One of the most pernicious myths in American politics is the notion that government should be run like a business. It’s preposterous, yet popular. One of the worst mayors in New Orleans history, C Ray Nagin made that notion a cornerstone of his first campaign. Donald Trump also thinks that government should be run like a business; his business, which is run like a Mafia crew.
Team MAGA has brought Trump Organization tactics to the world stage. They’re flopping, bigly. They seem to think that foreign leaders are like Republican politicians who can be steamrolled by the Kaiser of Chaos and his lackeys. Wrong. They have agency, especially Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney:
The morning after he pulled negotiators from trade talks in Washington and set off a new round of American tariffs, Prime Minister Mark Carney called the U.S. proposal “a bad deal” and said Canada was “at war” with the United States.
“We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed,” he said in an address to Canadians on Saturday. “We recognize that sometimes, its signature is written in pencil.”
“We cannot accept what they offered and we will not give what they asked,” he added. “We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or undermine our key industries.”
Team Trump continues to misunderstand the toughness and resolve of our Canadian neighbors. Resuming this trade war is the latest in a string of unforced errors made by the administration. Mark Carney has an electoral mandate to stand up to this extortion attempt. Carney knows that the only way to deal with a bully is to push back.
Negotiations seemed to be going well when the American side made unreasonable and extreme demands. Team Trump mistakenly expected Canada to cave. They did not.
One of the encroachments on Canadian sovereignty that crashed the deal was a culture war demand:
The offered deal, or at least the details that have emerged, veered significantly from purely economic matters. Apparently, one of the final sticking points was an American demand that Quebec undo its French language laws and French language cultural protections. French, in Canada, is not a business matter. Its place in our nation transcends absolutely any market-based consideration. It is not something that gets “put on the table.”
The quote comes from an op-ed piece with an uplifting title: America Came For Canada. We Said No. The author is Stephen Marche, a proud Canadian.
Mais oui for saying mais non, Canada. Appeasement never works.
This trade war with our closest friend in the world is stupid on every level:
- The tariffs are likely illegal.
- It’s economically illiterate and destructive.
- It’s politically disastrous for Republicans running for the senate in Michigan, Maine, and Ohio all of which are reliant on trade with Canada.
That’s the only thing about this mishigas I like. It will help return Sherrod Brown to the senate where he belongs.
Having written this diatribe against MAGA arrogance and idiocy, I know that a TACO is always possible. The Insult Comedian has a habit of making extreme proposals then backing down in the face of backlash. He has a short attention span but Prime Minister Carney does not.
We may be neighbors but Stephen Marche nails an important difference between how Americans and Canadians operate:
…one of the greatest discrepancies I noticed between Canadians and Americans — and Canadian and American men in particular — was in their basic idea of what earned respect. For Americans, the capacity to project power, the ability to make things happen, to win, are the primary virtues. In Canada, the defining virtue is toughness, the capacity to endure.
Vive la différence.
Repeat after me: Mais oui, Canada. Fuck yeah, Mark Carney.
The last word goes to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra:
