History
A look at the McKinley Tariff, a political weapon that imposed crippling tariffs of up to 50 per cent on Canadian exports to the U.S.
Member of parliament Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau had a message for Americans when he spoke at the Commercial Club banquet in Providence, Rhode Island, on Nov. 28, 1891. He told them the sudden increase in tariffs on all Canadian goods going into the United States was a measure, “for the passing of which we ought not to feel angry with the United States. It has done us good, caused us to realize that we stand upon our own feet, who before leaned a little for support upon the United States.”
He said these words more than 130 years ago, but with U.S.-imposed tariffs and talk of annexation again rearing their ugly heads, they would not be out of place today.
In October 1890, just over a year before Chapleau gave his speech in Rhode Island, the Tariff Act of 1890 came into law in the United States. It immediately put forward tariffs on some imports to the United States of nearly 50 per cent.
It was popularly known as the McKinley Tariff, named in honour of the future president and Trump hero who championed it, William McKinley. (Trump has also reinstated McKinley’s name on Alaska’s Mount Denali, a Denaakk’e word made official during the Obama administration to honour some of the region’s Indigenous peoples.)
In one speech in Boston on Oct. 4, 1892, McKinley said of his devotion to tariffs, “under free trade the trader is the master and the producer the slave. Protection is but the law of nature, the law of self-preservation, of self-development, of securing the highest and best destiny of the race of man.”
In truth, there was another reason for the tariffs that mirrors our current trade war: the annexation of Canada. At the time, the United States and Canada were at odds over fishery and timber rights along our borders.
Some, like Secretary of State and bill co-author James G. Blaine, believed the issue could be resolved through annexation. “Our great want is an expansion of trade. We are not seeking annexation of territory, certainly we do not desire it, unless it should come by the volition of the people who might ask the priceless boon of a place under the flag of the Union,” he said on Aug. 30, 1890, in Maine.
Some publications, like the Washington Post, said it was “absurd” and “erroneous” to think the tariffs were put in place to annex Canada, and this publicly held belief was a “preposterous delusion.” The Hamilton Spectator hit back at the Post with its own evidence of the annexation threat.
“Public speakers in the United States boldly advocate annexation. Senators and congressmen in their places in their respective legislative halls right under the nose of the Washington Post, have time and time again spoke of the desirability of annexing Canada. Every American visitor who comes to Canada, and looks upon this fair land, says to us, ‘What a dandy state this would make.’”
Canadians were not fooled, and not giving in. Shortly after the McKinley Tariff passed, John A. Macdonald delivered a speech on the tariffs, stating that giving in to the United States would be traitorous to our British heritage. “The American lion and the Canadian lamb might be down together, but the lamb would be inside the lion.”
One of the end goals of the McKinley Tariff may have been forcing Canada to become the 45th state, but it achieved the exact opposite and pushed Canada closer to the British Empire. Between 1890 and 1891, trade between Canada and Britain grew by about $1 million, a trend that continued in the subsequent years. In 2025, as our nation faces these same threats, Canada looks to the European Union to diversify our trading network.
The Tariff Act of 1890 proved devastating for the Republicans. That year, in the United States House of Representatives elections, the party lost nearly half its seats. McKinley was part of that sweep. The Weekly British Whig, published in Kingston, Ont., delighted in his demise, writing on Nov. 13, 1890, “William McKinley, the high tariff man, after whom a very obnoxious measure was called, is politically dead. He went to the people for endorsement, and the people have rejected him.”
While McKinley and the Republicans sank because of the tariffs, the opposite happened for Canada’s Conservatives. In March 1891, Canada held a federal election. While the Liberals under Wilfrid Laurier supported free trade with the United States, the Conservatives used the tariff attack as part of their election campaign. It helped the Conservatives win a majority government, their last until 1911, with 117 seats. It was the last election victory for Macdonald, who died a few months later on June 6, 1891.
History is a circle, and it’s coming back around.
This story is from the July/August 2025 Issue
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