Trump should leave governing to grown-ups
Editor: Yikes! U.S. President Donald Trump is so out of whack on what built his nation, and Canada as well: immigrants and immigration.
His ban temporarily barring people from seven mostly-Muslim nations from travelling to and entering America denies the very basis on which our southern neighbour was built. Likewise, Canada.
A TV commercial depicts a bunch of smiling New Yorkers happily boasting how their respective ancestors from overseas built that largest U.S. city and one of the world’s largest and proudest of cities.
Wonder what those New Yorkers think about the current flap? Given their history, might they be happy a court challenge has just suspended Trump’s ban?
That ban has ignited protests in many nations and cities (including Kelowna) because it was based on an immigrant’s religion and place of birth.
Thank God, Canada and other countries still welcome such refugees. Are not all of us still brothers and sisters and children of God on planet Earth, irrespective of faith and religion.
Despite its temporary suspension, anger over it having been even introduced has not cooled anywhere, including Canada.
Canada continues welcoming refugees from the same Trump-banned countries. Trouble is nations, most notably Canada, haven’t angrily denounced it.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau missed that opportunity in his Washington meeting with Trump on Feb. 13.
Betcha Justin’s dad, former PM Pierre Trudeau, would have been loud and clear blasting the ban during a one-on-one meeting with Trump.
Why, oh, why, Justin Trudeau, did you not at least diplomatically bring up the global harm Trump is inflicting.
Ignore that nonsense of Canada being paraded as “anti-U.S.” because of its welcoming refugees escaping from war-torn Syria. To hell with Trump’s idea of a wall keeping out certain Trump-disliked people.
Daily Courier columnist David Bond pegged Trump correctly on Feb. 21, declaring the U.S. is suffering a chief “whose intellectual rigour has the consistency of warm jello.”
The opinion page cartoon above that column depicted Trump as the goof he is — standing under a business awning stating “Trump’s Auto” and pointing to a pile of auto scraps and urging “check out this fine-tuned machine.”
Bond, a retired bank economist, observed that dandy Don in his first few weeks “seems focused on pulling the U.S. into a shell of protectionism that will undoubtedly encourage China to become even more assertive with other nations in the Far East, thereby displacing and reducing the influence and power of the U.S.”
Bond argues that Trump threw away a treaty — The Trans Pacific Partnership that “would strengthen trade under a defined set of rules.”
As the esteemed economist notes, that agreement “was laboriously and diligently negotiated over several years.” Now, what kind of biz savvy is that, dandy Don? Aren’t you the supposedly astute businessman?
That treaty, Bond emphasizes, would have enabled nations to “withstand any pressure to bully them into acquiescing to China’s push to have its way on intellectual property, compensation on trade and tariffs.”
As Bond so persuasively notes, “Most traders devoutly wish for such a rule-based regime in which trade can thrive.”
Bond is exactly on in declaring “Indeed, instead of killing TPP as a sop to his anti-globalization base, Trump should have seen it for what it was — a triumph for American diplomacy — and sold it relentlessly to Congress and to the voters.”
As Bond observes well, TPP’s “success might well have persuaded China and other nations throughout Asia to consider joining. But that was all thrown away without thoughtful analysis.”
Get off the playground, Donny Boy. Hear the grown-up voices around the world.
Wally Dennison, Kelowna