Why Canada Isn’t Sweating Trump’s Mob TacticsThe Gang That Couldn’t Govern Straight: Under Trump, Canada’s most-favored-nation status endures, suckersKeeping a straight face has been perhaps the greatest achievement of Mark Carney's brief tenure as the prime minister of Canada. For months, Donald Trump has railed against Canada, threatening to turn America’s ungrateful northern neighbor into the 51st state, come what may, an achievement worthy of his visage gracing Mount Rushmore — in the same way Trump will annex Greenland, reclaim the Panama Canal, free Brazil’s corrupt former President Jair Bolsonaro, repeal the laws of climate change and gravity, and then impose tariffs on all of America’s nefarious trading partners, like the evil-doer Canada.
The only hitch, as the canny Carney has known all along: America has a thing called a “treaty” with Canada. Not one of Trump’s “deals,” the chaotic, almost certainly worthless and delusional transactions that involve the president imagining himself astride the world, TV remote in hand, a colossus of reactionary stupidity and cruelty finally delivering his promised revenge.
...The pervasive terror displayed by American institutions has disguised the fact that it is actually possible to stand up to a bully — as unassuming Canada just proved with its support for a Palestinian state. The truth is that under the terms of the USMCA, 95 percent of the goods and services that Canada exports to the United States arrive duty free, leaving a relatively small five percent subject to Trump’s imperial 35 percent tariff. But even that doesn’t capture the absurd reality. While Trump imposes across-the-board tariffs on countless countries, for reasons that escape any rational economic explanation, Canada is now perhaps the single most favored trading nation on earth. While scores of countries face Trump’s punitive tariffs, Canada largely trades tariff free with the United States because it doesn’t need a “deal” — it has a treaty.
Canada's prime minister Carney possesses degrees in economics from Harvard and Oxford, and they likely provided him with sufficient education to see the truth behind Trump’s nonsense — and ensure he has the social graces and political intelligence to not laugh out loud when the president imposes symbolic tariffs like a carnival barker. Leading the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Bank of England through the Brexit catastrophe of 2016 certainly have endowed Carney with the fortitude to quietly keep an eye on the larger prize and persist through times of economic lunacy.
In recent months, Canada has come to occupy a unique place in the world. Sent as a canary into the coal mine of Donald Trump’s addled mind, Canada has emerged from the toxic subterranean atmosphere alive and with the urgent news that it is possible to survive the craziness that has besieged the American body politic. Lay low and say as little as possible is Canada’s message, denying Carney the cheap political thrill of telling Canadians how incredibly fortunate they are that Trump is so stupid — and risk riling the vengeful and easily humiliated Trump.
Evan Scrimshaw / Scrimshaw Unscripted
Oh, and Trump was up on the White House roof today, probably checking out where his Mar-A-Lardo ballroom will be built, and the White House press went nuts, along with social media:
Carney, Trade Deals, And Usable Leverage
On How Much Leverage America Actually Has
....Unless and until the CUSMA exemption is off the table, this purgatory state is seemingly the best trade deal with the US of any country. And I don’t think the fact Trump refuses to pull that trigger to force Carney to accept a bad deal is unrelated to the fact the US economy is softer than baby shit.
Donald Trump’s leverage in this negotiation is that the US needs Canada less than we need them, and in the abstract that’s true. But the difference is, Trump ran on fixing an allegedly horrible economy and lowering prices, while Carney acknowledged that these were rocky economic times and promised to defend our national interest first and foremost....
... we could sign a deal today, or tomorrow, or at any step in this process. We could sign what the Europeans and the Japanese did, and it would be a deal that Trump lauds, and it would be terrible for Canadians. I’m quite sure if Carney were to say to Trump “fuck it, let’s just agree now, claim it’s a win-win,” he could sign the EU’s deal essentially verbatim. But it would be a betrayal not just of the country, but everything Carney ran on....
Guessing what will happen when you’re negotiating with a world leader who is as inconsistent and as fundamentally unserious as Trump is a fool’s game. ...But a lack of certainty shouldn’t stop us from pointing out basic realities - the US economy probably can’t handle significant tariffs on goods currently under the CUSMA exemption, and Trump’s already tenuous popularity probably can’t handle a recession. And if those two things are true, does Trump actually have the leverage he wants us all to think he does?
The basic truth about leverage is you only have it if you’re willing to use it. ... Trump only has leverage if he’s willing to inflict economic damage on America to get Canada to bend the knee. Right now I don’t think he can do it for entirely domestic reasons.
And if I’m right Mark Carney might get a better deal than we all thought a week ago.
View on Threads
View on Threads
People are seeing the roof stunt as sorta symbolic:CROWD BELOW: "Jump! Jump!"
— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 10:47 AM
[image or embed]
Moving back to Canada politics, we are just two weeks away from the Battle River—Crowfoot byelection.See you can't just say "America has fallen." You have to ease people into it, kindly. So when people ask how things are going you start out like "well, Trump went up on the roof today but I'm sure it will be okay. ".
— Bad Back Hat (@kenwhite.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 9:23 AM
This joke is likely only going to last until August 19, but its funny anyway:Just want to remind my fellow Canadians to enjoy these few weeks because Poilievre is itching to open his big stupid mouth and make everything awful again.
— PrairieGirl 🇨🇦 (@moosebemichelle.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 6:09 PM
View on Threads
Naaah.
🏃🏻 Run, Pierre, Run 🏃🏻 vt.tiktok.com/ZSSxsaWVD/
— Jeff's Fact Checker (@thunderbayed.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 9:16 PM
[image or embed]
It’s like Poilievre memorized Carney’s vision and repeated it at a news conference. Then ran away before reports could call him out.
— FDG (@f-g19.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 10:16 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment