article for the National Post: Dade: Canada ignored the warning signs that the U.S. was changing — and now we’re paying a price. He also discussed the topic on CBC’s The Current: Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ is here. What should Canadians expect? He also previously wrote a 2024 article for the  Financial Post, “Why Canada should think ‘America First’ when it comes to trade with the U.S.” and a 2019 Policy Brief,  “Tweet of Damocles: Even with a new NAFTA, Canada’s biggest trade threat is from below the border.”