By Dian Cohen

Local Journalism Initiative

In hindsight, the first Trump presidency playbook is easy to read: Step #1: Gut punch. Step #2: Waiting for your response.

The 2.0 playbook is shaping up. The threat of tariffs directed at us is not a one-off. Trump is nothing if not an equal-opportunity bully. Trump’s 2.0 Day 1 to-do list is long, but Canada has to respond to only a few of the directives. Unless our opinion is sought, we have nothing to do with rolling back protection of transgender students from discrimination, reshaping the US federal government by firing thousands of employees, halting wind projects, rolling back targets that encourage the switch to electric cars, or abolishing standards for companies to become more environmentally friendly. Nor do we have to consider options for ending the Ukraine-Russia war, firing Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted federal cases against him, starting the mass deportation of illegal migrants, pardoning people who were arrested during the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 or dealing with Hamas.

All these are on the Day 1 list, and while some can be accomplished immediately by executive order, others need the approval of Congress and still others will take months and years for the Trump administration to put the apparatus in place to accomplish the task.

Our Prime Minister is, as of this date, paying mucho attention to the stuff that’s important to our economic wellbeing, namely, tariffs, national security, trade, fossil fuels and the US dollar. These are also on the Day 1 list, which is why the president-elect is starting early, before he’s officially president. He’s busy and expecting to be busier.

That being said, let’s look at the issues in no particular order. They’re all of long-standing importance to the president-elect and all interconnected.

1. He wants the US to be self-sufficient in energy — as a climate change skeptic, Trump sees greater value in the US’s as-yet-unexploited fossil fuels than in the transition to cleaner energy. Canada can help in several ways. First, we can point out that as a time-honored trade partner, the vast amount of oil and gas we religiously send to the US each year is almost as good as made in the USA. We can point out that because of the vast amount of electricity we send to America – mainly New England, New York, the Midwestern states, and the Pacific Northwest — not only will Americans not freeze in the dark, but it’s also clean energy. We can either offer to help develop fossil fuels via pipelines or something else or offer our views on climate change and the need to transition.
2. Trump sees trade not as a mutually beneficial exchange but as a zero-sum game — a “win” for the US means a loss for others. If others benefit, it must come at the expense of the US. Hence a trade deficit is a bad thing. Canada is way down the list of countries the US owes. China, the ten southeast Asian states that make up Asean, and Mexico are at the top of the list. Canada’s job is to keep this perspective in view along with the fact that what we export to the US is for the most part totally integrated into American refining and manufacturing facilities. Hence it can be truly said that when Canada exports petroleum and natural gas, auto parts and other components to the US, it is contributing to the protection of American jobs.
3. The president-elect wants the US dollar to remain the strongest currency in the world and the world’s reserve currency. The US dollar has held this primacy since before World War II and is in no danger of losing it. The BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates) angered Trump by saying it’s fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system. Hence the tariff threat against them. Canada’s role is to reiterate that our trade with the United States is settled in US dollars and that there is zero possibility the Canadian dollar will ever be a threat.
4. If the US agrees to be in an alliance, Trump expects everyone to pay their fair share of the cost. Trump is not a fan of alliances, preferring to go it alone. He wants to deal with the few alliances the US is in: trade alliances like CUSMA (the Canada-US-Mexico trade agreement or as the US prefers USMCA); defence alliances of which NATO is the most prominent. Besides these, the US and Canada have several national security agreements, which include defense, immigration, and law enforcement. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) provides for aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning for all of North America. The Safe Third Country Agreement is to manage refugee access at the Canada–US land border; cross-border crime agreements are to exchange information on immigration and visa applicants and to work together to counter crime.

Tariff threats against us are linked specifically to these agreements. Canada has to come clean where it has fumbled the ball. We need to present a plan which closes the gap between where we are and where we should be. For NATO, that means getting to 2-3 percent of GDP asap. For NORAD it means stepping up our presence in the Arctic – China and Russia are already there. For the other agreements, it means demonstrating that Canadian border security has already been stepped up in response to the growing numbers of illegal migrants and drugs crossing the border, while acknowledging that border security needs tightening and more coordination with US Border Control.

For the president-in-waiting, threatening or activating tariffs will bring any of the above issues into sharp focus of a trading partner. Whether threatening or activating, the nature of the relationship will change, with the partner either changing behavior or losing more than the US. Team Canada is now fleshing out the nitty-gritty of policy possibilities that will placate the head of the world’s most powerful nation, a nation that has leverage over virtually every other and a president with little compunction about using it. That’s all we need to know about Trump 2.0. That and a sentiment the President-elect expressed in a Time magazine interview last April: He said he made a crucial mistake in his first term: he was too nice. “I don’t think I’ll do that again…” 

Cohendian560@gmail.com