In 8 Days, Trump Went From Being OK with a Canada-China Trade Deal to Threatening 100% Tariffs Against Canada

 

Yesterday, President Trump turned his ire back against Canada by threatening it with 100% tariffs if it made a trade deal with China.

Yet 8 days earlier, Trump was perfectly fine with such an arrangement telling reporters outside the White House. Trump said, “It’s a good thing for (Carney) to sign a trade deal. If you can get a deal with China, he should do that.”

So, what happened in that 8-day stretch to make Trump do a 180?

Well, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made his Davos speech in which he declared there was a "rupture" in the world order. Although Carney made no mention of the United States, much less Trump, it was clear that it was Trump and his administration which were the cause of said rupture.

In other words, Trump's fragile ego got bruised. Again.

It is this fragile ego which impulsively threatens to impose tariffs against a significant trading partner, threaten a military takeover of land belonging to a NATO ally and send goons into in Minneapolis to execute American citizens. In Canada's case, in addition to threatening yet more tariffs, Trump withdrew his invitation to Canada to join the so-called Gaza Board of Peace.

For his part, Carney has denied that Canada is pursuing a free trade agreement with China. Although one could not blame Carney for seeking closer economic ties to China as long as Trump persists in claiming the United States does not need Canadian products let alone continue the existing free trade relationship with Canada and Mexico.

This isn't to say that pursuing closer economic ties with China doesn't have its own risks. Russian dissident and former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov pointed out that Canada risks trading one authoritarian entity for another and, in so doing, will encourage China to undermine Canadian sovereignty as it already has done by conducting surveillance operations against Chinese dissidents living in Canada.

Nevertheless, Canada must act in its national interest and if China proves a more stable option than an America run by Trump and/or Trumpism then pursuing deeper economic ties with China is Carney's least bad option despite China's atrocious human rights record. At the rate things are going, American brutality under Trump could match that of China before the decade is out.

It is this arbitrary and capricious behavior by Trump which will help drive Canada (and other countries) into the waiting arms of Beijing.