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In his own twisted way, Donald Trump has become a unifying figure. He’s more politically divisive than ever, but his outright attacks on liberal democracy everywhere have managed to rally America’s traditional allies against a common threat — one he sees when he looks in the mirror.
After the shameful Oval Office ambush of President Volodymyr Zelenksyy, Trump announced he was suspending aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, thus aiding in Putin’s project of subjugating his neighbor. (Trump has since walked those measures back.) He escalated his trade war against Mexico and Canada, our closest trading partners, and incessantly talked about making Canada “the 51st state.” He told Congress he’s going to “get” Greenland “one way or the other,” then effectively killed NATO by announcing he’s not committed to defending America’s NATO allies.
All of that took place in the span of a single week, but Trump’s actions aren’t just random idiocy. They form a pattern of outright hostility and mounting aggression toward America’s closest friends.
Don’t mess with Canada
Trump claims that imposing sweeping 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada would hold them “accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.” This rationale is bogus, particularly in Canada’s case, as just 0.2 percent of fentanyl that enters the US is seized at the northern border.
The reality is that Trump’s economic assault on Canada is an escalation of his own expansionist ambitions. Trump has argued for months now that the US should annex Canada, and immiserating the country economically would be one way to make it ripe for the picking. White House officials have even started using rhetoric that evokes war-mongering from the George W. Bush administration during the run up to the second Iraq war.
Not so long ago, Canadian officials insisted that Trump was “telling jokes” and “teasing us” with his talk of taking over Canada. But no longer.
“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy,” then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a news conference earlier this month. “Because that will make it easier to annex us. First of all, that’s never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state.”
We shouldn’t lose sight of what an astonishing statement this is for an ally to make about the American president. Trudeau went as far as to directly link Trump’s strongarm tactics to his cozy relationship with Putin.
“Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend,” he said. “At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.” (Watch below.)
But Trump clearly understands little about the Canadian people if he thought his trade war would make Canada surrender to his will. In fact, he’s united different factions of the country around shared opposition to him.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rose to prominence as a populist who supported the 2022 anti-government “Freedom Convoy” protests. He’s staked out positions on trans issues, immigration, and crime that closely align with Trump’s, and he said that “after eight years of Trudeau, life is increasingly a living hell for the working-class people of this country.” But Trump’s trade war has torched any budding bromance with Poilevre, who said Trump “just stabbed America’s best friend in the back.”
As Trump’s tariff debacle drags on, Poilievre’s rhetoric has grown even sharper.
“My message to the president is this: Knock if off. Stop the chaos. You are hurting your workers, your consumers and most immediately destroying trillions of dollars of wealth on your own stock market,” he said.
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, leader of the United Conservative Party, has also consistently opposed Trudeau’s policies, particularly on covid and vaccine mandates. She attempted to get on Trump’s good side by visiting Mar-a-Lago in January. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, she personally blamed Trudeau for putting Canada in a difficult position with the current administration. But once Trump actually started acting on his threats, Smith publicly expressed support for Trudeau’s strong response to Trump’s “foolish” tariffs.
“Now is the time for us to unite as a province and a country,” she said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been similarly moved by Trump’s imperialist rhetoric. Ford said he was happy Trump won last November, but he’s singing a different tune now. While doing the rounds on cable news this week, Ford called Trump’s trade war on Canada “crazy” and blamed him for the economic damage it will do on both sides of the border.
“It’s called ‘President Trump’s recession,’” he said.
Trudeau’s successor as leader of the Liberal Party and the incoming prime minister, Mark Carney, has picked up where his predecessor left off. He said this week he’ll meet with Trump, but only after the president shows “respect for Canadian sovereignty.” During his first speech as Liberal leader, he brought up the orange menace to boos.
“There’s someone who’s trying to weaken our economy,” Carney said of Trump, spurring loud boos at the party gathering. “He’s attacking Canadian workers, families, and businesses. We can’t let him succeed.”
“This won’t be business as usual,” Carney said. “We will have to do things that we haven’t imagined before, at speeds we didn’t think possible.”
