Kanadas „Mann aus Stahl“ fordert Protektionismus nach US-amerikanischem Vorbild

This is worth reading past the headline. This MAGA-aligned steel billionaire is asking Carney for Trump-style protectionism.

Barry Zekelman — a billionaire steel executive with operations on both sides of the border — is urging the Carney government to adopt Trump-style trade barriers, arguing that Canada is being used as a back door for foreign steel.

What’s telling is that Industry Minister Mélanie Joly explicitly rejects this approach. Her position, as reported, is that Canada should focus on cooperation and existing enforcement mechanisms rather than sweeping protectionist measures.

Zekelman frames this as defending Canadian workers, but the scale matters. His company operates roughly 20 plants across Canada and the US, while the broader steel sector employs about 123,000 Canadians directly and indirectly — still a small share of the national workforce.

This isn’t an argument against steelworkers. It’s a question about whether national trade policy should be reshaped around the demands of a single billionaire — especially when the solution being proposed closely mirrors Trump’s economic nationalism.