Trump is being puppeted by Carney; ok, just be honest at how difficult it is to sell this.
I’m sure you earnestly believe it, that Carney is pulling 5D chess strings for the sole goal of tanking our trade relations (thus ensuring his own value in the eyes of Canadians), but be honest. You have QUITE the uphill battle selling this. Its convoluted and conspiracy minded.
You are allowed to believe it, but you should be honest as to what it is.
Why could Canada having a GDP a few percent higher change his behaviour?
It wouldn’t matter if Canada was ten times as wealthy, Trump could treat it the same. Canada doesn’t have any means to control Trump, and having a stronger economy wouldn’t change that at all.
WTF? First, we absolutely do mine vast amounts of metals, precious, semi-precious, and completely ordinary.
There’s almost no significant mineral in which our mining sector isn’t in the top 10 globally, and we’re top 5 in a large number (except silver, for some reason we don’t produce much of that). First in potash, second in uranium, 4th in aluminum, platinum and titanium, 5th in gold and nickel, 7th in cobalt and molybdenum, 8th in iron, zinc, and lithium, 10th in copper. [cite] The only countries that out-produce us are China, Russia, US, and Australia, and three of those have many times our population. And the other has never heard of permafrost.
Could the mining sector be larger still? Sure. Is it held back to some extent by regulations? Absolutely, and it damn well should be. Mining is one of the most environmentally destructive activities humans do, and with no oversight mining companies will happily destroy entire ecosystems. Are there completely untapped riches in the north? Yes of course, but exploiting them would require mind-bogglingly vast infrastructure investments to even begin tapping into. It’s also not mandatory that we denude ourselves of natural resources at the maximum rate possible. It’s okay to pass some mineral reserves on to our grandchildren.
Second, you’re happy to suggest halting hypothetical mineral exports to the US as trading leverage, but your Premier screams bloody murder when the same is suggested for oil & gas. And mineral exports have been suggested as leverage, potash in particular (Moe was no happier than Smith) because it would be devastating to the US agriculture sector. And iron and aluminum are subject to tariffs, which while harmful to our economy is significantly more harmful to the US economy. We don’t even get to use that as leverage, because Trump is already shooting himself in the foot with those.
It’s practically impossible to use trade leverage against Trump, because Trump is not an economically rational actor. He thinks restricting trade is a good thing, so threatening to restrict trade has no impact on him, except in absolutely nuclear cases like turning off energy taps that everyone except Doug Ford is loath to do.
No, the Canadian electorate is being played by Carney.
Either Carney is the competent capable banker/financier who himself said he can make a deal with Trump, in which case he would know that continually being antagonistic isn’t a path forward for this to happen, or he isn’t, and is just an opportunistic globalist who’s never held an operational role in his life and doesn’t have a clue how to fix things.
The keystone cops routine so far tells the story.
We didn’t elect the guy who promised to fix all this, did we?
So don’t blame us for protecting ourselves when the same voters who elected him and past incompetents have been trying to kill our industries for over a decade.
Next you’ll blame Trump for the canola tariffs as well.
No, those are Biden’s fault.
Oo, this is a great trick. What is Carney thinking about right this second?
How all his investments in the US are doing great?
Carney hasn’t been antagonistic. The ad isn’t even antagonistic, its just a direct appeal to the American people (to trade with Canada like Regan Republicans used to value).
Since Ford is an antagonistic person, all your conspiracy theories of Carney puppet mastering Trump/trade now must have those puppet strings first go through Ford THEN to Trump. This is growing convoluted. A simpler evaluation of these events is that Trump is just showing again that he isn’t a rational and good faith actor; instead, someone who throws everything away, with no warning, based on wild fits, without any logic.
Carney was advancing his trade agreement agenda with Trump, and Ford was directly appealing to the American public; both these tacts are a reflection of their individual politics, personalities, official obligations, and strategies. Ford wants to go MUCH more confrontational with Trump (far more then an ad). Carney doesn’t.
Your evaluation of events ignores all these competing interests. “Carney is orchestrating all events like clockwork, all behind the scenes for his own convoluted private gains.” Its an almost Scooby-doo level of analysis. Carney is not Joker in the Dark Knight. He is not playing 5D Trump-chess for dubious selfish gains.
Except the ad doesn’t add the relevant parts about Reagan using tariffs when required. So, yeah, antagonistic.
Quick AI output on Reagan tariffs.
| Sector | Action | Tariff/Quota size | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steel | Voluntary import limits | ~18.5 % cap | Domestic protection |
| Autos | Japan export restraint | 1.68 M units | Short-term relief |
| Motorcycles | Tariff | 45 % | Harley recovery |
| Semiconductors | Tariff | 100 % | Japan concessions |
| Machine tools, textiles, sugar | Quotas / restrictions | Various | Political protectionism |
A simpler evaluation of these events is that Trump is just showing again that he isn’t a rational and good faith actor; instead, someone who throws everything away, with no warning, based on wild fits, without any logic.
A simple evaluation is that Ford placed ads in the US using images of a politician, with possible copyright issues, misleading in what Reagan actually said, in an attempt to influence the public directly which might lead to foreign influence in upcoming elections. People would be shitting bricks if the US had done the reverse.
