PPC leader Maxime Bernier on Friday looked beyond the immediate threat of President Donald Trump’s tariffs to the economic heart of the matter — the gold standard.
Bernier, who worked in the private business sector in Montreal for 20 years, said that battling the US in a tariff trade war, as both Liberal leader Mark Carney and Tory leader Pierre Poilievre have proposed, isn’t going to help Canadians.
Trump this week announced a series of tariffs on goods imported from dozens of countries around the world — but Canada and Mexico were exempt from the list under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Other tariffs, not covered under the USMCA, are already imposed on Canadian cars, steel, and aluminum.
Bernier said, “Instead of reacting emotionally, we should try to understand President Trump's larger strategy — which goes beyond the immediate issue of tariffs.”
The PPC leader said he has observed that Trump’s goal is to address a fundamental problem that dates back to the 1970s, and though every other president since then has “kicked the can down the road,” Trump is tackling it head-on: the transition back to the gold standard.
The US dollar in 1971 replaced gold as the world’s reserve currency, which Bernier argues has allowed Americans to live beyond their means, and at the same time, has lead to the "gradual deindustrialization of the United States."
“The US has had a chronic trade deficit for decades, meaning that it buys much more from other countries than other countries buy from the US,” said Bernier, adding that this is why Trump is pursuing these universal reciprocal tariffs," said Bernier at a press conference in his riding of Beauce, Quebec.
“The United States is a superpower with clay feet. President Trump and his team know that — this is why they are ready to take drastic measures to challenge the current international regime and bring industries back to the US.”
Bernier said the tariffs are only the first step to solving this issue — a lead-up to a much bigger mission, that would call into question the status of the dollar as the global reserve currency.
“In my view, President Trump wants to return to a kind of gold standard to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency,” said Bernier.
“This is an extremely risky strategy, which involves significant transition costs — prices will go up in the US and we're probably going to have a major recession. As we saw yesterday and today, the stock markets are collapsing.”
“What I also know is that it is in our interest as Canadians to see his strategy work... we should not attack President Trump, but work with him to make it work, and at the same time, we should work to solve our economic problems here in Canada, which are entirely our fault.”
Bernier proposes Canada can, instead of announcing counter-tariffs, put the controversial Supply Management Agreement back on the table and negotiate a new deal with Trump, as well as cut federal spending drastically to eliminate the deficit in one year and cut taxes to make the Canadian economy more productive and competitive.
“This deindustrialization has been there in the US for a long time, and President Trump said during the presidential election that it is his goal to solve that challenge — but to do that, the real problem is the US dollar,” Bernier told the Western Standard.
“So that’s a big reform. We can call that the ‘monetary reset.’”
“And for me, I believe that President Trump understands that, and that's why he's starting with tariffs — to set a strong message to American business to come back to their country — and we must do the same thing in Canada.”
“The Bank of Canada and the Governor of the Bank of Canada must do what other central bankers are doing around the world — they are buying gold as a reserve, and you know, they have less and less US dollars, less and less treasuries coming from the US, and more and more gold.”
“We must do the same, because when that new kind of International Gold Standard is there in practice, if we don't have — the Bank of Canada doesn't have — gold in reserve, that will be very difficult for us.”
Bernier said when we had a gold standard, it worked well for every country.
“So now we must go back to that, but our country is not ready for that. So to answer your question, yes, the Bank of Canada must start to buy gold as soon as possible.”
“And it is why you can see the price of gold going up for the last two years. And that's because the market understands that something will happen. We don't know when.”
“But you know, these huge debts here in Canada, in US, in Europe are not sustainable. Something must happen, and that's why, you know, I believe that we may have a kind of a gold standard, but our country is not ready for that now.”
Bernier also said the PPC categorically rejects Central Bank Digital Currency, which the Bank of Canada and the Government of Canada have indicated the country could be moving toward.
“We don't want that,” Bernier told the Western Standard.
“We are against that, you know, we don't need that. The Bank of Canada is telling us that we need a CBDC, that it would be more effective, it would be more productive — but no, that's not true.”
“We have all kinds of different means of payment, so we don't need a CBDC. People must be able, like usual, to use their debit card, credit cards, or cash. So we are against that.”
