“Donald Trump will not “break” Canada, Mark Carney promised during his election victory speech on Monday evening. The Liberal leader secured a remarkable comeback victory for the party, which had been set for an electoral wipeout under Justin Trudeau. In a speech to supporters in Ottawa, Mr Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, said Mr Trump’s repeated description of Canada as the 51 state was not an “idle threat”.
It was an idle threat, as Carney knows perfectly well. I would ask “What was Trump thinking?”, except I already know that the answer was “This will make my supporters laugh and annoy people I enjoy seeing annoyed.”
I remain glad that Donald Trump won the 2024 U.S. election. I have several reasons for this view, but perhaps the biggest one was that for at least half Joe Biden’s term of office a cabal of his “advisers” operated his poor senile body like a puppet. They were preparing to continue their unelected rule for four more years when his visible confusion in the debate against Trump made the pretence no longer supportable, so they replaced him with Kamala Harris, who was deeply complicit in this fraud against the American people. While this was happening, tyrants and terrorists made hay worldwide.
Trump has other virtues besides not being senile. He is brave and determined. Rather than being apologetic at having something as primitive as a nationality, as people like Mark Carney and Sir Keir Starmer are when among their own class, Trump actually loves his country. Unfortunately his ideas on how to advance its interests are often simplistic and counterproductive (e.g. tariffs) and his behaviour is often childish (e.g. pointlessly goading Canada and Greenland).
The very shallowness of Trump’s economic thought may help America avoid the harm tariffs would do it. One of the world’s great tragedies is that very intelligent men remain attached to the bad ideas that appealed to them in youth, and employ their intellect in devising ever more ingenious explanations for why said bad ideas failed this time but will work next time. In contrast, Trump was not argued into supporting tariffs, and probably does not need to be argued out of it. I am reasonably hopeful that when he sees prices go up and his poll numbers slide he will row back on the policy, stopping only to claim it was all a negotiating ploy. (Hell, maybe it was all a negotiating ploy.) J.D. Vance, a genuine intellectual, may be harder to convince.
Alas for Canada, Mark Carney has all of Vance’s intellectualism without his unconventionality. He will continue the policies of his predecessor Justin Trudeau and his explanations of why they are not working will be most eloquent.
Fear of Trump may have helped Carney win. Now it is Carney’s turn to deal with Trump.
Perhaps Poilievre will come to believe that this was an election worth losing?
I suspect Trump must be laughing his arse off!
Since it seems Poilievre has lost his seat, I suspect not.
Justin did not have policies, Carney was one of the puppet masters pulling his strings for the last 10 years
*sigh*
(adds Natalie to list of Samizdata authors with blind spots about Trump who, therefore, can be ignored for the next 4 years…)
Ben David,
I realise you may not wish to answer if the four years have already started, but is the blind spot to which you refer that I criticise Trump or that I praise him?
And people wonder why I give Trump a hard time.
Greenland, Canada, and Ukraine (in order of increasing importance) have certainly been the most disappointing items in Trump’s agenda — so far.
I say: so far, not only in the sense that it might get worse, but also in the sense that Trump might have aces up his sleeves wrt those issues (to keep up the poker analogy). Although that seems unlikely in the case of Canada.
NB: This is the reason why i dismiss J. Pearce’s sneering rants: he does not focus on Ukraine, Canada, and Greenland.
PP lost his nerve, and gave away an almost sure thing.
All he had to do was to criticize JT (and thus MC) along the lines Trump chose – weak country, dying economy, DEI-controlled, joke of a border, China’s huge influence, etc.
I assume he got scared that MC could rally some sort of anti-Trump Canadian patriotism – something never before having been shown to exist – and he didn’t dare not hop on.
It became a race to the bottom. Too bad for Canada.
Not really.
Natalie:
It is that you criticize a straw man of your own creation. Created based on what clever people who are not businessmen, who for all their book smarrs would have been flattened by the lawfare and assassination directed at Trump – based on what these Grey Flannel Minds think his motives and actions should be, woild be kf he were clever or acculturated like them.