Canada’s sometimes rancorous provincial governments have temporarily paused any beefs they have with Ottawa to rally in opposition to the common threat Trump represents. Polls show Canadians overwhelmingly support retaliatory measures against Trump’s tariffs, and most hold a negative view of the US president.
A “Buy Canadian” movement has taken off as a demonstration of economic self-preservation and national pride for people who don’t see the humor in Trump repeatedly referring to the former Canadian prime minister as “Governor Trudeau.” Even the Québécois, who themselves almost separated from the country in the 1990s, have been seen singing “O Canada” and draping themselves in the Maple Leaf.
Trump’s trade war with Canada doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of his overall antagonistic stance toward US allies — one that stands in contrast with his warm embrace of dictators. Poilievre reinforced this point when he said about Trump, “You’re attacking a cherished friend of the United States and you’re strengthening America’s enemies by going after America’s friends.”
Both Canada’s liberal and conservative leaders are fully aligned in how they’ve framed Trump’s threat to their nation: He’s not kidding around, and he’s not simply a buffoon in over his head. His actions are calculated and deliberately destructive. The president provokes and disparages America’s allies. Even worse, he’s actively serving as Putin’s adoring wingman.
Last Monday, center-right French Senator Claude Malhuret stated in a fiery speech that “the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin,” and he called out Trump’s territorial designs on Greenland, Panama, and Canada. The image he painted of the current US government was harsh, scathing, yet sadly accurate. (Watch below.)
“Washington became the court of Nero, an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers and a jester under ketamine in charge of the purification of the public service,” Malhuret said. “Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, that he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies, and threaten you to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.”
Germany’s conservative leader Friedrich Merz, who’s set to become the next chancellor, has also accused the Trump administration of aligning the US with Russia.
“It is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” Merz said — another unprecedented and damning statement from an ally. Merz has stated that his biggest priority is to “strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
Merz, like Poilievre, is a conservative who could’ve found common cause with Trump. Even far-right French national assembly member Marine Le Pen has distanced herself from Trump and Vice President JD Vance, which is less a reflection of moral character on her part and more a statement on how unpopular the current US administration has become.
A toxic brand
Trump isn’t just increasingly loathed in Canada and Europe — he’s severely damaged the relationship between America and its allies.
Polls show that since Trump took office again, roughly a third of people in Germany (32 percent), France (34 percent) and the UK (37 percent) hold a positive opinion of the United States. Now, only one in six Germans consider the US a partner they can trust, and 75 percent of Germans polled believe that NATO members can’t rely on the US to uphold its Article 5 commitments.
Trump’s unwarranted attacks on Canada have galvanized support for the current government and fueled a stunning political comeback for the Liberal Party. Liberals tailed Conservatives by more than 20 points just six weeks ago, but new polling shows the parties now effectively tied heading toward elections later this year.
For the moment, Trump has predictably retreated like a typical bully. But yesterday he reiterated that he’s serious about forging ahead with tariffs against America’s neighbors on April 2.
Canadians are questioning whether they can ever fully trust the American government again, and this could result in a longterm change in how Canada does business with the US. Trump’s trade war is a serious threat to the US economy as well, and his foreign policy has diminished the country on the world stage.
Yet Trump’s approval, while declining, is in line with where it was in March 2017. Republican voters still follow his lead, no matter how self-destructive: 57 percent support his tariffs on Canada even though economists warn they will raise prices on many basic necessities (and make a further mockery out of his campaign promise to lower prices on day one).
But if there’s anything that will shake Trump’s political standing with Americans who naively voted for him hoping he’d improve the economy, it’s a recession. Low information voters might not be moved by Trump squandering America’s soft power or alienating our allies, but his trade war hitting them in the pocketbook is another matter. Even Fox News is having an increasingly difficult time shielding viewers from bad economic news.
Both at home and abroad, Americans are touching the stove and touching it hard. We don’t know why Trump is doing Putin’s bidding, but we do know that by creating senseless tensions between the US and our historic allies in North America and Europe, he’s doing it all the same.
That’s it for today
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