Unlikely friendship a backdrop for talks
As far as unlikely political friendships go, it’s not quite Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley or Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman.
But the fact that Justin Trudeau’s top adviser, Gerald Butts, is apparently pals with Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, will surely raise a few eyebrows. The revelation was buried in a piece The New Yorker published Tuesday about Bannon’s influence on Trump.
“Bannon sees Butts as a sort of left- wing version of himself,” writes Ryan Lizza. The two met during the transition period between Trump’s election win in November and his inauguration in January and “now talk regularly.”
As Bannon searches for some way to pull Trump’s approval ratings out of the gutter, he may be looking north for ideas. According to The New Yorker, Butts told Bannon that “there’s nothing better for a populist than a rich guy raising taxes on rich guys” and touted the success of Trudeau’s tax increase on top earners.
It remains to be seen whether anyone else in the Trump administration, or the Republican congress for that matter, will be sold on tax hikes, especially considering the focus of The New Yorker article is Bannon’s precarious position in the White House.
Bannon and Butts may both consider themselves populists but, on policy grounds, there’s not a lot of overlap. Butts was largely responsible for former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty’s platform, which called for a big boost in renewable energy and the phasing out of coal plants.
Trump’s populism during the 2016 campaign involved trashing the Paris climate accord and promising to return coal miners to work. Bannon is the former head of Breitbart News, a leading hard- right publication, and helped make immigration and border patrol a key issue in the campaign.
The two advisers may have bonded over their similar backgrounds. Butts grew up in Glace Bay, N.S., the son of a coal miner and a nurse, while Bannon grew up in a working class family in Virginia, according to Bloomberg News. Their paths diverged early, though, as Butts went into politics immediately and Bannon joined the Navy, went into banking and had a brief stint in Hollywood, before launching his media and politics career. A pre-election profile of Butts in the Ottawa Citizen may provide the best explanation for the unlikely friendship.
“One word that continually pops up from people who know and have worked with Butts is pragmatism,” the Citizen reported.
As head of the World Wildlife Fund, he never shied away from working out deals with multinational corporations like Coca- Cola, if it allowed him to further his environmental goals. Canada is preparing for a potentially bruising negotiation on the North American free- trade agreement and will likely need as many friends and pragmatists as it can get.