It is like music professors criticizing Coltrane or Ellington for not adhering to sonata form.
He is as intelligent as you/they are – and much better at that mix of strategic thinking,framing communication, people reading, and improvisation that yields miĺlion dollar deals.
These are *executive* skills that academics and other “smart” people and armchair generals lack, and therefore dismiss.
But he was elected to be an executive and is doing a great job – while leading the hostile media inatead of letting it frame the issues.
For example, he didn’t just “goad” Greenland cor no reason – he sjone a light a strategic issue previously soft-pedaled by pro-China politicos (including many in the Grey Flannel” expert class). Greenland also supported his efforts to restructure the old European alliances. It may not be obvious to the armchair experts, but after Greenland officials on every country with a “Belt and Road”agreement with China understand that America wiĺl be callkng.tk find out which bloc they align with.
See? Not gratuitous or unplanned… and quite possibly aware of things that the smart set does not see.
Sorry my new phone does not have autocorrect…
Its interesting that Trump’s tariffs have shown many on the Right to be as much obsessed with ideological purity as the Left is. It seems many would prefer to have no tariffs and Kamala Harris as US president.
Its good to know which side many people are actually on.
Snorri,
I focus on what I choose, and where I consider I have a bit of understanding, such as trade and protectionism. I’ve left the occasional comment on Ukraine (Trump has been terrible on this, so far) and haven’t a view on Panama and Greenland.
If you think my takedown of mercantilism are “sneering rants” you need to get out more.
Whether Mr Trump has “aces up his sleeve” I doubt. I’m starting to note a bit of desperation in some who claim that he has.
Jim:
Most of the conservative bloggers I follow very quickly understood that the purpose of the exercise was to renegotiate trade agreements (as part of a major, promised realignment with our European allies) and begin to construct a bloc that isolates China… most of those bloggers also understood the difference between announcing tariffs as a tactic and imposing them as policy.
Most of the conservative bloggers I follow very quickly understood that the purpose of the exercise was to renegotiate trade agreements (as part of a major, promised realignment with our European allies) and begin to construct a bloc that isolates China… most of those bloggers also understood the difference between announcing tariffs as a tactic and imposing them as policy.
That is your take, not necessarily what is the case. As I have pointed several times, Trump offers various justifications for tariffs (as a weapon against countries he dislikes, for reasons good and bad), to protect domestic industries of various kinds, to raise revenues that might in part replace domestic income taxes, and so on. These aims are not coherent, and in the case of raising revenues, the more severe they are, and hit imports, the less revenue they raise (the old Laffer Curve effect in action). Trump is “tariff man”, he sings the praises of them, he’s been on this journey for almost all of his adult life when he has spoken about public affairs.
So the whole “renegotiate” argument is only part of it. If it was about isolating China, how come he hit countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, etc, that are likely important parts of an APAC coalition against China? Or for that matter, European countries?
Back to the OP, the way he goaded Canada, with his oafish comments about 51st state and so on, seemed almost calculated to piss Canadians off, even those who were fed up with Trudeau. Now I am sure there are other forces in play, and Trump cannot be held to blame for all of them, but why the hell do his supporters not see that his tariff stance vs Canada was almost calculated to screw up the conservative/classical liberal side of Canadian politics, and play into the hands of an establishment type such as Carney?
Again, I just don’t buy this idea that Trump is some sort of wily deal-maker. The record is so uneven, it is no longer sustainable.
https://x.com/Geiger_Capital/status/1917072078718615843
An interesting graph that sheds some light on the attitudes of the Canadian electorate. Essentially, they’re f***ed until the Boomers pass on.
Bootlick much?
Trump loves his country? lol. OK. As Trump literally grabs off the streets and ejects people for writing harmless op-eds that ironically called for free speech re. Israel; to sending more-than-likely innocent men to literal concentration camps on the most flimsy of evidence without any due process (spare me the maga BS on how he was really a cartel member)…a man who pardoned 100s of violent Jan 6th brownshirts; to demanding Lebensraum in Greenland.. TO somehow siding with dictators all around the world (he is less bothered about the lack of human rights and lack of democracy in China, and more angered by the imagined sins of “trade deficits”). Is there any line, at all?
