Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (right) and Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-US trade, arrive at a press conference in Ottawa, Ontario on August 22, 2026. | Dave Chan/AFP via Getty ImagesThis story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.President Donald Trump is putting the “war” in “trade war.” Or so his senior officials really want you to believe. “At dawn begins an economic D-Day,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote Sunday night, previewing the latest round of sanctions against Iran. “It’s a country that doesn’t have a military,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said, incorrectly, of Canada over the weekend. “To think that they’re going to go to war with Donald Trump and actually win that war…is foolish.”The war with Iran is literal, of course. The war with Canada, slightly less so. But in both cases, the Trump administration is trying to weaponize America’s economic might to get its way in otherwise stalled negotiations. Iran and the US have been locked in on-again, off-again talks for almost the entire six months since the US-Israeli strikes began. And last week, trade negotiations between the US and Canada collapsed amid disputes over tariffs on key Canadian industries, as well as US demands that Canada weaken protections for its culture and the French language. Now, both countries are promising steep retaliatory tariffs on goods ranging from cars and steel to anoraks. Trump is betting that economic pain will produce the concessions diplomacy hasn’t. But Americans also suffer the fallout from these kinds of tactics. Go a little deeperView LinkI am one such American. Hello! Bonjour! I am planning to visit Montreal over Labor Day weekend…and have begun to fear that my New York plates might provoke some patriotic ne’er-do-well to key my car. As someone who grew up on the Canadian border, with Canadian friends and Canadian radio stations and Canadian flags on most every pole, the notion that I might be newly unwelcome — or, quelle horreur, despised — in Canada is a new and unpleasant one.Not to fear, said my colleague Zack Beauchamp. (Zack lives 90 minutes northwest of me in Ontario, and is Vox’s go-to expert on Canadian concerns.) Most Canadians “are actually quite chill toward individual Americans,” he said, and he therefore rates it “unlikely” that anyone will vandalize my vehicle. At the same time, Zack said, most Americans fail to realize how dramatically, and perhaps permanently, Canadians have turned on the US as a country. To many of us, the trade war is a tedious or incomprehensible policy dispute. To Canadians, it’s seen as a real threat to their sovereignty. Zack shared this example from his own family, which — existential stakes notwithstanding — kind of cracked me up. His wife, who is Canadian, is participating in a popular boycott movement and has “shifted literally everything she purchases” to avoid American products.That includes buying terrible Canadian-made dishwasher pods whose wrapping doesn’t dissolve in the machine. Or purchasing him a deodorant from the puzzlingly named brand Green Beaver, which is “somewhat worse at repelling smell,” Zack said. “Whenever I ask her about why she does these things, she points to those World War II posters about reducing gas use — carpooling so you aren’t riding with Hitler,” Zack said. “Because that is literally how Canadians think about these things: as a war for their survival.”The rupture is existential for Americans, too, I think — albeit in a different and less urgent way. It has to do with what American identity represents in the world today. That’s more abstract than something like the cost of a car (which, by the way, will likely rise dramatically if Trump implements the tariffs he threatened this morning on Truth Social). But the way the world sees America also matters.One link for later➨ Hold the eggs. A new study found that raising cage-free hens generates more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional egg farming. If you don’t want to choose between animal welfare and climate change…may we suggest switching your eggs out for tofu or beans? (Sorry, sorry! But not every tip in this newsletter can be uplifting.)Before you go… Did you know…that researchers believe young children’s brains don’t record permanent memories because they’re busy prioritizing other patterns and skills? It’s a phenomenon called “infantile amnesia,” and we’re still a long way from fully understanding it. Today’s trivia: What’s the traditional, three-letter nickname for students and graduates of Yale? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you for the insect stage after the larva. That would be the pupa or pupal stage — basically, insect adolescence.