Which Canada? Which Trump?

by Eduardo del Buey

Which Canada? Which Trump?

Yesterday, I was invited to give a Zoom lecture to international relations students at the Universidad del Valle de Mexico in Merida, Mexico, on the impact of the election of Donald Trump on Canada and Canadian interests.

I began by asking: Which Trump, and which Canada?

The Donald Trump of his first term was as unpredictable and unorthodox as he is today.

However, he was controlled to a degree by a rather rational White House staff and Cabinet that acted as guardrails to protect the country and the world from his more egregious decisions.

While this coterie of associates didn’t constrain all his whims, they did manage to restrain him from taking decisions that would have proven disastrous for both the country and the world.

Mr. Trump’s relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau was poor.

He considered the Canadian leader a weak and leftist individual with a world view completely opposed to his own.

And he considered NAFTA the worst trade deal in history.

However, Republican governors and Members of Congress from states bordering on Canada and dependent on trade with Canada for their economic well-being had been courted assiduously and successfully by Canadian officials and politicians, as had major Republican business leaders and opinion-makers.

They understood the importance of trade with Canada for their constituents (hence Republican voters).

In those days, the Republican Party was not yet the Trump Party, and it managed to score a few goals against President Trump’s whims.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau enjoyed a united front of support in his negotiations of a new trade deal with the United States.

Canada’s Conservative Party was on board.

Former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, architect of the original NAFTA treaty was instrumental in dealing with the Trump administration.

Trump has never been a man of principle, ready to bend with the wind when his own personal and political interests are at stake.

But, in the end, Mr. Trump does what benefits Trump and damn the others.

In 2018 he concluded that the trade treaty was in American interests, and he acted accordingly.

But will this hold in the Canada of 2025 dealing with Trump 2025?

Prime Minister Trudeau is hated by the Trump administration who can’t wait to see him leave office. the Prime Minister has dwindling support in Canada, and is expected to suffer a massive defeat at the polls next year.

Mr. Trump will no longer have a praetorian guard determined to reign in his caprices and whims. Rather, those who will accompany him in cabinet and the White House will only be loyal to him and blindly implement his agenda without question or qualm.

Those few within the Republican Party who still use reason over passionate worship for the leader will be very wary of rocking the boat lest they be cast into political oblivion.

And the senior levels of the U.S. public service and military that Canadian diplomats have assiduously cultivated will be gone by the next Canadian election, replaced by hard core Trump loyalists devoid of any sympathy for Canada or Canadian interests.

Some of Mr. Trump’s major supporters in and out of Cabinet have called for a strengthening of the northern border with Canada and all that this would imply for the flow of exports and people between both countries.

This will mark ground zero for any negotiations, and Canada will have much work to do.  

Ontario’s Conservative Premier Doug Ford’s declaration on Wednesday that Canada should pursue a new bilateral trade deal with the U.S. and excluding Mexico will play well with Mr. Trump and many of his supporters who see Mexico as the real enemy on many fronts.

My first question is: is this simply Ford being Ford, or is this an attempt to underscore to President Trump that a Conservative-led Canada is ready to play ball on treplacing the current CUSMA with a bilateral agreement in return for exemption from the massive tariffs the incoming administration plans to introduce across the board?

Mexico’s left-wing president has close ties with the narco-dictatorships in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. As well, the Mexican political establishment’s ties with the drug and criminal cartels that Mr. Trump could make a target of a massive military operation make aligning with Mexico a liability for Mr. Poilievre early in his administration.

So, does an incoming Poilievre government want to be saddled with Mexico as a partner in the next negotiation that could see the trade deal scuttled?

The Canadian government will have to develop new relationships with senior U.S. officials completely beholden to Mr. Trump who may not be easily persuaded to pursue Canadian interests successfully.

However, Canada today is a far different country than it was in 2017.

Prime Minister Trudeau is twenty points behind Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre and is expected to suffer a massive defeat in elections expected in early to mid 2025.

Mr. Poilievre’s personal likability numbers among Canadians are very low, but the disdain with which the Prime Minister is held by many Canadians almost guarantees that a Poilievre victory at the polls will be more likely a referendum on the Prime Minister rather than an indication of strong support for Mr. Poilievre’s policies.

