David Johnson discusses Trump, Trudeau and a trade war.
Canada now dealing with ‘strangest man’ ever to serve as American president
Following last week’s crazed G-7 meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec, where American President Donald Trump arrived late, left early, refused to participate in heads of government meetings on environmental policy and climate change, argued in favour of imposing punitive tariffs on all the other nations represented at the meeting, and spoke in favour of admitting Vladimir Putin and Russia back into the club, the president was asked how he got along with other world leaders.
“I would say the level of relationship is a 10,” he replied. “We have a great relationship. Angela [Merkel] and Emmanuel [Macron], Justin [Trudeau]. I would say the relationship is a 10.”
Moments later, the American president went on a Twitter rampage aimed at Prime Minister Trudeau. “Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference,” Trump tweeted, “and the fact that Canada in charging massive tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed the U.S. reps not to endorse the [G-7] communique as we look at tariffs on automobiles flooding into the U.S. Market.”
He continued to attack Trudeau for supposedly being “meek and mild” to him at the meeting but then giving a news conference where the Canadian prime minister defended our economic interests in the face of new U.S. tariffs on Canadian manufactured goods entering the United States.
In his press conference last Saturday, Trudeau said that Canada will “move forward with retaliatory measures” on July 1 to respond to Trump’s order that new American tariffs be placed on Canadian steel and aluminum exports to the United States. “I have made it very clear to the President,” Trudeau said, “that it is not something we relish doing, but is something that we absolutely will do. Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will not be pushed around.”
President Trump then tweeted that such words are proof that our prime minister is “Very dishonest and weak.”
But this was only the beginning. On Sunday, Larry Kudlow, Trump’s chief economic adviser, claimed that Trudeau’s words were a betrayal of the American president, and that Trudeau “really kind of stabbed us in the back.”
Later, Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, let loose with his own venom: “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that’s what bad-faith Justin Trudeau did with his stunt press conference. That’s what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did and that comes straight from Air Force One.”
So this is now how the most senior leadership in the American White House views the Canadian prime minister and his actions in defence of Canadian economic interests.
What are we to make of this? One is that leaders in Canada and Europe and Mexico and the rest of the world are dealing with arguably the strangest man ever to serve as American president; a man who is erratic, vain, untrustworthy, a liar, belligerent, deceitful and simplistic. Donald Trump is someone who is intellectually, professionally, ethically and temperamentally unfit for the high office which he holds.
But he is the American president and we have to deal with him. How? By getting ready for the international trade war we will soon be in. Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian and European and Mexican steel and aluminum. All these countries have retaliated in kind.
Trump has also attacked Canada for having a “huge” trade surplus against the United States, justifying greater American tariffs against Canadian agricultural, lumber and automobile exports to the U.S. Such accusations, however, are a lie. Data from the American Department of Commerce reveal that the United States actually has an $8 billion trade surplus with Canada. Facts that Trump refers to a “fake news.”
Soon, look to see Trump impose 25 per cent tariffs of Canadianmade automobiles entering the United States and by the fall we will likely see the Trump White House move to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The trade war will be truly engaged then. More about this in my next column.
“Donald Trump is someone who is intellectually, professionally, ethically and temperamentally unfit for the high office which he holds.” David Johnson