Trudeau’s Tariff Triumph

A Truly Great Victory

I think it is fair to say that I have not been a particularly friendly voice towards Justin Trudeau in recent months. It’s not personal animus that has led me to this place, and it’s always been my hope that he would be able to step up and fix the crises we face. And today, and through this tariff war, he has absolutely stepped up, and handled the threat admirably.

Make no mistake, Trudeau has masterfully handled the American administration, striking the right tone of tolerating the quips and attacks and Governor “jokes” while standing firm. Instead of showing docile weakness like some advocated, Saturday’s tough measures seemed to spur a last second reconsideration on Trump’s part, which gave us the room to get a deal. The first, last, and only job of a Canadian Prime Minister is to advance Canada’s interests, and getting this deal today without giving anything of significant displeasure up is fantastic.

Let’s be clear - what Trudeau ”announced” today is all good things. If the outcome of Trump’s tariff threats is actually that we take money laundering more seriously and stop some more drugs or guns at the border then fantastic. Those are good things! Now, I don’t think there will be more to get on the drugs and fentanyl front because there’s just not much of a cross border trade, but if we can increase the % of drug trade caught even slightly it’s a good thing. Same with Trump’s threats on defence spending - we should be spending 2% and he kicks our asses to get there sooner and to take our military more seriously then a very bad President will have achieved a couple of good outcomes.

We didn’t have to compromise on anything of serious import for this deal - it’s not like the Canadian government is somehow pro-fentanyl or pro-cocaine or whatever, so taking them “more seriously” is not a compromise. The dollar amounts are significant, sure, but in the grand scheme of a $60B deficit and a multi trillion dollar economy it’s a rounding error - especially when the tariff relief measures would easily be tens of billions.

The creation of a Fentanyl Czar is a hilarious Americanism - the idea that Taking Fentanyl Seriously means appointing a Czar is one of my favourite dumb things about America that serious people pretend makes sense. It’s an utterly ceremonial position designed to make the Americans happy that we are, again, Taking Fentanyl Seriously, so it’s worth doing. Because, let’s be clear, all of this is worth doing.

The thing that no amount of anti-America hyperbole from Canada can change is that they have us by the balls. There are plenty of things we can do to make the vice slightly less tight, also known as growing export markets and tearing down interprovincial trade barriers, but they have us by the balls and they know it. The problem with living beside the richest country in the world is it is always in both of our interests to integrate more and more and do everything in our power to benefit from their prosperity, their markets, and their wealth. Diversifying markets is smart, but it makes sense to deal with America for a thousand reasons, and they know it.

If we are going to claim to find Donald Trump and Elon Musk beyond the pale morally, the answer is we’re going to increase trade with the Chinese or India? That makes a ton of sense, definitely, if you have the moral consistency of Donald Trump or Elon Musk. The Europeans are nice, but they’re a continent in decline led by useless leaders in basically every important country. For all the genuine risks, America is still a democratic country with enduring majorities for western security and economic prosperity in both the House and Senate. We should do more to protect ourselves and give ourselves leverage, but at the end of the day the reality is that we will always be at the whim of the Americans to some extent.

Justin Trudeau has understood this fact, and he has avoided antagonizing the Trump Transition and now Admin as much as possible since he won. There can be questions about the PM’s political strategy leading up to November, but Trudeau deftly avoided any quote or any story that would offend Trump or destroy the relationship. The decision to go to Mar A Lago was a similar move of deference, and while I don’t like the photo any more than anybody reading this, I understood it as a good move, because all that happens when you pretend to have leverage you don’t have is you look like a fucking idiot when the chips are down.

The honest truth is that no Prime Minister - Trudeau, Harper, Chretien, Mulroney, Poilievre, Carney, or whoever in either the past or future - can avoid the basic truth that we are a country that depends on American goodwill to survive and to thrive. It is a fact of our geography and the nature of the 20th Century’s arc, and there is little we can do about it. When Donald Trump inevitably does something like this to Poilievre or some future antagonistic President does it to a Conservative PM I’ll say the exact same thing, which is it is our job to defend ourselves against the Americans and that they need to do whatever it takes, as infuriating or demeaning as it might feel, to do so.

Being the Canadian Prime Minister against an isolationist, moronic US President is a hell of a job. Justin Trudeau has handled this recent crisis about as well as anybody ever could. As a final act of his Prime Ministership it is a moment worthy of considerable praise and admiration, and as someone who is a Liberal because of his 2015 campaign I’m grateful that he has gotten this moment. Whatever you think of the man, he has stepped up when the moment demanded, and it is to all of our benefits he did so.

Thank you, Prime Minister.