people that are concerned that canada is benefiting from a lower dollar are not understanding our economy very well. a lower dollar is beneficial to our manufacturing sector, which is located largely in the east of the country. but, the political and social power of the country, nowadays, is in the oil sector, which is in the west of the country.

our dollar is de facto pegged to the price of oil. it is low right now because oil is low. the way to get the dollar up is to increase the price of oil. and, raising the canadian currency is certainly one input factor that would help american manufacturers compete against canadian ones.

but, increasing the price of oil also hurts the competitiveness of some american manufacturers.

worse is that, if you're out to get canada, you're misunderstanding it's interests: our political elite from all three parties would gleefully throw the manufacturing sector back under the bus to get a slice of higher oil profits. if oil gets high enough, the liberals may even balance the budget. we also have wealth distribution systems that transfer wealth from the oil industry to manufacturing regions, so the people in these areas will not be hit hard, so much as they'll shift back to social assistance.

some punishment.

if the americans are serious about addressing currency manipulation, what they need to do is write stricter regulations around currency trading, and crack down on short-term bond yield differentials. but, these are minor inputs.

we're an independent country in a complicated global economy, and unless trump wants to invade us, he's going to have to learn to deal with the reality of things.