Trump hates America. And I’ve seen enough reporting to infer Trump is 100% serious about taking over Canada, as he is with Greenland. Specifically he wants various mineral deposits in southern Canada and is willing to use force to take them: but right now is using economic terrorism to force Canada to become the “51st state”.
I remember when “our side” were rightly disgusted at the very mild acts of “moving towards tyranny” that Obama made. Trump makes Obama look like Ayn f*cking Rand right now. Populism was always a left-wing tool and now we see it.
There comes a point, whatever stupidity and idiocy the left have done, to admit they were right about Trump all along. His evil was hidden from us because in his first term he actually appointed decent individuals: all of which turned on him. Trump et al were never ever interested in ending “DEI” (his entire cabinet bar Rubio are the most inept, ignorant, stupid cabinet in American history and chosen for their suppliance, sycophancy and genuine low IQ – the real DEI): they actually are honest racists, and it’s time we admit it. WHY else single out WHITE South African farmers for refugee status but not the 1000s of other possible (NON WHITE) victim groups of the developing world? Enough already. Just stop it. And if you think Trump, Musk or Vance actually care about free speech …. lol.
Spare us the BS about Biden being directed by unelected bureaucrats when you have Laura F*cking Loomer walking into the White House and getting staff fired because they “failed the loyalty test” to her orange führer.
Elon Musk and DOGE were a scam and yes, Trump is a textbook fascist and it’s time people grew up. And JD Vance is a very, very evil, ignorant religious fanatic. No Libertarian, Conservative or Right-Winger could support this monster, and if you think he isn’t serious about Canada and it’s “just a meme” you need to pay attention more.
I can’t believe I ever supported Trump, even for most of 2024. Shame on me. Shame on me.
Johnathan:
The honesty/modesty of this remark is commendable.
The problem is that this modesty seems at odds with the tone and substance of several other comments of yours.
What tariffs?
Other than on the People’s Republic of China Communist Party Dictatorship (which it is insane, utterly insane, to depend on economically) – American tariffs are not high.
As for blaming President Trump for the victory of the left in Canada – I am not buying it.
Canadians have experienced leftist rule for ten years – the idea that they voted to carry on the decline and decay because President Trump made a few jokes, is absurd.
Paul, agreed.
As I said a few days go, people in socialist counties become institutionalized, or perhaps it is Stockholm syndrome, they cannot imagine turning against the government that loves and cares for them, even when that government evidently trying to kill them and take their stuff.
My view of Poilievre, FWIW (which is very little since my only experience of practical politics is academic politics, which is vicious but parochial [Why? Because the stakes are so small]), is that he was trying to shift the Overton window as far towards sanity as he could, but that he had a lot of work to do and Trump’s comments shot him in the
foothead.I have seen commentary that suggests that this is what Trump wanted and that makes sense, so I have no intention of offering criticism.
There are not high American tariffs on Canada – and the left has won election after election in Canada, long before President Trump started to make jokes about he place.
Indeed Jordan Peterson (perhaps the leading Canadian intellectual) gave up his tenured academic position in Canada – and moved to the United States – again long before President Trump started making jokes about Canada.
So to blame President Trump, as the Telegraph newspaper does, for what has happened in Canada, is false.
@bobby b
I respectfully suggest that you are wrong on this one (or rather `never before’ does not equal `never’): see the bar chart here.
@Paul Marks, somehow, I think the impact of a President of the US threatening to slam tariffs on friends and foes, and making comments about Canada as the 51st state of the US, is a bit more important than Dr Jordan Peterson deciding to become a resident of the US (Arizona, I understand). He’s a private citizen. He cannot impose tariffs or whatever by executive order.
I don’t think Trump is entirely responsible for the Canadian result, but to suggest it had no impact is simple evasion. The Liberals have messed up Canada; the Conservatives were on a roll, and suddenly that came to an end.
