This Hour has Seven Days

 Well, wasn’t that a week.

Last Wednesday, Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada gave a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) where he declared that middle powers need to find common ground for security and trade. Otherwise, as he says, “if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”. He stated that the status quo is over and the historic world of trade and security has been ruptured. He also referenced American Hegemony; that the United States grip on the world through material power of their military and economy, institutional power through world wide organizations and cultural influence through proliferation no longer guaranteed world peace and economic stability. He proposed that the current structure is a charade, and that Canada, for one, no longer wished to participate.

We’ve known for 60 some years that Canada’s reliance on the United States for our economic wellbeing was clearly at the pleasure of the person sitting in the White House. Donald Trump intends to render this notion as an ideology; that fealty to him is the only way forward. 

In the meantime, Mr. Carney has signed trade agreements and proposed agreement roadmaps for cooperation with China, Qatar, the UAE, Ecuador and Indonesia, among others. Mr. Carney is intent on getting Canada to the table. This will be important when our free trade agreement with the United States (CUSMA) comes up for renegotiation later this year.

After all, if we have other trading partners, maybe we won’t need the U.S. so much anymore.

On Thursday, Donald Trump spoke at the WEF. He said that Canada only existed because of the United States and that we weren’t grateful enough for their largess, thus proving Mr. Carney’s point. He insulted the member of NATO whose troops died in Afghanistan after Article 5 was triggered (Article 5 states that if any member of NATO is attacked, the other NATO members must come to their aid). Article 5 has only been triggered this once since NATO was formed. Trump said that troops were sent, that they stayed back from the front lines, as if they were cowards. Tell that to the 158 Canadian soldiers who died in that war.

Also on Thursday, Trump withdrew Canada’s invitation to join his Board of Peace, which was originally billed as a project to assist in the rebuilding of Gaza. Once Trump announced the entry fee of $1 billion with no say on how it was to be spent, Canada withdrew from the process. It was like being fired on The Apprentice. It didn’t really mean much.

And further, Trump stated that he wouldn’t take Greenland by force; that he has negotiated an agreement with Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General to enhance security. The security that was so important to Trump that he had to have Greenland as a buffer against Russia and China, two countries that have been invited to sit on his Board of Peace.

By Saturday, Trump threatened 100% tariffs on all goods coming across the border into the United States from Canada. He also criticized the Canada/China agreement stating that it was a terrible deal, after first saying it’s something Canada should be doing.

On Saturday, a 37-year-old ICU nurse named Alex Pretti attended a protest in south Minneapolis. While standing at the side of the road recording Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) federal agents attempting to apprehend someone, he was challenged by the agents, swarmed and shot and killed. Almost immediately, the White House administration painted Mr. Pretti as an insurrectionist, a paid protester, and charged at the federal agents brandishing a gun. None of this happened. There are multiple videos shot from multiple phones that recorded the interaction. Mr. Pretti was executed by the government agents, in similar way that Renee Good was killed two weeks earlier because she was simply driving her car away from federal agents.

On Sunday, 200 million Americans and more than a few Canadians felt the effects of a massive winter storm. Trump asked what happened to global warming given how cold it was. Perhaps one of his staff could take the time to explain to him how winter works.

On Monday, India and the European Union signed a landmark free trade agreement that will benefit approximately 25% of the world’s population. European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, stated, “We have sent a signal to the world that rules-based cooperation still delivers great outcomes," proving Mark Carney’s speech prescient.

Also on Monday, Trump called Mark Carney for a conversation on a number of matters. Trump’s sycophant Scott Bessant went on Fox News saying that Mr. Carney walked back his Davos speech. Mr. Carney, to the CBC, stated that he meant every word of it; that there was no retraction or softening of his tone.

The common thread through all of these events, with the exception of the winter storm, is Mr. Carney’s speech. American federal agents are murdering people in the streets. Trump puts tariffs on countries on a whim or at any perceived slight. America has withdrawn from more than 65 international agencies. They have taken their ball home and do not want to play anymore, other than to bully other countries into submission through economic coercion, and in the case of Greenland and to a lesser extent, Canada, of military invasion. The United States of America is no longer a stable power.

Canadian companies have had since last April, Trump’s “Liberation Day” where he announce tariffs on goods from about 90 countries, to find other markets for their products. This isn’t an easy thing to do. But frankly, I don’t care. Cry me a river.

Harsh? You bet. Companies have had it easy, trading due south with ease. Sure, a capricious president has turned their world upside down. Find other markets for your products, or you’ll go out of business. Trump is seeing to that.

You may say, “well, that’s not very nice. Give them a break. Can’t we just figure out a way to keep trading with the U.S.?”. If you think this, you’re not paying attention to Mr. Carney. You know, the guy with the PhD from Oxford? Who ran the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England? Who has a world view and Canada’s place in it for the first time since Lester B. Pearson?

America as a trading partner, as a cultural influence, as a tech supplier, as a security ally is dead. Gone. The only thing left is the funeral. Gangs of federal agents sweep the streets for anyone they think is an illegal alien. The administration continuously gaslights their population, telling them not to believe what they see before them. We cannot and should not rely on them for anything.

And why do I have so little sympathy for Canadian business that relied on the U.S. market for so long? My own business experience informs this. I had a very nice little company creating 35mm slide graphics for corporate customers some years ago. It was labour intensive, employed myself and four or five other people, and we made a living. Then Epson brought out their first video projector, rendering the need for 35mm slide useless. Almost overnight, that business disappeared.

Fortunately, we’d starting doing corporate video production a few years earlier. It carried us through the turndown of the slide business. Then, when the video business declined, we had already started putting together web-based material and our own apps to deliver corporate information in a different way. We had to adapt in the face of technological change. Canadian business has to adapt in the face of American ideological change.

I have empathy for the current state of Canadian businesses that rely on the U.S. market because I know what it’s like to lose a chunk of business almost overnight. But if Canadian businesses can’t adapt to new markets, and quickly, and do the hard work now to develop those markets, they’re sunk anyway.

Mr. Carney has stated that this is the path forward for Canada. All of the events of the past week have reinforced his points and have shown this path to be credible. So get on with it.

I'll leave you with our most sociable cat, Sable.