Mr. Poilievre is certainly in Mr. Trump’s mold.

He has closely followed Mr. Trump’s campaign playbook and is copying many of his strategies.

He and his party have been closely advised by senior Trump advisors for years, and the alignment between Trump and Poilievre appears strong indeed.

Furthermore, Mr. Poilievre’s mentor, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, currently president of the conservative International Democratic Union, is also close to Mr. Trump and his team of senior advisors.

As a transactional politician, Mr. Trump will find Mr. Harper’s close relations with global conservative leaders a positive element and could well decide to treat Mr. Poilievre with some respect.

A Poilievre government will likely enjoy significant political power domestically.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Poilievre will have no significant guardrails if he wins a majority in Parliament, as is currently expected.

Mr. Trump’s focus on reducing significantly the size of government and the influence unelected bureaucrats have on policy will echo closely with Mr. Poilievre’s criticism of the massive growth of Canada’s bureaucracy under Mr. Trudeau.

Mr. Poilievre matches Mr. Trump’s obsession with the “deep state” with his constant criticism of the “gatekeepers” – the unelected power brokers who in his view really decide government policies.

Mr. Trump will seek a quid pro quo for not applying punishing tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.SA.

This could include unfettered U.S. access to Canada’s oil, gas, and fresh water, and rare earth minerals.

On the international front, Mr. Trump would expect Canadian support for Mr. Trump’s opposition to the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, UNRWA, UNESCO, the International Court of Justice, and of all the other institutions of globalism and “world government”.

The Trump team has expressed its hatred for multilateral institutions that work in opposition to American interests and there have been many calls among his supporters to defund the U.N. and its agencies.

This could erode decades of Canadian support for multilateralism. Would Mr. Poilievre be willing to pay that price for trade peace with his southern neighbor?  

Mr. Trump’s appointments at State, Defence, National Security, at its U.N. Mission, and the U.S. Embassy in Israel indicate a tectonic shift in U.S. policy towards the Middle East that would undoubtedly require a complete rethink of traditional Canadian policy towards the region.

In his electoral campaign, Mr. Poilievre could well appeal to those Canadians who oppose the massive street and university protests calling for intifada and support for “Islamofascism” that appears to be supported, through acts of omission or commission by all levels of government, many university administrations, and police forces that have refused to sanction these protestors and protect Canadians from the onslaught of antisemitism and violence.

Indeed, on Wednesday, Mississauga mayor and former Liberal member of Parliament Carolyn Parrish held a memorial for the late Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar in which she compared him to Nelson Mandela!

While the Prime Minister’s antisemitism official issued a statement condemning her comments, few if any leaders across Canada came out sharply against this heinous comparison or pushed for her impeachment or resignation.

And Ms. Parrish simply doubled down on her words.

Mr. Poilievre was a member of former Prime Minister Harper’s cabinet that proposed, in 2015, a police hotline to report what it called “barbaric cultural practices”, as it sought to capitalize on a hardline stance aimed at Muslim Canadians.

The impact of Islamofascism on the streets of Canada since October 7^th, 2023, has only further exacerbated this issue.

Mr. Trump has promised to fight all vestiges of Islamofascism in the U.S.., and this could be an effective tool to drum up Canadian voter support for Mr. Poilievre who see their cultural values being eroded by what they perceive to be a fifth column within.

Whether this is ultimately good for Canadians is irrelevant to Mr. Poilievre.

Like Mr. Trump, Mr. Poilievre is only concerned with what is good for Mr. Poilievre.

And like President Trump, Mr. Poilievre appears to have a firm grip on his party.  

Although many Canadians may dislike President Trump, the reality is that they dislike Prime Minister Trudeau more.

If Mr. Poilievre’s lead in the polls continues, I believe that much of the above will occur.

A stark reality?

I believe that some of my former Canadian diplomatic colleagues will disagree with my analysis.

I hope that they are right, because a MAGA Canada is not one I wish to see.

But it is a distinct possibility given today’s reality on both sides of the border, and Canadians must prepare for the worst.