As a few irritants in Canada-U.S. relations have become, in less than two years, chasms that are seemingly too wide for reconciliation, Canadians should begin to ask the question, “What game are we watching with Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump?” What are the dynamics between the two men that have so impeded the administrations from civilly and efficiently renegotiating a trade agreement between two neighbourly countries that have shared so much for so long? Canadian mainstream legacy media will broadcast that the Orange Man is bad and we are to thank the resiliency of our elbows up champion. But this is a cartoonish narrative to a much more complex situation.
In the last two weeks, much has taken place between our countries. Canadians first learned from an interview in independent media with U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra that the Canadian trade negotiating team has no meetings scheduled with the U.S. through the month of August; the Mexican trade team is constructively working towards a trade agreement with as many as three meetings with the U.S. negotiators. Then there was a nonsensical threat from Trump about potential new tariffs in retaliation to smoke crossing the border from Canadian wildfires. That was followed by American trade representatives complaining that Canada is not serious about negotiating. And that was followed by the Gordie Howe bridge debacle, which threatened to delay the opening of the Windsor – Detroit international bridge, and it had Carney mislead Canadians about the details of the deal that allowed it to open.
The impasse between administrations has become very serious with the Americans announcing new 50 per cent Section 338 tariffs on Canadian products and a claim that Canadian trade actions pose “continued discrimination against and unreasonable and unequal treatment of U.S. commerce that has burdened and disadvantaged hardworking Americans.” Specifically, the U.S. is looking for concessions relating to Canada’s dairy supply management system, the retaliatory surtax on U.S. automobiles, and a removal of the ban on American beer, wine, and spirits.
North of the border, the response to the tariff announcement was somewhat muted by the prime minister and Canada’s political and business leaders (Ontario Premier Doug Ford being an exception), all projecting messages of reassurance to Canadians that there is a plan forward. However, the Canadian response south of the border took a different tact. Former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland took to American media, conducted a Wall Street Week interview in which she stated that Canadians are “very – very – angry” and now consider Beijing communist China “as more reliable and trustworthy than the U.S.” She also penned a New York Times editorial “You Aren’t Going to Like What Comes After America,” in which she sideswiped the U.S. President as the “bully in chief” and suggested that “in its 250th year, the Republic really is flirting with authoritarianism.” Freeland asserts, “Canada must fight back. The only thing a bully understands is strength.”
Hit them with new tariffs! Bully in chief! What is the cause of this deteriorating situation between Canada and the U.S. – what is really happening between Carney and Trump? The escalating agitation is now playing out on (at least) three different levels, and to understand this is the start of assessing how this crisis of trust between the two countries may be pulled back from the brink.
On a political level
The political differences between the Carney and Trump administrations have been drawn into sharp focus recently with Carney publicly embracing the brain trust of the Democrat establishment. The Carney Liberals flaunted their allegiance to the Democrats with the recent appointment of Maia Johnson, a fierce partisan who worked for the Clintons and Obama and has many close relations with backroom operatives like John Podesta and Huma Abedin. Most recently Republican nemesis Alex Soros has shown up in meetings in Toronto and Nova Scotia. The close relationship between the Obama/Soros Democrat axis in the U.S. and the Liberal Party of Canada is now being flaunted regularly by the Carney prime minister’s office – and this has been well noted in Washington circles as the Republicans and Democrats prepare for the midterm elections this fall.
Consider as well, the various policies of the two administrations which the leaders choose to highlight are diametrically opposed to one another. Trump has closed the borders and deporting migrants, defunded foreign aid and exited global treaties, halted DEI policies, and has spoken out against liberal gender policies. In contrast, Carney has maintained immigration levels and supports the migrant population (and he made an open border advocate, Mark Wiseman, the Ambassador to the U.S.), increased funds to U.N. programs and is advancing global treaties such as the WHO Pandemic Treaty, and he has maintained the progressive policies of his predecessor.
On a personal level
Carney and Trump are two very different men with different careers and different outlooks. At the same time, they are both egotistical and dismissive of people with contrarian views. To characterize the comparison, it is the central banker financier who believes in a managed economy versus the businessman who believes in the markets and free enterprise. At a base level, it is “the smartest guy in the room” and the first to always tell you so, competing with someone who prides himself (and boast he has never lost) in “the art of the deal.”
When the two men find themselves at international summits, the contrasting attitudes are often promoted by the respective administrations and their allies. Carney is talking about ruptures and a world of division, and ultimately the rise of a New World Order operating outside the influence of the U.S. Meanwhile, Trump talks of peace deals with Russia and Iran, striking new trade agreements with India and China, and championing a world of strong, sovereign nations. The few times the two men are actually in the same room, as was the case at the World Cup Final, it is hard not to see how pained they are tolerating one another.
On yet another level
There is increasing commentary in independent media about the contest between two champions and global order: the leader of elite globalists and central bankers who is forging alliances to establish a New World Order, and a leader of free enterprise who is fighting back against supranational organizations like the U.N. and World Economic Forum (WEF) and bolstering independent nation states. On one side we have the Canadian prime minister talking of the need for middle powers to align against the American hegemon, of Canada’s new strategic partnership with communist China, and with Canada being a part of a New World Order emerging from the European Union. On the other side, there is Trump.
Promethean Action, an U.S. right-of-centre policy group that focuses on America’s place in the world defending nationalism and an Alexander Hamiltonian economic vision, has carved out a place for itself among the American political punditry. Veteran Washington D.C. political reporter Susan Kokinda is a respected podcaster and writer who is commenting on the Carney and Trump contest. With respect to the new 50 per cent American tariffs on Canadian goods, she explains it within the context of Carney’s hiring of Maia Johnson, his ties to the U.K. leadership, and his meetings with Obama and Soros and the Democrat brain trust. For Kokinda it is all part of a high-stakes game being played between the president and the prime minister. In her insightful Promethean Action commentary, she explains:
“Here is the story you are being handed: ‘Trump slapped tariffs on Canadian goods. Mark Carney rose up as the defender of Canadian sovereignty. And the big, bad United States is bullying its little neighbour.’ But that is not the fight. If you look at Canada as a country, you are missing the point. Mark Carney’s function isn’t to defend Canada; it is to rescue the globalist system from the resurgent American republic.”
Later in the same commentary Kokinda describes Carney taking on a global leadership role, what she refers to as “The Inversion”:
“This is the Davos world of financial and climate technocrats, the world that treats sovereign nations as things to be managed above, and it use to run through London. It’s centre of gravity is now Carney… The Empire [a.k.a. ‘globalists’] is writing a new operating manual and for now it is being run from Ottawa, not London…. Carney is not defending Canada from Donald Trump. He is at the centre of the Empire’s new operating system for dealing with the United States. No more special relationship, rather an open attempt to confront the United States and to try and stop Donald Trump economically and strategically….”
This is certainly not a narrative Canadians will find in government-subsidized media, but it is one being discussed extensively in Washington (and Ottawa although nobody will speak to it). It is much more involved than the nightly news feting of our “elbows up” prime minister. It is more than the obvious political and personal differences between the two men. This is an involved contest to be watched like one would a 3-D chess match, where the attacks and countermoves are involved and impossible to track at any single level. It is little wonder Canadians are having difficulty following this game.
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
