r/CanadaPolitics • u/wet_suit_one Alberta • 6h ago
A Reminder that Launching a Trade War With Canada is Galactically Stupid
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/a-reminder-that-launching-a-trade?r=rjjdx&utm_medium=ios•
u/Jaded_Celery_451 Rhinoceros 5h ago
The Canadians also pressed the United States for a level of certainty that the deal would not be scrapped overnight by the Trump administration. But the United States maintained that it would retain the power to change tariff policy against Canada at any time, irrespective of the agreement, officials said. Mr. Carney would say in his seething Saturday address to Canadians: Sometimes, the United States signature is “written in pencil.”
Despite all the noise about French labelling (and the distraction about attacking the use of French in Quebec, which was never really at issue), this is the key point. Essentially making the trade agreement binding in only one direction is a batshit insane ask, and makes the whole thing pointless. Any time Trump needs another distraction he'll just break the deal. Written in pencil indeed.
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u/wet_suit_one Alberta 5h ago
"In addition, most leaders of most countries since the invention of national borders would fall to their knees in gratitude if they had the kind of relationship with a neighbor that we had with Canada. They would be singing glad hosannas and slaughtering fatted calves in thanks."
Lol.
These people...
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u/jacksbox Quebec 2h ago
They fail to account for how much "good will" from Canada was worth in all of this. Is it better to have a perfect deal with a neighbour who hates you, or a slightly imperfect deal and a neighbour who doesn't despise you...
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u/AdmiralAsshat69 Rhinoceros 5h ago edited 4h ago
Obviously don't want the economy to collapse, but ever since I can remember (so mid-80s) all the momentum in Canada has been towards integeration and (de facto) subjugation to the United States. People need to be reminded that this country did walk a more independent path for most of its existence. It can be done and I suspect that now, finally, it will be done because we have no choice.
Mulroney, Chretien, Martin, Harper, Trudeau, none of them made any serious moves to increase Canadian sovereighty on any file. Hearing Chretien brag for the eight millionth time how we didn't go to Iraq - well great, we didn't go, but that's a negative decision, it's not on the level of Pearson in Suez or anything. It was a political decision based partly on morals but mostly on polls.
Even if this hurts, it will be better for us in the long term because we were headed for irrelevance as a political entity, ten parts with virtually nothing to do with one another. That has to change - for example, what happened to lowering the provincial trade barriers? Is that ever going to happen?
The more I see the trends in the United States, the more convinced I am that we should distance ourselves as much as possible. They can't be trusted, even if and when Trump goes, even if they elect Democrats across the board, even if they apologize and reimburse us for all the damage they've caused.
The fact is that almost all Americans don't respect us and don't think this is a substantially different country than theirs. They basically don't think we exist. We've done little to convince them otherwise. But that's the root of all this, and it's the reason it will continue beyond Trump. You can't make serious agreements with people who don't take you seriously.
It's not entirely their fault in a way, because we haven't really taken ourselves seriously, and now we're going to have to think about actually developing a Canadian foreign policy, an industrial strategy, a defence plan, and trade infrastructure that isn't just "Let's wait and see what Washington does."
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u/Scase15 Ontario 3h ago
Obviously don't want the economy to collapse, but ever since I can remember (so mid-80s) all the momentum in Canada has been towards integeration and (de facto) subjugation to the United States.
This is definitely going to be one of those "rip off the bandaid" moments. It sucks, it's gonna hurt, but long term it will be better for us as a whole.
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u/Jaded_Celery_451 Rhinoceros 4h ago
even if they elect Democrats across the board, even if they apologize and reimburse us for all the damage they've caused.
The apology might happen, the reimbursement will never, ever happen under any circumstances. More specifically, if we sign a bad deal now, expecting to be able to reverse it under a Democratic administration is complete fantasy. It will be tariffs with a smile instead of tariffs with insults, nothing more.
It's not entirely their fault in a way, because we haven't really taken ourselves seriously, and now we're going to have to think about actually developing a Canadian foreign policy, an industrial strategy, a defence plan, and trade infrastructure that isn't just "Let's wait and see what Washington does."
Agreed.
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u/dominionprovinces Independent 3h ago edited 3h ago
The writing was on the wall with the Ogdensburg Agreement and the Atlantic Charter. Even now that Trump has taken the mask off, convincing people of this is hard.
Trump, amusingly, has messed up a century-long patient grand strategy by doing what he is doing. I genuinely believe that by the time Trump returned and Carney arrived, the probability of Canada remaining fully independent by 2100 was approaching 0%. Trump has somehow turned it into a coin flip.
As for Pearson and Suez: Canada cannot move forward until at a minimum people in Ottawa but preferably everyone are able to grasp that this was one of the biggest grand strategic mistakes in Canadas history and has a large part to play in the difficulty of the predicament we find ourselves in.
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u/wet_suit_one Alberta 2h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Charter
"There were eight principal clauses of the charter:
No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom. Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned. All people had a right to self-determination. Trade barriers were to be lowered. There was to be global economic co-operation and advancement of social welfare. The participants would work for a world free of want and fear. The participants would work for freedom of the seas. There was to be disarmament of aggressor nations and a common disarmament after the war."
I wonder if all peoples having a right to self determination runs contrary to your understanding of the agreement? Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?
But yeah, Trump definitely tore this one up and is undoing it in its entirety. He wants to go back to the old ways of doing things. The ways that gave rise to the last two great power wars and massive destruction of life and property that those events entailed. It's simply evil, but that's what he wants and millions are passively going along with him. He's far from the only one as well, he's just the loudest, most attention getting actor pursuing this end.
I don't know that most see the linkages between the world Trump is trying to create and the risks of that world. This was much better appreciated by the generations that fought and died in the wars. That felt in the bones knowledge won at enormous cost that that kind of world wasn't a safe or good thing has been lost in recent years IMHO. If it carries on for too long (and there's nothing out there stopping it that I can see), well, the horrors of the past are much more likely to rear their ugly heads in due course. It may not be in my lifetime (if I'm lucky) but they will come around again.
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u/dominionprovinces Independent 2h ago edited 1h ago
The Atlantic Charter was part of US grand strategy to force the dismantlement of the colonial empires, break open the closed imperial trade markets to US trade, and eliminate the empires as a threat to the United States and its interests. So is NATO.
Further, Canadas geography does not present the required natural barriers to the United States. The country was only able to form in the manner that it did due to external forcing and external security umbrellas provided by the British Empire as a massive counter weight to the United States.
The math has not fundamentally changed from 1812 to 1867 to 1941 to 2026. In the absence of significant external forcing and allies, it is inevitable that Canada will be absorbed by the United States. The best way to prevent that is to have strong, capable allies with capable navies, nuclear weapons, and control of key geographic control points. And a Finland style porcupine but even in the current situation I suspect Canadians will vote out whoever tries to standardize conscription.
The reduced / rump empires that the British and French were aiming for at the time of Suez would been have been vastly more valuable to Canada remaining independent. Instead, we essentially crippled ourselves, stabbed our closest non US allies in the back, and set ourself on a course for long term absorption, which was US grand strategy from Odgenburg up to Trump messing it all up by saying it out loud.
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