Donald Trump just failed
One of Donald Trump’s favorite scare tactics has been to talk about Canada as though it’s the 51st state, though it’s really been going disastrously just about every time he opens his mouth. Beyond trying to get his base fired up about territorial expansion (something it doesn’t really seem to be doing), it’s caused conservative parties to lose in embarrassing fashion just about everywhere – including Canada, which Pierre Polievre was expected to win handily – and ended up not just losing the election for the Conservatives, but also his own parliamentary seat.
It seems inevitable, then, that this would come up at the first meeting in the Oval Office between Canada’s new PM Mark Carney and Donald Trump – with the latter making something of a sales pitch to occupy Canada. Looking tough on the issue would have scored points for Donald Trump regardless of how stupid the plan is – and probably Trump’s mistake is that he thinks Carney is as dumb as the average Trumper – which is why his sales pitch to take over Canada sounded more or less like one of his stump speeches – essentially calling the occupation of a sovereign nation a ‘tax cut’ for Canadian citizens.
It didn’t work. Carney strongly retorted that Canada is not for sale and won’t be for sale – ever – with the emphasis that Canada’s citizens made this clear in last month’s election when they voted for the party they believed would stand up strongly to Donald Trump. Carney pushed further, saying he intended for Canada to fully back NATO, something he called on Trump to do as well – and something that Trump’s autocratic handlers do not want to hear. If this is what Trump was riding on to make him look strong, he’s on video being rebuked on his own turf in embarrassing fashion.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making