HALIFAX—The most important file for any Canadian prime minister is the relationship with the United States.
And no Canadian prime minister has ever faced a more difficult relationship with an American president than Prime Minister Mark Carney does with Donald Trump.
Diplomatic language aside, Carney must deal with the first malignant narcissist who has ever occupied the White House. Trump apparently reassures himself of his importance by exercising his right to break or diminish things.
Trump has been on a wrecking binge throughout the first year of his second term. He even demolished the White House’s historic East Wing to make room for a 90,000-square foot ballroom that looks more like a Walmart store. Consider his destructive record.
Trump imposed punishing tariffs on America’s allies and trading partners. Those tariffs have rattled economies around the world, and have driven up prices at precisely the time when affordability is killing consumers.
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The president has gone out of his way to criticize and even disparage the most successful military alliance in history, constantly creating uncertainty and division within NATO. He has falsely claimed that the Alliance has never come to America’s aid, and wouldn’t be there in the future.
Trump has apparently forgotten about the NATO soldiers who fought and died alongside Americans in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. He has even suggested that the U.S. might not come to the aid of other NATO members if they were attacked by Russia.
The president’s illegal, unjustified, and calamitous war against Iran has created what some experts are calling the gravest energy crisis in history.
By declaring war on Iran without any imminent threat to the U.S. or its interests, all the president has managed to do is get 13 American service members killed, several hundred others wounded, and inflict gross civilian casualties in Iran. And one other thing: Trump has also closed the Strait of Hormuz, shutting down one of the world’s most important supply lines for oil, gas, and fertilizer.
As a result, experts are predicting famine in poorer countries that need fertilizer to produce their own food.
Meanwhile, motorists in the U.S. are now paying more than $4 a gallon for gasoline, $1 more than they were paying just a few short weeks ago. And now Trump has ordered the U.S. Navy to impose a blockade on shipping from the Strait of Hormuz. The world energy shortages will only increase, and could go on for months.
And that is not the only hardship that Trump’s policies have imposed on Americans. In order to pay for his obscene tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, Trump has made draconian cuts to Medicaid. More than 12 million Americans would lose their coverage after the president’s trillion-dollar cut to the program.
What makes Trump so dangerous—and such a problem for Carney—is that he doesn’t play by any rules but his own.
What is Carney to do with a country that is Canada’s most important trading partner, accounting for north of 85 per cent of our exports, when it is run by a man who has said he would like to make this country his 51st state? When Carney said that would never happen, Trump advised “Never say never.”
What is Carney to do with a president whose impudence and insolence extends to declaring that Canada is not a real country at all, and only exists because the U.S. allows it to?
And what is Canada’s PM to do with an American administration filled with sycophants like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick who parrots his boss’ insulting drivel in advance of the upcoming renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade deal, CUSMA?
For starters, he has criticized Canada’s trade deals with China, calling Carney’s recent trade trip “nuts.” In particular, Lutnick thought that importing Chinese EVs in expectation of selling Canadian goods to Beijing was fantasy.
Lutnick has also said that the North American free-trade agreement was a bad deal, registering his disdain for Canada’s negotiating position in those talks in blunt and vulgar terms: “They suck” he said. The deal, he said, has to be reimagined to America’s benefit.
Memo to Lutnick the loose-lipped. What sucks is the insolence and ignorance of the U.S. commerce secretary and Trump in presuming that they have the right to tell Canada who it should and shouldn’t trade with.
What sucks is the related presumption that because the U.S. has a $30-trillion economy, other countries must come to the negotiating table on their terms.
Carney continues to handle the belligerence and dictatorial style of the Trump administration in a solid and responsible way. Although some Canadians might have wanted a more passionate response to Trump’s insults and provocations, Carney has refused to get in a mudslinging contest with the Americans.
Instead, he has stuck to solid, core principles, including his refusal to allow the U.S. to dictate the terms of the CUSMA negotiations. The PM has made clear that he will not change domestic policies that the Americans don’t like on supply management, bans on American booze, and legislation like the Online Streaming and Online News acts.
That said, Canadians should brace themselves for possibly extreme measures from Trump.
Trump has already once broken off trade talks with Canada because of a TV ad he didn’t like from Ontario Premier Doug Ford. If Trump can’t get his way in the upcoming talks, that might even mean, in the extreme, that the U.S. president could walk away from the deal altogether.
But not everyone in the U.S. is a fan of insults and threats against Canada in the name of statecraft. Jeanne Shaheen, a Senator from New Hampshire, recently rebuked Lutnick in no uncertain terms.
“When we have allies and partners, we should try and work with them—not insult them. And I find your rhetoric insulting to the people in my state who are working so hard to try and ensure that they can do business.”
With voices like Shaheen’s, and two-thirds of Americans disapproving of Trump in the polls, there is reason to expect better days in Canada’s relationship with its muscle-bound neighbour.
But until those days arrive, Carney is on the right path. Canada should be respectful of—but not obsequious with—the Trump administration, while reaching out for new friends in a world that is bigger than America.
Michael Harris is an award-winning author, columnist, and journalist.
The Hill Times