Had it been a Democrat POTUS imposing tariffs on Canada, for example, I doubt those who seem keen to rationalise everything that Trump does would be so indulgent to the president.
Johnathan Pearce.
The left has been winning election after election in Canada for quite some years, to blame President Trump is absurd.
By the way – how high is the American tariff on Canadian goods at the moment?
Canada has had mass immigration and natural increase (births among the new population) for a long time now, it is already less than 50% British in ancestry (the French Canadians are also in decline). As for cultural decline – it became obvious as far back as 1965, when the flag (the Red Ensign) was ditched – and the left laughed as Canadian ex servicemen (who had fought in World War II and Korea under that flag) were reduced to tears.
Almost every symbol of Canada has been trashed over the years and decades – and so has Canadian history (replaced by agitprop).
Even Jordan Peterson gave up on Canada – a point that Johnathan Pearce claims not to understand, so I will explain the point. When the leading conservative intellectual in a country gives up a tenured academic position and leaves-the-country this is not a vote of confidence.
As for the Canadian Conservatives “being on a roll” – Mark Steyn points out that the “right wing” Conservative Party leader attacked him (Mark Steyn) for interviewing an M.P. of the German AfD party. Why? Because the media told the leader of the Conservatives to do that.
By the way – the Nazis wanted to take over other countries, it is not “Nazi” to want to keep your own country, unless the leader of the Canadian Conservatives believes that both Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle were “Nazis” – as both of these men held that political position, Churchill wanted Britain to remain British and De Gaulle wanted France to remain French (just as the Czechs want Prague to remain Czech, the Polish people want Poland to remain Polish, the Hungarians want Hungary to remain Hungarian – and so on) – they both understood that mass (MASS – not a few individuals) immigration would lead to natural increase (births) to a level where the nation (the people) would be subverted demographically over time.
So much for “being on a roll” if the Canadian Conservative leader does not understand this, or does understand it but feels (like Nigel Farage – who has no intention of even trying to stop the disaster) that it is too late to do anything to save the nation.
“Mark Carney has all of Vance’s intellectualism without his unconventionality.”
Mark Carney is dumb as a post. He’s an idiot who speaks glibly, that is all. He lies repeatedly and obviously and gets caught. He plagiarized his way to a Ph.D. He has bought into the innumerate insanities of “climate change” and sexual transitioning for his own child.
Dumber’n a sack of hoe handles. And evil as well.
Back in the early 1900s lots of American politicians, Republican and Democrat, wanted Canada to join the United States (President Trump knows all this – his grandmother was about in New York in the 1900s, and was well aware of the desire for Canada to be part of the United States) – a free trade treaty was offered (by President Taft), but Canadians rejected it when they understood what the agenda was – Canadians preferred the British Empire, then much bigger than the United States.
But the British Empire is gone – and both British and Canadian society are heading towards crises (rejecting basic liberties such as Freedom of Speech) – so the situation is fundamentally different from that of the early 1900s.
Make an extreme demand, whether serious or presented as a joke (so it is deniable) and then get what you really want as a “compromise”.
I do not believe that President Trump ever wanted all of Canada – with its mostly leftist population. But ALBERTA is a different matter – Alberta has important natural resources and a largely conservative population. Alberta (not Canada – Alberta) would be a good 51st State.
With the victory of Mark Carney in the election – Alberta now has two options.
Further decay and decline under a “Liberal” (really fanatically anti liberal) Canadian government – with Freedom of Speech and other basic liberties crushed, and grinding poverty under “Net Zero”.
Or secede and join the United States as the 51st State – not Canada as the 51st State, Alberta as the 51st State.
Paul, you’re missing the point. Trump threatened heavy tariffs on Canada. I didn’t imagine this. It would have had a calamitous impact on the country, at least in the short term. It seemed totally out of proportion.
Why are people evading the fact that his rhetoric and actions have damaged people who ought to be treated as allies? It makes no sense on its own logic.
