WHAT TO DO WITH TRUMP? COYNE,
The question is not: what do we think of Trump? The question is: what are we going to do about him?
On the first, there can no longer be any doubt: it is impossible to deal with the current president of the United States in any of the usual ways — as a responsible ally, as a trustworthy negotiating partner, as a rational actor, as an adult. The leaders of the world’s other major economies spent the better part of the past weekend attempting to do so, even after the unprovoked attack on their economies of the previous week, in the form of steel and aluminum tariffs.
They were rewarded not with intransigence — a flat refusal to entertain any of their proposals would have been unprecedented, but comprehensible, even honourable, by comparison — but a shifting array of positions whose only unifying theme was their deliberate provocativeness and maximum potential for mischief.
Thus Trump arrived, late, with a demand that Russia be readmitted to the G7 — as a reward, it would seem, for its continued occupation of Crimea and adventurism in Ukraine — and thus Trump left, early, renouncing the very communique to which he had just agreed, after much cajoling and concessions from the other leaders. In between he proposed, inter alia, eliminating all tariffs between the seven countries and ending all trade between them.
The bizarre, almost obscene after-action attacks on Justin Trudeau by Trump and two of his more odious minions must be seen as of a piece with this performance: an attempt to shift the focus, and the blame, for the fiasco Trump had made of the conference onto the prime minister of Canada. Or perhaps it was just for the sheer bloody-minded pleasure of it. Or perhaps it was just more or less random, the uncontrolled eruptions of an incontinent mind.
At any rate, they constitute an unprecedented — there’s that word again — diplomatic affront. I cannot think of any world leader who has ever spoken publicly of the leader of an allied nation, or allowed others to speak on his behalf, in such insulting terms: dishonest, weak, back-stabbing, special place in hell, etc.
This would be insane enough if the prime minister had given the president any legitimate reason to take offence. But to throw such a magnificent tantrum in response to such familiar boilerplate on Trudeau’s part — Canada will not back down, etc. — is, well, it’s what we have come to expect from Trump, isn’t it?
But whatever we think of Trump, we have to live with him; however unjustified his assaults, rhetorical and economic, he nonetheless seems determined to make them. He has the power to do us great harm if he wishes — just the auto tariffs he is now considering would probably be enough to cause a recession — and it is up to us to figure out how to prevent him from doing so. Or rather, it is up to the prime minister. Limiting the harm that Trump does to us is now perhaps his most important job, and it is how he will be judged.
To be clear, opposition insinuations to the contrary, nothing the prime minister said in any way justifies Trump’s broadsides, or his apparent decision to target Canada as the cause of all of America’s ills. (Why did the U.S. impose tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum? Not as a matter of national security, as claimed — and as required under U.S. law — but, according to Trump’s latest tweets, in response to Canadian milk tariffs.)
But calculations of blameworthiness are beside the point. We have before us a much more immediate task, avoiding harm, in the service of which we are obliged to be ruthlessly pragmatic. The question to be asked of any official word or act, so far as it touches upon Canada-U.S. relations, is not whether it will look good or feel good, but will this help or hurt in the accomplishment of our mission.
This is a counsel neither of caution or belligerence, but rather of cold calculations of self-interest: we should be prepared to adopt either strategy, or any other, based strictly on what is most likely to work. So far, it should be said, nothing has. The threatened retaliatory tariffs on American goods (to take effect July 1) have proved as ineffective at altering Trump’s course as the prime minister’s earlier attempts at “Trump-whispering.”
Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean the PM is at fault: maybe no other approach would have worked any better. But if the prime minister should not automatically be blamed for failing to avert Trump’s wrath, neither should he be above all criticism. There is a disturbing sentiment afoot, which the government seems eager to encourage, to the effect that anything other than unwavering support for the prime minister is somehow disloyal.
This is silly. The stakes are large, but not existential; this is a fight about tariffs, not World War II (and even in that conflict, dissent was not prohibited).
We are unlikely to frame an effective counter-strategy if it is not open to debate and criticism. It is one thing to say we should be united in rejecting the president’s personal attacks on the prime minister, as we are in defence of Canada’s national interest. But how to defend that interest is a matter on which reasonable — and patriotic — people can differ.