Gravitas: American eagle stokes trade war with Canada's goose

As the US-Canada trade war intensifies, the battle is not limited to tariffs alone. The Trump administration again used social media to boast of its supposed triumph over Canada. This time though there was a twist in the tale. Take a look at this visual. The White House posted a photo of a bald eagle pinning a Canada goose to the ground. This was seen as a bid to project US dominance over Canada as the bald eagle is strongly associated with US being its national bird.

However, the White House's victory symbol turned into an unexpected Canadian comeback story. Build Canada, a Canadian government agency responded to this with another picture which depicts a very different tale. It shows the Canada goose raising its wing in an apparent attack. According to some social media users, both these photos were from a 20-minute faceoff between these two birds on frozen Lake Ontario, captured by a photographer over a year ago.

While the bald eagle had an upper hand in this fight for a while, the goose fought back after which the eagle was forced to retreat.

This metaphor of resistance unfolded in reality earlier this week when Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on around 700 US. goods tanging between 15 to 50 percent from September 8 onwards. American steel, aluminum, furniture, clothing, electronics and cheese will now be subjected to tariffs.

Canada also announced an aid package of 5.4 billion US dollars for workers and firms hit by US tariffs. But how did Trump retaliate? By renaming a lake! He signed an executive order changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. The US president attributed this move to Canada shortchanging America on trade as well as military issues. Earlier, the Ontario premier had threatened that Canada can cut off electricity and critical minerals supply to US If the tensions continue.

Now, Lake Ontario is one of the four lakes that US shares with Canada. It borders New York state in America and Ontario province in Canada. According to reports, it has been called Lake Ontario since the 17th century and was named by Canada's indigenous population. As this water body is falls under jurisdiction of both countries, Trump cannot compel Canada to adopt the changed name. Last year too, the US president stirred a row by renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. However, Trump suggested that his push to rename water bodies may not be finished.

Listen in to what he said. The move to rename Lake Ontario immediately triggered a pushback from Canada's PM. Mark Carney said and I am quoting him, “The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of The United States of America.” Snubbing Trump further, Carney stressed that Canadians will continue to call it Lake Ontario.

Public opinion on this issue was also largely in favour of Carney's stance. The row originally started with a breakdown in the trade talks between the two countries. While the Canadian PM slammed US for treating his country like a subsidiary and accused it of trying to destroy its key industries, the US accused him of walking away from the deal for political purposes.

While Trump initially imposed a 50% tariff on around 20 billion dollars of Canadian goods, he followed it up by enhancing the tariffs on all Canadian cars, trucks, automobile parts and steel to 50%. With Canada's subsequent retaliatory measures, it is amply clear that it won't give in to US pressure any time soon.