The digital billboards began popping up recently on busy thoroughfares in Pittsburgh and more than a dozen other American cities and towns. The simple white letters on a stark black background carried a pointed message.

Tariffs are a tax on groceries.

Tariffs are a tax at the gas pump.

Tariffs are a tax on hardworking Americans.

The billboards aren’t paid for by an industry trade group or a political action committee, but rather by the sovereign (for now) government of Canada, a point that is noted in the not-so-fine print.

The advertising campaign is another sign of how the neighbors to the north are responding to President Trump’s provocations, be it his tariff threats or his musings about annexing their country as the 51st state. The Canadians are coming in elbows up and sticks high, to borrow from the true common language between Canadians and Pittsburghers — hockey.

“It’s interesting to see Canada, which to the average American has been a passive partner, take this tough guy stance,” said Nick Canada, a doctoral student in rhetoric at the University of Pittsburgh who, alas, grew up in northern Florida. “The billboards are almost militaristic in style, like you’d see on a bumper sticker. They’re piercing this veil of ignorance of the world stage and condensing this huge problem into a very tangible, understandable phrase.”

Canada was spared when President Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs on 70 countries on Wednesday, though Washington’s protectionist push is still hitting pockets of the Canadian economy.