Dispatches from the Tariff Front No. 4

Ottawa will impose a 50% tariff on American commercial baking mixes and doughs.

Beginning September 8, your morning doughnut, muffin, bagel, croissant or pastry—if made with affected American ingredients—could become more expensive.

Nothing says “standing up for Canada” and punishing Americans quite like charging Canadians more for breakfast.

The timing is exquisite.

Dunkin recently announced its return to Canada, beginning in Toronto and Montreal before expanding to hundreds of locations nationwide. Nothing welcomes an American doughnut chain quite like placing its ingredients fifty metres behind the starting line.

This is not protectionism, naturally. It is a Canadian Breakfast Sovereignty Initiative, carefully designed to preserve competition by making the new competitor less competitive.

For Ottawa, it is also a brilliant entry into the lucrative coffee-and-doughnut market: no franchise fee, no bakery, no four o’clock shift and no need to join the grocery oligopoly.

Dunkin builds the stores. Franchisees hire the workers. Bakers supply the labour. Customers pay the higher prices.

Ottawa takes its slice.

There is little danger from class-action lawsuits, either. If the government is eventually ordered to compensate consumers, taxpayers can reimburse themselves—after lawyers’ fees, administrative costs and a commemorative press conference.

Trump gets the message. Canadians get the bill. Ottawa gets a cut of breakfast.

The machinery of taxation arrived fully assembled. The evidence explaining why it was necessary is apparently still on back order.