U.S. President Donald Trump attends a press briefing at the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 20, 2026. REUTERS
President Donald Trump has a mouth and he loves to use it to shout bluster at his perceived enemies. But New York Times editor Bill Saporito says Trump’s business sense may be incapable of seeing more than one or two steps ahead.
He added that if Trump had used any kind of business savvy, or listened to economic advice from intelligent people, he would know, for instance, that there are some things the U.S. cannot twist into a homegrown commodity, no matter how hard he tries to tariff the competition.
“[T]he tariffs on aluminum show most starkly the irrationality of President Trump’s trade war with our northern neighbor,” said Saporito, pointing out that Canada shipped nearly $10 billion in aluminum products to the United States last year.
The metal is used in the U.S. automotive and furniture industries, and it floods the nation’s beverage manufacturing sectors. Ans while Trump has every obligation to enforce trade laws and prevent other nations from taking unfair advantage of us, Canadian aluminum is not one of the ways Canada is taking any kind of advantage. Canada produces aluminum because it can do it easier and at less cost than the U.S..
“Aluminum isn’t cooked like steel; it’s made from alumina, a powder refined from bauxite ore and zapped with electricity until it renders into a metal,” explains Saporito. “The electric bill alone can account for up to 40 percent of the manufacturing cost. When you think about trade with Canada, it’s useful to imagine aluminum not as a metal but as electricity in solid form.”
But with its abundant snow, lakes and rivers, Canada has huge hydroelectric power resources, many in sparsely populated areas. As a result, the country has lots of reliable, inexpensive electricity, which gives it an edge over its southern neighbor when it comes to aluminum smelting.
“Today there are eight smelters operating in Quebec and one in British Columbia, producing about 3.6 million tons of metal annually. The United States gets 60 to 70 percent of its imported aluminum from Canada,” said Saporito.
He added that Trump was ‘nuts’ to tariff a metal the U.S. can’t produce without impossible electric investment. When the U.S. first tried to establish an aluminum smelting industry the electricity costs shuttered many. Since 1980, almost 30 American smelters have shut down, usually over the supply and price of power.
“You can’t just hope that there’s enough juice to run the smelter,” said Sapporito. “The closure of struggling American smelters means that the United States must import — and that the cost of tariffs is destructive to American industry. As of March, the automobile industry had paid more than $35 billion since 2025, thanks to tariffs on aluminum, steel and car parts and other items. This is money that carmakers could have spent on research and development or lowering car prices.”
Meanwhile, our electric grid is in terrible shape, with electricity rates rising — just in time for the Trump administration to discourage new sources of power, such as renewables. And no one can tell when Trump will change his mind on tariffs yet again. No deal is final with this president.
“Try selling your board of directors a multibillion-dollar, two- or three-year investment on that basis. Emirates Global might be willing to shoulder the risk, but few other companies are,” Sapporito said.
“Who would flout this logic, trashing a 150-plus-year relationship with a close ally in a disruptive attempt to separate two interdependent economies? Oh, right,” he concluded.
