Ontario Premier Doug Ford has called an early election to strengthen, he claims, his capacity to face down the Trump administration over tariffs. Is he the tough negotiator he presents himself to be? Is he as suited as he thinks to the new governing ethos of Trump 2.0?

In 2024, Ford concluded a negotiation with the international behemoths of beer. To get beer into convenience stores — the lodestar of Ford’s political philosophy — the master negotiator paid the foreign-owned conglomerates who own The Beer Store $612 million to do something that he could have done for free 18 months later.