Trump raises war of 1812 ahead of g7 summit
Well at least now we know why Donald Trump considers Canada a national security threat. “Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?” he reportedly asked Justin Trudeau in a phone call late last month, referring to the War of 1812, when British troops burned down the presidential residence in retaliation for an American attack on York, presentday Toronto.
The CNN report added a degree of levity to a trade conflict that is becoming increasingly grave, one in which the U.S. has cited national security as the reason for imposing new tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Another report — this time in the Washington Post — suggested Trump will seek to stoke divisions when he arrives in Charlevoix, Que., this week for the G7 meeting. Officials are discussing ways to impose additional economic penalties against Canada, the Post reported, in retaliation for Ottawa’s threats to impose retaliatory tariffs next month.
Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday that Canada has had no formal notification of any additional measures being contemplated.
Meanwhile, Larry Kudlow, the president’s new economic adviser, was sent out Wednesday afternoon to brief the press on the G7 trip. As is his style, Kudlow tried to pacify the agitation rather than excite it.
He said Trump will meet one-on-one with both Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron in Quebec.
Kudlow pointed out that the U.S. economy is the fastest growing among the industrialized nations, pushing through three-per-cent growth — a feat he attributed to Trump’s lower taxes and regulatory rollback. He suggested that the president’s trade “reforms” would “open new avenues of growth” — a position putting him at odds with Republicans like Bob Corker, the senator from Tennessee, whose state is home to foreign and domestic auto plants and who has condemned the tariffs as “a dangerous course that should be abandoned.”
Ludlow said Trump’s attempts to fix the world trading system are about “fairness and reciprocity.”
“The policies are working and we hope our friends at the G7 will take notice,” he said. And he downplayed the prospect that Charlevoix will descend into the “G6 plus 1,” as alliances with major allies unravel.
“I regard it like a family quarrel,” he said. “I believe it can be worked out.”
FORGET 1812: TARIFFS WILL BURN THE U.S. ECONOMY LIKE IT’S 2002
The trial has been going on for six weeks and was expected to continue through the fall. Then on May 15 the regulator emailed the defence to say it had become aware of its mistake in releasing the documents.
“Following certain verifications, the AMF has noted that some of the divulged elements ... are potentially privileged,” read the email, obtained by the CBC.
“As a result, we ask the judge to make an order so that they are also removed from the disclosures.”
The defence accused the AMF of abusive procedure and filed a motion with the court for a stay of proceedings.
In their motion, defence lawyers noted they would no longer have access to the more than 320,000 documents.
“Denying access to the defendants of such evidence in the middle of an ongoing trial violates their fundamental constitutional right,” they argued in the motion as reported by the CBC.
“The repeated errors committed by the AMF in matters wholly within its control (led) to the inevitable conclusion that only a stay of proceedings can put an end to these abusive proceedings.”
It was the defence team’s third attempt to have the case thrown out. In January the judge rejected a motion to have the charges tossed because of the delay in getting them to trial under a Supreme Court of Canada ruling known as Jordan.
He then rejected a defence request over claims that the prosecution wasn’t disclosing evidence in a timely fashion.
Amaya is now known as The Stars Group Inc. and has moved its operations to Toronto.