Posthaste: Worried about Trump's 'liberation day'? Here's how it might actually work in Canada's favour

Donald Trump has said America is being “ripped off by every country in the world, friend and foe” and liberation day, as he calls it, is when he aims to set that right.

On April 2 the United States president plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on all trading partners as retribution for existing duties and other barriers.

“April 2 is liberation day for our country because we’re finally going to be taking in money,” Trump said last week.

Canada and the world were shocked when Trump singled out his closest allies for tariffs in January. On April 2 the trade war is expected to widen, and that may actually help Canada, said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist of CIBC Capital Markets.

In this case, “misery loves company,” he said.  “Both the impacts on our exports to the U.S., as well as our odds of negotiating these tariffs down to a manageable size, would be improved by having many other U.S. trading partners in the same boat.”

The damage to Canada’s share of the U.S. market will be reduced if imports from other countries are also facing tariffs, said the economist.

Canada will end up on a more level playing field, rather than the competitive disadvantage it faces if its products are penalized and those of other countries are not.

The benefit would be greater in sectors which are dominated by foreign suppliers such as fishing, base metal manufacturing and mining.

If other countries push back at Trump’s new duties with their own or boycott American exports, they may turn to Canada to replace those supplies, opening new markets in Europe and Asia.

“Negotiating a cooling in tariff levels will also be easier if our misery is shared by other countries facing new U.S. tariffs,” said Shenfeld.

Canadian retaliatory tariffs on the United