Preparing for President Trump
That was a lovely convention the Democrats had in Philadelphia. With 100 days to go until the U.S. presidential election, it is now time for Canada’s government to consider whether it can do anything to help stop Donald Trump’s election. And if the disaster cannot be stopped, Canada must prepare for the worst. Let’s unpack this. The Democratic convention was a methodical display of strategy as theatre. Its speakers were more prominent than those who spoke at the Republican convention a week earlier in Cleveland. They were more genuinely eager to see the party’s nominee elected.
And they covered the ideological waterfront, from Bernie Sanders to the nominally Republican former mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg. Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech was upbeat, carefully broad in its appeal, and delivered about as well as she will ever deliver a speech.
If conventions made the difference, Clinton would be a shoo-in. But campaigns have their own momentum. Most polls suggest Trump has been cutting into Clinton’s lead. I’m on the record with predictions that Trump will never be president. I think it would be foolish to cling to that certainty any more.
Why does it matter? Because Trump’s policies constitute a direct threat to Canada’s national security. That’s a much bigger deal than the nervous game Canada plays every four years as it weighs the costs and benefits of each presidential nominee’s plans.
Clinton would be no godsend for Canada. She opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Trudeau government still pretends to support, before Obama did. As a border-state senator for New York she was frosty to expressions of Canadian interest when it clashed with her perceptions of New Yorkers’ interest.
But, to borrow Bloomberg’s adjective, she’s sane. Trump’s remarks on NATO, combined with the growing evidence that he is deeply beholden to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, makes him an entirely different order of menace to Canada.
“If we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed” by NATO members, he told the New York Times, “for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations . . . then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, ‘Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.’” Trump seems to view NATO’s aspirational goal of 2 per cent of GDP for defence spending as a condition of membership. He’s wrong. NATO itself calls it a “guideline.” But only Estonia and Poland, among countries bordering Russia, meet that 2 per cent target. Latvia, where Canadian troops will be stationed within months, doesn’t. Nor does Canada, which is Russia’s neighbour across the Arctic.
Countries bordering Russia which have been left to defend themselves have had a hard time of it lately. Meeting NATO’s guideline to please a President Trump would cost Canada an extra $20 billion a year. Failing to do so would gut NATO.
Somebody needs to say none of this is acceptable to Canada.
The prime minister would be a handy spokesman, but don’t bet the farm. Justin Trudeau’s advisers believe he would have no influence and might pay a political price for any comments if the outcome isn’t what he advocates.
But surely it would be fair to comment on policies, not personalities: to say Canada believes in NATO, has paid in blood in Afghanistan in the only NATO operation ever launched according to the alliance’s collective-security provision. Surely, it would be fair for Trudeau, who gets noticed when he travels, to work pointed comments into his remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
And if Trump wins anyway? Governments resist contingency planning for events they hope to avoid. Jean Chrétien refused to plan for a “Yes” in the 1995 Quebec referendum. David Cameron made the same mistake in this year’s Brexit referendum in the U.K. That’s a gamble Canada can’t take with regard to Trump.
Line ministers on key bilateral files — finance, immigration, public safety, trade, defence — must be ready with public statements as soon as a Trump presidency stops being hypothetical. A trade war would hurt Canada, but we may find ourselves in one. Options for hurting U.S. trade interests need to be ready.
Canada will have to pick a strategic goal: To ride out a Trump presidency? To benefit from it? To identify and ally with sympathetic administration officials who can isolate and work around the addled new president? Or to help ensure he is impeached and made to resign before his four years are up?
It’s still reasonable to hope no such plans will need to be implemented. But it is folly not to plan. A president Trump will not play by Canada’s rules. Canada must be ready to play by his. Paul Wells is a national affairs writer. His column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday