Third way to handle Trump goes right down the middle
The Great Trade War of 2018, historians will record, began June 1 with the imposition of steep tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum into the United States, including Canada’s. The war, that is, began without us. The only question is how we will respond.
Opinion has divided sharply. The War Party, including the government but also the parliamentary opposition, business, labour, and much of the public, is for retaliatory strikes of varying degrees of belligerence: not only tariffs the government has already announced on a wide range of American goods, to take effect July 1, but “spontaneous” boycotts, sanctions, and even strong language.
The Appeasement Party, on the other hand, largely confined to the populist or let’s-call-it-by-its-propername Trumpist right but with, one suspects, the tacit approval if not consent of the Conservative leadership, has convinced itself the fault for any hostilities lies with the government of Canada.
It seems particularly focused on pinning the blame for the president’s extraordinary post-G7 meltdown, in which he withdrew his signature from the summit communiqué while casting a series of crude insults the prime minister’s way, on a couple of throwaway sentences in Justin Trudeau’s postsummit press conference.
This was, after all, the president’s own stated justification for his behaviour, which in some quarters is good enough. And, as a hundred identical tweets excitedly noted, what about that CBC report that the president had at one point early in the summit indicated some willingness to drop his demand that a renegotiated NAFTA include a five-year sunset clause? From this one account of the possible disposition of one issue in the NAFTA talks we were to conclude that Trump, in his wisdom and mercy, was prepared to cut a deal, before Justin Ruined Everything.
Was there ever such an offer? Did it still stand? Did it leave us remotely closer to an agreement? Never mind. How dare Trudeau say anything, no matter how anodyne, to which Trump might conceivably object? Indeed, some in the Appeasement Party demanded to know, why was he even resisting the president’s demands? Sunset clause? Why not? Who doesn’t like a nice sunset?
The choices, then, would appear to be escalation (War Party) or capitulation (Appeasement Party). The War Party has no evidence that any of the measures it is proposing will do much of anything, other than annoying the Americans and costing Canadian consumers. Neither has the Appeasement Party shown what caving to Trump’s demands would accomplish, other than to encourage him to make more demands.
What the two have in common, rather, is emotional satisfaction. It feels good, to many Canadians, to stick it to Trump, though retaliation will hurt our own people a lot more than Trump. It feels good, to others, to slag off Trudeau, though in blaming the prime minister for giving offence rather than President Snowflake for being offended they are effectively giving Trump a “heckler’s veto” over our national leaders.
And of course there’s a strong whiff of politics in the mix. Standing up to the president is never a bad look for a prime minister — there is already evidence it is paying off at the polls — and the Liberals have not been slow to turn patriotic umbrage at Trump’s attacks to their advantage, painting domestic critics as disloyal, if not actually in league with the president. The exertions by Tory surrogates to turn the spotlight of blame back on Trudeau might be seen as an effort to break out of that trap, at the risk of seeming to validate it.
Let me propose instead a middle path, on the following lines.
1. We should avoid gratuitous offence or needless escalation of tensions, but neither should we simply give in to every demand or insist our leaders tippy-toe about in silence for fear of waking the Trumpotaur. Prudence and pragmatism are one thing, but there is also such a thing as national dignity.
2. Trudeau’s strategy and tactics should be open to criticism, without accusations of disloyalty. But his critics have an obligation to be constructive, or at least coherent. It’s not enough to say the prime minister’s approach has failed. You have to say what you would do differently, and why it would be any more likely to succeed.
3. It seems a stretch to blame Trudeau for Trump’s childishness. Still, it’s fair to doubt whether the government’s overall strategy is the right one. While they have been right to hold firm on deal-breakers like the sunset clause, they have been intransigent in other areas, like supply management, on which they ought to yield. And while they have been quick to retaliate against the president’s aggressions, they show no sign of having a Plan B should retaliation fail to deter him. The abiding impression is one of complacency, even as the evidence mounts of a Trump-induced chill on investment.
The alternative? In place of intransigence, emphasize liberalization: it’s not a concession if we also gain from it. Instead of retaliation, focus on making Canada such an attractive place to invest that businesses would be willing to locate here even should Trump do his worst. We used to have a 17-point corporate tax rate advantage, for example: now it is a two-point deficit. What does the government propose to do to regain our competitive edge?
Likewise, while the bulk of our trade will always be with the Great Republic to our south, it can’t hurt to pursue an aggressive trade agenda with the world’s other major economies: not only the Trans Pacific Partnership and European Union, but also India, Japan, even China. The more of the world’s markets that can be simultaneously accessed from Canada — the only large economy with such guaranteed access — the greater the incentive to locate a plant here.
Neither war nor appeasement are what is required. Rather, a civil tongue, cool heads and a flinty-eyed focus on what works, rather than what feels good, should see us through.