U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s increasingly bold threats against Canada’s economy and sovereignty suggest “there’s something dangerous brewing” and a serious response is needed, a U.S. analyst says.
David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic who has covered U.S. politics for decades, doesn’t believe Trump actually wants to make Canada a U.S. state, but says the fact the incoming president keeps repeating that idea means he’s eying some kind of aggressive action.
“If you’re living with a mentally unstable partner and he says, ‘I’m going to push you down the stairs,’ he may not literally mean to push you down the stairs,” Frum told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.
“If he then adds, ‘I’m going to chop you up with a knife,’ he may not literally mean to chop you up with a knife, but you’d better have a plan because he’s going to do something. There’s something dangerous brewing that you need to pay attention to.
“Does he mean some plan of aggression and hostility toward Canada? He pretty obviously does.”
Trump stunned international allies last week during a press conference where he refused to rule out using military action to take control of Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally, as well as the Panama Canal.
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He also said he’d use “economic force” to compel Canada to join the U.S. and get rid of the “artificially drawn line” between the two countries, dismissed the need for Canadian imports like cars and dairy, and once again threatened “substantial tariffs” on Canadian goods that would damage the Canadian economy.
Trump has not backed down from his threat of 25-per cent tariffs despite initially linking it to demands for enhanced border security, which the Canadian government has sought to address.
Frum said Canadians should brace for that “tariff aggression,” which Trump can pursue with several unilateral actions, including declaring a national emergency to justify them.
He added Canada will also be impacted by Trump’s aggression toward Latin American allies, particularly Mexico.
Trump and vice-president-elect JD Vance have said they want to deploy the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels and stop the flow of dangerous narcotics into the U.S., which could be considered an act of war.
Canada may also soon see the arrival of thousands of people fearing deportation from the U.S. seeking refuge from Trump’s pledged crackdown on illegal residents and immigration, Frum said.
“The immigration threat that now looms in North America is people moving from the United States to Canada,” he said.
“If you can get yourself to the border and walk across, you can have the benefit of Canada’s more permissive rules.”
Frum said Trump and the people around him have a “much more settled animosity” toward U.S. allies and institutions heading into his second term, which will require a different approach from the Canadian government.
While Frum believes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government “did quite a good job” managing U.S. relations during Trump’s first term by making some concessions while mobilizing allies, “I don’t know (if) that playbook is going to work again.”
“In (Trump’s first term), messing up North America was not a high priority for Trump, whereas (in his second term), it really is,” he said.
“He doesn’t believe in collective security. He believes in domination and being dominated, and he wants the United States to dominate because that’s the only relationship he can understand.”
Whoever takes over as prime minister from Trudeau, who has announced his intent to resign after a new Liberal party leader is chosen in March, needs to be willing to entertain all potential responses to Trump — no matter how “crazy.”
“You need to get a dozen very experienced Ottawa and provincial civil servants and national security people in a room and say, ‘There are no limits here, I want to hear your ideas,’” he said.
“Conciliation, concession, working with partners, that’s Plan A. But you really need to have a Plan B of much more radical ideas that say, ‘You know what? This president may not be interested in conciliation, and may not be someone that can be mollified by concessions.’”
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As Trump threatens Canada, ‘there’s something dangerous brewing’: analyst
