This is how Canada should deal with Donald Trump, irrational actor
Andrew Coyne
[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-this-is-how-canada-should-deal-with-donald-trump-irrational-actor/[/url]
Good to see no one is panicking.
The president-elect of the United States, in a late-night social-media outburst, has declared he would impose a 25-per-cent tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico – on his first day in office, yet.
He does not necessarily have that authority – constitutionally, tariffs are Congress’s responsibility – but would have to rely on untested emergency powers, exposing him to legal challenges. If implemented, the tariffs would cause immense havoc, not least for Americans, raising prices for consumers and blowing up integrated continental supply chains, exposing him to political blowback. They are also, needless to say, explicitly prohibited under the trilateral free trade agreement to which he is a signatory.
The whole idea is so insane that everyone assumes it must be a negotiating tactic – that when Donald Trump ties the tariffs to the two countries’ alleged failure to stem the flow of fentanyl and illegal aliens into the United States, he means he would lift the tariffs if they somehow achieved this. Or if they did something else, or something in addition. But no one knows. He also likes tariffs for their own sake. For that matter, he likes issuing threats for their own sake.
And he’s not even president yet.
Nevertheless, hardly had the post left his fingertips when prominent voices in this country were heard demanding – well, demanding all sorts of things, none of them sensible. Even in advance of Mr. Trump’s latest threat, the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, had called for Mexico to be thrown out of NAFTA. Now he wants to blow up bilateral trade, demanding that Canada retaliate against Mr. Trump’s insane and self-destructive tariffs with insane and self-destructive tariffs of its own.
Other voices urged a more – what shall we call it? – conciliatory line. Or perhaps “servile” would be better: what the historian and political theorist Timothy Snyder has called “anticipatory obedience.” The Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, not content with urging the Canadian government to negotiate at the point of a metaphoric gun, actively took Mr. Trump’s side, noting his “valid concerns” about “illegal activities at our shared border.” The Premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, agreed, noting “we can all benefit from additional border security stopping the flow of illegal drugs and migrants across our borders.”
The Premier of Quebec, François Legault, took to social media to fret about the “enormous risk” to Quebec’s economy from Mr. Trump’s tariff threat and demand that “everything possible” be done to avoid it. He offered Justin Trudeau “the full co-operation of the Quebec government” in this regard, by which he meant, as he later clarified, that Quebec must have a place at the negotiating table.
As for the federal opposition leaders, they ranged from belligerent (Jagmeet Singh wants a “war room” to “fight like hell”) to irrelevant (Pierre Poilievre says the tariffs are an occasion to axe the carbon tax, as if this had anything to do with anything). Various others could be heard insisting that the Trump tariff threat was proof that it was now time to do whatever they had always advocated doing.
Trump’s proposed tariffs would devastate Canada’s major exporting industries and gouge consumers, experts warn
All of which is not to endorse the Trudeau government’s approach, so far as it has one. But if the government seems uncertain about how to proceed, it is at least not taking out a billboard to advertise how panicked and compliant it is. It has at least not seized the opportunity, in the early days of what looks to be a lengthy crisis, to say something provably stupid, or appallingly self-serving. It has at least not turned its guns inward, or deserted the country in the face of the enemy.
Continued...
Andrew Coyne
[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-this-is-how-canada-should-deal-with-donald-trump-irrational-actor/[/url]
Good to see no one is panicking.
The president-elect of the United States, in a late-night social-media outburst, has declared he would impose a 25-per-cent tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico – on his first day in office, yet.
He does not necessarily have that authority – constitutionally, tariffs are Congress’s responsibility – but would have to rely on untested emergency powers, exposing him to legal challenges. If implemented, the tariffs would cause immense havoc, not least for Americans, raising prices for consumers and blowing up integrated continental supply chains, exposing him to political blowback. They are also, needless to say, explicitly prohibited under the trilateral free trade agreement to which he is a signatory.
The whole idea is so insane that everyone assumes it must be a negotiating tactic – that when Donald Trump ties the tariffs to the two countries’ alleged failure to stem the flow of fentanyl and illegal aliens into the United States, he means he would lift the tariffs if they somehow achieved this. Or if they did something else, or something in addition. But no one knows. He also likes tariffs for their own sake. For that matter, he likes issuing threats for their own sake.
And he’s not even president yet.
Nevertheless, hardly had the post left his fingertips when prominent voices in this country were heard demanding – well, demanding all sorts of things, none of them sensible. Even in advance of Mr. Trump’s latest threat, the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, had called for Mexico to be thrown out of NAFTA. Now he wants to blow up bilateral trade, demanding that Canada retaliate against Mr. Trump’s insane and self-destructive tariffs with insane and self-destructive tariffs of its own.
Other voices urged a more – what shall we call it? – conciliatory line. Or perhaps “servile” would be better: what the historian and political theorist Timothy Snyder has called “anticipatory obedience.” The Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, not content with urging the Canadian government to negotiate at the point of a metaphoric gun, actively took Mr. Trump’s side, noting his “valid concerns” about “illegal activities at our shared border.” The Premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, agreed, noting “we can all benefit from additional border security stopping the flow of illegal drugs and migrants across our borders.”
The Premier of Quebec, François Legault, took to social media to fret about the “enormous risk” to Quebec’s economy from Mr. Trump’s tariff threat and demand that “everything possible” be done to avoid it. He offered Justin Trudeau “the full co-operation of the Quebec government” in this regard, by which he meant, as he later clarified, that Quebec must have a place at the negotiating table.
As for the federal opposition leaders, they ranged from belligerent (Jagmeet Singh wants a “war room” to “fight like hell”) to irrelevant (Pierre Poilievre says the tariffs are an occasion to axe the carbon tax, as if this had anything to do with anything). Various others could be heard insisting that the Trump tariff threat was proof that it was now time to do whatever they had always advocated doing.
Trump’s proposed tariffs would devastate Canada’s major exporting industries and gouge consumers, experts warn
All of which is not to endorse the Trudeau government’s approach, so far as it has one. But if the government seems uncertain about how to proceed, it is at least not taking out a billboard to advertise how panicked and compliant it is. It has at least not seized the opportunity, in the early days of what looks to be a lengthy crisis, to say something provably stupid, or appallingly self-serving. It has at least not turned its guns inward, or deserted the country in the face of the enemy.
Continued...
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