Thoughts on Treasury Secretary Bessent's Contempt for Canada

 

Despite Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's role in helping to derail trade negotiations between Canada and the United States, the Trump cabinet member with the most contempt for Canada might very well be Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. 

Consider Bessent's interview with CNBC yesterday in which he declared:

Very unfortunate that PM Carney has turned this into a political shouting match. I mean, we’re not at war with Canada.

What are they going to do — take their two submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us?

Shouting match?

Clearly, Bessent has never listened to Carney speak. He is remarkably even keel. The same cannot be said for Bessent's boss.

Of course, this didn't prevent Bessent from further claiming that Carney was doing what was best for himself rather than for the Canadian people. 

It must be said that Bessent works for a man who uses the federal government to enrich himself.

In any case, the Canadian people don't share Bessent's assessment. They spoke in three by-elections last night giving the Liberal candidate more than 50% of the vote.

You would be hard-pressed to find a Canadian who believes Bessent's claim that Canada was "offered the best trade deal of anyone on the globe and he walked away from it at the last moment.”

Now, I'm sure that Bessent is saying all of this to stay in Trump's good graces.

But it must also be remembered that Bessent has seen fit to publicly criticize Carney on other occasions while demanding Carney not criticize Trump. For bad measure, Bessent has also praised Alberta's separatist movement. So Bessent's concern for the interests of Canadians rings false.

For his part, Carney has said that Canada is prepared to return to the table if and when the Trump Administration will "stop doing memes, stop posturing, stop trying to be tough and start being serious."

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration doesn't do serious where it concerns its closest allies.