The Republican Convention

by Eduardo del Buey

Welcome friends.

Today we will discuss U.S. politics with former Canadian Ambassador Robert Noble who spent the last ten years of his career as Deputy Consul General in Boston, Deputy Consul General in New York, and Consul General in Detroit.

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The Republican Convention

It was a very subdued Donald Trump who took to the stage on Thursday night to accept the nomination as Republican candidate of the Republican Party.

While he made all his usual arguments, he also seemed to want to create a new political persona – folksy, mellow, and the complete opposite of what we have seen over the past seventy years.

Yet, as always, his speech was littered with lies and falsehoods, promises to end all of the country’s problems with no clear plans about how to do it.

Typical Trump speech in a different key.

Time will tell if this new incarnation after his brush with death is fact or fiction.

After four days of watching the U.S. Republican Party Convention that elected Donald Trump as candidate and Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, I can conclude that nothing is easier for politicians than to eat than their own words.

Watching Republicans who compared Trump to Hitler (Senator Vance), called him a criminal unworthy of high office (Nikki Hayley), and labelling him as an old and decrepit criminal (Nikki Hayley and others) come on stage on bended knee to pay homage to the former president and profess their undying fealty was to watch hypocrisy in action.

I am sure that the Democrats have a video library well stocked with Republicans accusing Trump of everything under the sun and will try to use it to fair advantage during the campaign.

Hypocrisy in politics is nothing new.

It applies to all political parties seeking office since they believe that most voters suffer from attention deficit disorder and either don’t remember previous statements to the contrary or don’t care. 

Slowly major Republican contributors who had withdrawn financial support for the Trump campaign are reversing their course, and the Republican Party, now Trump’s party lock stock and barrel, seems to have minimized, forgotten or forgiven the crimes for which he has been convicted and are offering him a clean slate.

In their election platform Republicans propose to lower taxes for workers, fight for and support social security and Medicare, and no changes to the retirement age. They also propose to end with inflation, make America the dominant energy producer globally, stop outsourcing, and secure fairer trade deals.

In terms of trade, the main question I have as a Canadian is how a potential Trump administration will deal with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Trade agreement that was the product of the renegotiated NAFTA agreement during the first Trump administration.

Also, given Trump’s history of animosity towards the European Union, will the administration avoid pursuing a trade deal with the E.U. as a whole and try to find ways of signing individual trade deals with certain European countries like The Netherlands, Hungary, and Slovakia who share a strong measure of opposition to Brussel’s leadership on trade and whose leaders revere Trump.

With a Labour government in power in the U.K., and Trump’s close political friendship with Reform leader Nigel Farage, a trade deal with that country could well be difficult. Indeed, Vice-Presidential nominee Vance has called the U.K. an Islamic nuclear state. Post-Brexit U.K. had sought special trade relations with the U.S. to offset losses from leaving the E.U. This would not seem to be in the cards with a potential Trump administration.

Trump’s immigration policy would put U.S. workers first, defend the constitution, and cut funding to any school that teaches Critical Race Theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content.

No mention has been made of the key issue – abortion – out of fear that this could alienate women and independent voters. But, given the rabid opposition to abortion among the far-right Republican base and his running mate, I would doubt that this would last after the election.

Finally, on foreign policy, how far will a Trump administration go in toeing Russian President Putin’s line? Trump’s apparent admiration for the Russian leader is such that many consider him to be compromised in some way with respect to Russia and willing to do Putin’s bidding.

This has major implications for the future of NATO – one of Trump’s major obsessions based mostly on member states such a Canada not pulling their weight and meeting their funding obligations. In addition, this might affect Ukraine, where Senator J.D. Vance has constantly said that Ukraine is not America’s problem, and that Russia should get its way in an eventual peace deal.

This has been Trump’s position as well over the past few years. Last week, his ally, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, visited Mar a Lago to report to Trump on his recent discussions with Vladimir Putin regarding a peace deal that reflected ex-President Trump’ position.

This was the scenario I had foreseen coming out of the Republican convention and going into the campaign.

But, as former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once noted, a week is a long time in politics.

President Biden’s withdrawal from the race has turned the tables on Trump’s campaign strategy.

Vice President Kamala Harris will now likely be the Democratic Party’s candidate for President. The Trump team has spent tens of millions of dollars focusing on President Biden and using his age against him.

They now have a young, intelligent, articulate woman who is a proven prosecutor and a public speaker who can take Trump on effectively. In 24 hours, she raised over $100 million and obtained the support of almost all Democratic Party delegates to the leadership convention, as well as of most of the major donors who had suspended their contributions pending the President’s exit from the race.

She will be a formidable opponent come November.

We now are entering what the Chinese call “interesting times”!

Stay tuned!

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