Donald Trump is blocking exports of medical equipment. He’s putting Canada’s trust in the U.S. to a potentially deadly test

WASHINGTON-Fox News aired a report on Thursday evening in which a Florida official accused 3M executives of deciding "not to put America first" in the COVID-19 pandemic by selling protective face masks to "foreign countries" ahead of the United States. "It's criminal what's happening," he said.

That night, avid Fox viewer Donald Trump invoked the wartime powers of the Defense Production Act to, as he tweeted, "hit 3M hard" on the issue of N95 respirator masks.

On Friday morning, 3M announced that the U.S. president's order would hit Canada hard, too. "The Administration also requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that we currently manufacture in the United States to the Canadian and Latin American markets," it said, noting that there would be "significant humanitarian implications" to complying with it.

Trump confirmed the request at a news conference Friday evening, saying the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be working "to prevent the export of N95 respirators, surgical masks, gloves and other protective equipment.

"We need these items immediately for domestic use," Trump said. "We have to have 'em."

The implications extend beyond 3M: as a spokesperson for Public Service and Procurement Minister Anita Anand told the Star, the same kind of policy could apply "to potentially all supplies." Think ventilators. Think vaccines.

After more than three decades of integrating the Canadian economy with that of the U.S., the risk has never been clearer. If the mostly symbolic fuss over the U.S. briefly considering militarizing the border last week was a fire drill, this is a full-on emergency alarm indicating an impending inferno.

This isn't a cautionary tale about the dangers of globalized trade - it's the worst-case scenario, playing out in real time.

Sharing an integrated market with a much larger and more powerful bully of a country will always have downsides, especially when that country elects a leader with an "America First" agenda. You might wake up one morning to tariffs on steel, for instance, and be suddenly forced to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Irritating? Sure. Economically damaging? A bit. But being cut off from life-saving supplies during the worst pandemic in living memory? That could be utterly catastrophic.

So can the U.S. just do that?

"The Defense Production Act arguably authorizes this behaviour," said Daniel Ujczo, a trade lawyer with years of experience on both sides of the border, "And most of our trading agreements, including NAFTA, have exceptions for health, safety and national security."

But targeting specific countries and companies, Ujczo said, "makes this look less like an organized procurement effort and more like a response to whatever are the rumours of the day."

What can Canada do? It can try, through complaints in public and diplomacy in private, to convince the U.S. government not to do it. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was at it Friday, saying he thought it would be a "mistake" for the U.S. to pursue this course, one that would hurt both countries, and "that is the point we're making very clearly to the American administration right now." He said he was "confident" it would work out.

Canadians - especially health-care professionals who are risking exposure to coronavirus while rationing face masks - might not feel entirely reassured by that. But in the short term, they may not get much else.

Christopher Sands, head of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., was reminded of Francis Fukuyama's 1995 book "Trust" the title of which names the core quality that underpins integration and globalization.

"Fairweather friends are easy to come by," Sands said, but when hard times hit, you see countries look to their own interests in the same way that some pandemic shoppers are fighting over toilet paper.

He said a similar dynamic has been playing out for some European Union countries, which were hobbled by great economic sacrifices made in the name of membership and then left to fend for themselves when the crisis came.

For humanitarian reasons - and for the sake of the long-term relationship between the two countries - Sands says he hopes the U.S. changes course quickly, as it did on the idea of placing troops at the Canadian border.

Trump's comments at his news conference didn't indicate he was ready to do that. Canadian officials will continue to try to change his mind.

"I don't blame them. They can push back if they want," Trump said when asked about the Canadian government and 3M objecting to the order. He suggested case-by-case exceptions might be considered for long-standing orders to countries harder hit than the U.S., such as Italy or Spain, but notably did not mention any blanket exemption for Canada.

In many critical areas, supply chains straddle the Canada-U.S. border, and that integration is largely based on trust. The American response to Canada's appeals now stand to either strengthen or profoundly damage that trust.

And it's not just trust in Canada's biggest trading partner that hangs in the balance - it's possibly the lives of thousands of Canadians.

Edward Keenan is the Star's Washington Bureau chief. He covers U.S. politics and current affairs. Reach him via email: ekeenan@thestar.ca