How often have we seen in comic books, cartoons and movies the familiar archetypal bully named Moose or Biff or something like that? They’re often portrayed as stocky, with light coloured hair, a low IQ and surrounded by anxious minions.
Not for the first time, the word bully is being used a lot these days to describe Donald Trump as he escalates the trade conflict between our two countries. As negotiations continue behind the scenes to renew the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, the U.S. president noisily threatened new tariffs of 50 per cent starting next month on certain Canadian products — even CUSMA-compliant goods. To justify his actions, he has cited, among other things, the provincial bans on U.S. alcohol and what he calls unfair trade practices regarding dairy quotas.
The premiers, meeting in Prince Edward Island this week, were all abuzz in reaction to this latest threat from the White House. Some treaded cautiously, vowing to continue working toward a deal. Others were more confrontational — notably Doug Ford of Ontario, who said: “You have to stand up to the bullies in the schoolyard, or they end up taking your lunch money.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney with Donald Trump at a working lunch during last month’s G7 summit in France. Reacting to the U.S. president’s every move, or trying to analyze his intentions, feels like an exhausting collective waste of energy, writes Robert Libman. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / POOL/AFP via Getty Images
As therapeutic as it may be to hear them fightin’ words, it’s hard to see how poking Trump again or imposing more retaliatory measures will help matters right now. We are dealing with a uniquely volatile individual who, unlike all U.S. presidents before him, seems not to have any game plan. It’s unclear whether he fully grasps the impact of his tariff actions and statements on the U.S. economy itself. He appears to be motivated purely by self-aggrandizement and the need to win.
Reacting to Trump’s every move, or trying to analyze his intentions, feels like a collective and exhausting waste of energy — because the next day, perhaps after a flattering conversation with Prime Minister Mark Carney, he might reverse course or say something completely different.
Like with any bully — especially if they’re much bigger — hurling stones or taking an “elbows up” approach, as tempting as that might be, is likely to backfire and motivate them to pile on the hurt. We can’t win a trade war against the U.S. We have to be realistic.
Bullies and their yes-men love to see their targets scrambling. So what to do? The prime minister, premiers and negotiating team must go about their business professionally and ignore the for-the-cameras bluster. And, like it or not, Carney will have to occasionally flatter his bullying counterpart.
It may also require some give and take. One sacred cow is Canada’s supply management system for the dairy industry — a long-standing trade irritant for the U.S.
To allow Canadian dairy farmers — around half of whom are in Quebec — to make a living without relying on subsidies, the production, pricing and importing of eggs, poultry and dairy are highly regulated by Canadian policy. Supply management blocks underpriced U.S. imports from flooding our market. But it also translates into higher prices for Canadians for these food staples, and may merit some concessions.
These are mature discussions that require continued negotiation between competent representatives. Despite Trump’s taunts about Canada becoming the 51st state, his ludicrous comments linking tariffs to fentanyl, or about smoke drifting from Canada’s forest fires, or his claim that we can’t survive without the U.S., I believe we need to bite our bottom lip and get on with business.
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That means working behind the scenes and letting him babble on, knowing he likely won’t go ahead with these new tariffs anyway and will soon be a lame duck final term president with shrinking popularity.
In most comics and movies, the bully eventually gets his just deserts and is humiliated. This may come at the U.S. midterm elections in November, or with the courts striking down his tariffs. As annoying as it is to live with every day, we must remain firm but also calm and strategic and not let the stocky bully with light-coloured hair get to us.
Robert Libman is an architect and planning consultant who has served as Equality Party leader and MNA, mayor of Côte-St-Luc and a member of the Montreal executive committee.