A $75M ad campaign that resulted in 10% higher tariffs…
Your evaluation of events ignores all these competing interests. “Carney is orchestrating all events like clockwork, all behind the scenes for his own convoluted private gains.” Its an almost Scooby-doo level of analysis. Carney is not Joker in the Dark Knight. He is not playing 5D Trump-chess for dubious selfish gains.
Ah, so you’re going for the guy is incompetent as he can’t seem to make a deal, keep his promises or reign in his Team Canada supporters when they are about to jeopardize those same negotiations with bone head moves even though he had advance notice to do so?
One; please don’t quote AI. Just do the minimum amount of work and provide citations for the arguments you want to make. I’m not going to fact check your AI result for you.
Two; whether Regan was true to his own values is beside the point. Ford’s ad was appealing to those values, not particularly antagonistically in light of Ford’s normal press conferences and interviews with American news/media.
People would be shitting bricks if the US had done the reverse.
A $75M ad campaign that resulted in 10% higher tariffs…
Do you think the PM would act in this way? Do you REALLY think any Canadian PM would or even could do what Trump does daily? This is the problem with fascistic Rule of Man. Everything is done by fiat, decrees King Solomon style. If the king gets cranky, no need to adhere to any sort of stable institutional procedure. “Off with the fool’s head!”
Your adherence to this convoluted conspiracy of Carney as a puppet master requires you to sane wash Trump and his actions. It requires you to attribute FAR more good faith then any Canadian is willing to give to Trump. And as CNN has polled, Americans do not attribute good faith to his actions either.
Ah, so you’re going for the guy is incompetent as he can’t seem to make a deal, keep his promises or reign in his Team Canada supporters when they are about to jeopardize those same negotiations with bone head moves even though he had advance notice to do so?
Carney isn’t incompetent. He isn’t a puppet master. He is just a tory technocrat dealing with a malicious nutter American president who is actively destroying his own country, and a mix of ten provincial leaders who have all different stakes, obligations, temperaments, and freedoms.
Which isn’t in any way relevant to Trump’s blanket tariff policies. Reagan was the most pro-free-trade President in US history.
Cue weekly prime example of Ford’s casual corruption:
I could well have just posted without the notification on where I got it. Don’t trust it, don’t read it. It’s a summary of a larger result that looks accurate.
Just know that Reagan used tariffs if it suited him and not saying that is only giving half the picture. … Are you saying it is OK to only give half the picture when quoting someone especially if that obscures the truth?
“Reagan was a pro free trade” without “but he was also willing to use tariffs and other measures if he thought the other party was acting unfairly” is not presenting the full picture and is misleading when you’re trying to argue against the tariffs Trump is imposing on Canada.
Do you think the PM would act in this way? Do you REALLY think any Canadian PM would or even could do what Trump does daily?
I don’t know what our PM does daily other than galivant around the world burning carbon credits willy nilly with no discernible outcome avoiding Parliament like the plague. Maybe if he attended Parliament someone could ask him. Not that anyone in the august assemblage ever answers a bloody question put to them.
I remember a PM giving the finger to my fellow citizens in the west. I remember a PM taking vacations on private islands of supposed ‘family friends’ in violation of ethics rules. I remember parties taking kickbacks from preferred vendors. I remember a PM who violated protestor’s rights while those protestors do jail time, he goes off dating pop stars. So, no, I don’t think we’ve had a PM or will have a PM (Glad you think PP wouldn’t do such at thing and isn’t actually a Trump lite) that is the equivalent of Trump.
We have had corrupt PM’s who think they are above the law like he thinks he is and are willing to bend the rules to benefit themselves similar to what he does. It doesn’t hurt that we do have a system of government that allows a removal of a PM without causing a constitutional crisis as long as their party is willing to grow a backbone and kick him out, so it probably keeps the worst potential offenders out of the public eye. Unfortunately, backbones traditionally seem to be in short supply.
Really? I (and many others who do not get all our news from the National Post) see it quite differently.
Negotiations with Canada were not going well from Trump’s point of view (“Canada is very hard to deal with, they are nasty”)
He needed to find something to get pissed off about. He needed an excuse to put pressure on the trade talks, as this is exactly how he rolls. Things going badly for you in talks? Flip the board.
He saw the ad, and went “meh”, until someone told him this was something to get pissed off about, and maybe split Ontario away from the Feds.
He made up bullshit about how the ad was "fake’ how it was “AI”. Maybe someone told him this.
The American owned Postmedia network decided to amplify the “It’s all Carney’s fault”, because that’s the mantra of the Conservative Party.
A few credulous Canadians picked up on this and actually believe it. They are effectively doing Trump’s work for him.
This is just repeating what Trump’s team has said. There is no truth to it. There are no copyright issues. The ad did not mislead what Reagan said.
This is wrong. Please stop repeating Trump propaganda.
Mulroney and the Conservatives - the echos of Airbus linger. 
Using poor sources because they “look accurate” is not a great way to construct a convincing argument. Doing so, and then disguising that by citing nothing, is worse.
It is better from a debating standpoint to cite the underlying source used by the AI. But AI on factual stuff like this is pretty reliable.
As for Reagan and tariffs, politically, he had to levy some. Telling the American people that dumping was a myth was politically impossible. It would have been like Jimmy Carter coming out for same-sex marriage.
In addition to trying to educate the American people to be less protectionist, Reagan structured tariffs so that they would automatically decrease over time.