Ravenna native, a top banker, unpacks Canada tariffs

Three weeks ago, standing in the luxurious and well-appointed lobby of the Bank of Montreal, our local guide, Tim Seivewright, told us the bank had played a huge role in the development of Canada. I thought of the extraordinary banking career of Don Wilson III, the Ravenna native who, after earning a bachelor of arts cum laude from Harvard and an MBA in 1973 from the Tuck School at Dartmouth, had rocketed to the top of JP Morgan Chase, from which he eventually retired in 2006 as first chief risk officer and executive committee member. I remembered Don had also served on the Bank of Montreal's board of directors, so I emailed him. Don confirmed that from 2008 to 2020 he served on the Bank of Montreal's board, where he was chair of the board's Risk Committee. The Bank of Montreal, Don wrote, is Canada's oldest bank and the six oldest in North America. It effectively served as the central bank of Canada from its founding in 1817 until 1935, when Canada, following the American example with the Federal Reserve, created its own central bank to better govern banking in Canada, which in those days was emerging from its decades of British colonial oversight into a nation independent of the British Empire. Don said he considered it an honor to serve as a Bank of Montreal director. In 2017, celebrating 200 years of existence, the bank affixed a large plaque with the names of its directors. One of those whose name appears is Don M. Wilson III, the valedictorian of Ravenna High School's Class of 1966. Don's mother, the late Helen Jane Wilson, was an outstanding Ravenna High School social science teacher and a granddaughter of W.W. Reed, the person for whom the Kent Area Chamber of Commerce's medal for public service is named. 'I just wish my parents and W.W. Reed could have seen it,' he wrote. Don keeps up a busy schedule working on several high-profile charities, mostly on the East Coast. In 2008, I had dinner with Don after his retirement from JP Morgan Chase when he was in Portage County visiting his mother. His father, Don Wilson Jr., already had died. I asked Don about banking and the state of the U.S. economy. He said he worried that interest rates had gotten too low. 'Money ought to be expensive enough to borrow to keep people from speculating carelessly,' he said. About three weeks later, the stock market crashed and the country suffered an economic collapse that took us a couple of years to overcome. The accuracy of Don's premonition impressed me. I am certain he was a valuable member of the Bank of Montreal. I became interested in touring Canada after President Donald Trump confronted tariffs in his first and especially second term. I am no economist. My Economics 101 course, relying on Nobel Prize winner Paul Samuelson's textbook, taught me that tariffs were generally bad for the economy and that lowering tariffs would usher in prosperity at the least cost. Furthermore, Samuelson argued, the interdependence of nations rendered by lower tariffs would promote world peace. In President Trump's second term, he has argued that Canadians engage in anti-America trade practices and has imposed strong tariffs on them. That did not gel with my historical or current events knowledge. Canada and American share the world's longest undefended border. During the Cold War, Canada cooperated with the United States and installed early warning missile defenses that protected both our countries. When the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in 1979 imprisoned hundreds of Americans, the Canadian embassy helped half a dozen high ranking American diplomats escape when no other country, not even England, would take that chance. Don Belec, our guide, who took our Road Scholar tour group of 22 through Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City, would not comment on the Trump tariffs except to say Trump's approach to Canada was unique. He expressed hopes for a restoration of friendship between the two countries, and I feel the same. Nowhere during our 12 days in Canada did we experience any hostility as Americans. We had a local expert guide us in each city we visited. All expressed pride in their country, the same as we Americans would in ours. All said they hope the era of tariffs and ugly talk between our leaders would end soon and that America and Canada would resume the friendship that has long characterized the relationship between our two countries. David E. Dix is a former publisher of The Record-Courier.