Hopefully Trump will cool this stuff down.
Partly because we’re aware of the tariff burden that Canada put on US sellers prior to Trump’s tariff?
My main familiarity comes in ag and dairy, and those groups don’t even bother to try to sell into Canada. “Conservatism” doesn’t necessarily mean that we should try to conserve THAT situation simply because it exists, right?
“Why are people evading the fact that his rhetoric and actions have damaged people who ought to be treated as allies?”
Allies? Canadian conservatives are far to the left of the US center. The Liberals screamed Trumpists and maple maga and the conservatives collapsed into a fetal ball.
Allies? Canadian conservatives are far to the left of the US center. The Liberals screamed Trumpists and maple maga and the conservatives collapsed into a fetal ball.
And that is the sort of reaction that proves my point. The Canadian C’s rightly regarded the tariffs as a bad blow. Even if they were of more robust stuff, there’s no way that the Conservatives in Canada were not going to be damaged by it, even if there are other forces in play.
Mark Carney has all of Vance’s intellectualism without his unconventionality.
And without the eyeliner!
Now that the Australian election has turned out the same way as the Canadian election (I have already been on the telephone today to console friends in Queensland) some people around here should apoligise for blaming “Trump” for the Canadian election result.
They will not apologise – but they should.
Sadly I fear the first order of business in Australia will be to destroy Sky News Australia (very different from Sky News Britain – indeed not owned by the same company), which is the only television station in Australia not controlled by the left.
In Canada there are no conservative television stations at all – as Rebel News and True North are websites rather than television stations.
It is so much easier to blame “Trump” than face up to he reality of leftist control of the education system and the media in countries such as Canada and Australia.
Paul Marks: You are right to point out that there were a whole host of pre-existing factors in Canada contributing to the Liberal win, of which Trump’s constant bluster about annexing us was — proportionally — a very small element. But the dislodged pebble that starts an avalanche is likewise a very small element which doesn’t itself do the damage. It’s all in the timing and in what it kicks off.
Rational or irrational (and it was irrational), I was here on the ground talking to family and friends and listening to fellow Canadians, and the anger at and fear of Trump’s intentions and willingness to damage/conquer our country was very real among those already inclined to believe the worst of him and anybody even remotely aligned with him (like Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives). Moreover, it was stoked to a fever pitch by a media which is far more government-supported and far less countered by native independent media than in the States. I am not “blaming” Trump in the sense of imputing conscious motivation for exactly this result — but yes, I think it is true that if he hadn’t gotten on his kick about “the 51st State”, largely because of his low opinion of Justin Trudeau (which I also don’t blame him for), Poilievre would have won. (As it is, the Conservatives did better than they’ve done in decades.) We were sick of the Liberal government after 10 years of economic mismanagement and were willing to repudiate them, right up until the Liberals managed to make enough people think that a vote for the Conservatives was a vote for Trump to take over the country… and they couldn’t have done that if Trump hadn’t handed them that golden opportunity.
Don’t get me wrong, I like lots of what Trump’s doing on the world stage, I think much of what he’s done is necessary, and I even understand from his perspective the need to redress tariff balances between our nations (I don’t agree with all his proposed solutions, but if there’s one thing he’s shown it’s flexibility on his proposals). And I also grant that what passes for Conservative up here falls short by many American standards. But it would have been really, really nice if we had gotten the chance to at least begin to make some reversals in our decline. At the very least, I wish Trump would exercise at least a little more acuity in knowing when to lay off his bluster in the name of helping potential allies, rather than alienating them.
Trump loves trump. Like putin, he equates the country with his own persona.
SJ: “but yes, I think it is true that if he hadn’t gotten on his kick about “the 51st State”, largely because of his low opinion of Justin Trudeau (which I also don’t blame him for), Poilievre would have won.”
Hard to disagree with this. I still think that he was trying to goad PP into agreement, at which point Trump would have backed off the antagonism (knowing that he then would have an ally instead of the hated Trudeau), but he surely miscalculated.