That's a good question. He certainly didn't take full advantage of his opportunities and that has been a problem with the conservative party ever since Stephen Harper left politics. A bit too polite if you will.
I think it contributed, but I don't think it was the main factor. You'd have to live here to understand the deep seated rage at the 51st stuff. That was the kicker, and still is. It's why Kentucky bourbon people, and states hit by the loss of tourism run ads in Canada begging us to come back. It's near universal across all party lines. Carney was ready willing and able to kick Trump publicly, while Poilievre was reluctant.
Poilievre had principles, and some loyalty to the States left in him. Carney is a back stabbing little snake. So yes, I do think it harmed Poilievre.
Something Teren brought up that needs clarification for accuracy- and that is Trump's continued claim that Canada costs the US tax payer Billions. We don't. That figure is like a lot of Trump's talking points- a bit of bombastic elastic so to speak. To make a point more pointy and hit harder.
Yes we didn't pull our share for military spending in NATO - as a percent of our GDP. But we always have gone in to battle beside the Americans- and pulled MORE than our share when you consider that we are 1/10th of your size. Remember who was beside you in Afghanistan and during 911. or Korea for that matter. Plenty of our guys went south and enlisted for Vietnam! We have your back!
We were in it to win it in WW 1 and 2 both times before you even entered the war!
When considering protection of North America- remember that Canada pulls it's weight in something Trump never ever mentions, and that is NORAD. NORAD covers everything from our border with Alaska, to Greenland. Missiles (nukes) from Russia take the shortest route to the States, and that puts them coming in from the Arctic circle.
Have you ever considered the fact that if a nuke from Russia is "intercepted" the smoking nuclear remains land on CANADIAN heads???? Trump doesn't mention that much.
NORAD is a joint operation between the US and Canada and at no point in this trade war have we threatened to pull out. AND we put in 38 BILLION which works out to 380 BILLION dollars per capita if we were equal size to upgrade our side of NORAD - back in 2022. Under Justin Trudeau who Trump loved to hate.
Did Trudeau do enough? NO. Our armed forces have slid into decline and decay. Carney is doing his level best to pull that up.
But for Trump to imply that only Americans protect Canada and the States is absurd.
There is the fact that we supply 60% of your oil imports, at a discount. You refine it, and sell it back to us at a profit. That needs to change, definitely. We need to develop our own refining centres and we are now going to expand the pipelines to sell to Europe as well as Asia. We supply a lot of electricity that comes from clean hydro electric plants reducing your generation costs and impact on the environment. And we buy a lot of your cars and other exports.
It gets complicated. If you want aluminum - you will need to build more power generation because that takes a lot of electricity to refine, just at a time when you need more for the super computers. We are one of only 2 countries in the world that have big potash mines. The other is in Belarus. They supply Russia. We supply us, the USA and Europe as well as elsewhere. We have some of the rare earth stuff you want from Ukraine.
There are other areas where Trump's math just ain't mathin' such as the so called 400% tariffs that have NEVER EVER been imposed on US dairy- because the American dairy farmers have respected our quota limits, and those were only ever set to kick in if the quotas (remember we are 1/10 your size, how much milk do you think we can guzzle up here anyway???) were ignored.
Yet Trump insists on saying that we have a 400% tariff.
From the guy who just fired his Labor Statistics Commissioner whose job numbers didn't suit his narrative.
Those numbers were fine when it suited him earlier,- the estimates that are put out earlier and are subject to revision-- but when the latest data came in, and they did the normal adjustment- he fired her without reviewing whether or not she had been accurate- just saying she was a political appointee and had an axe to grind.
Maybe she did, but just maybe those numbers reflected the fact that DOGE was doing it's job.
He actually should have been pleased, because I saw the breakdown of the jobs and it was the GOVERNMENT sector contracting (along with tourism) that accounted for a lot of the job losses. Also some in manufacturing, but there are bound to be some rough patches for employers who are doing a wait and see before expanding.
It wasn't exactly bad news for Trump if anyone had taken a deep breath and remembered the purpose of DOGE and how that might impact job numbers.
Be careful what you believe from him and his team when it comes to their numbers. Especially when it doesn't suit the narrative.
Thanks Margery for the clarification. Yes, vintage Trump bloviates. Kind of embarrassing actually, lol. So this article seemed fairly balanced in perspective on the issue.
This is false. According to the White House, the number is based on the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and higher military spending by the U.S., including expenditures associated with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.
apnews.com
And I was led to consider also this video upon your reply (its under 10 minutes)...
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com
In further tentative research it would appear no more than $35 million in aid is spent each year. Which is a much smaller number. Not as exciting.
When it comes to NATO my understanding that there are billions in what America makes up for in Canadian slack. I would not see that as giving money to Cananda. But it would factor in to a form of subsidy in the billions each year.
So yes, for sure, I take back my comment on Trump having a point of giving Canada billions every year. That is not accurate. And I appreciate the cordial and caring manner in which you provide education on that. Amen.
Granted it is harder to support Trump's general claims when he is in the business of making hyperbole reality. But even so, my main point earlier though was having mostly to do with political accumen as a playing card in the political arena. So I guess that could be better expressed by me in a slightly different way.
- Perception -- Trump met with Justin. Justin was asking for more aid (I think its just in his globalist blood). Trump uses that optic to troll+.
- Concerns of the US using tariffs on Cananda emerged.
- Poilievre pushed a boycott on US goods sold to China
So its that last point, I would see, that would effect Trump in certain ways. It would likely cause him to think that the US does provide some meager assistance to Canada. Affords and offsets the trade deficit, and picks up the slack for NATO for them (that amount there is in the billions). Granted, hearing "tariff" increase would almost certainly provide context on any country to have reasonable pushback if the place for future negation has leverage to do so. To me, it would be on that note as something Trump would be concerned with. At the end of the day, Trump would have a wide range of insights on where Canada would factor in to a whole host of political tactics worldwide. So if Trump felt Poilievre demonstrated a potentially dangerous and pedestrian like "newcomer" political move in retaliation, that could be enough to be a red flag for Trump. That is mainly my point though.
I don't say that in defense of Trump. I say that in light of Trump's less than diplomatic approaches toward Canada, that this might help provide some context in hopefully moving past genuine heart felt concern toward Trump, even to the level of bitterness toward him. I concur with this sentiment by the way Margery. I have similar issues with Trump in regards to the vaccine, or how Trump handled the northern water supply issue with Newsome. Not to mention Paula White appointment. There are more. But those are a few examples of issues that could easily have me somewhat bitter toward Trump or at least less trusting of if his oars are actually in the water. So I want you to know that dear sister. By my expression in this, is not to say you should not have any right to feel ill toward Trump. For I have plenty...lol. Amen.
What I am saying, is that if a politician is in a political opportunity in the context of what political sense Trump likely has on the global stage, that would be a thing to measure. For example, Trump as 45 seemed to be getting a sense of the lay of the land. Trump 47 seems to still have need to do this because the playingfield is littered with infiltrating globalists in the US on both sides of the isle. And one thing Trump does do quite a bit of is do or say things to see where certain politicians truly stand. On those who find the study of Trump somewhat of a hobby, it is not uncommon to see how Trump does, on a regular basis, do and say things to see where alliances are. On a much smaller scale, something like this could be said of Kash Patel as leader of the FBI. There are tens of thousands of employees. And if we have had a lot of monkey business in the FBI over the past decade +, we know there are those in the FBI with globalist agendas. And some key roles in that arena would be sleepers. Tasked with certain things at certain intervals of events. Those that could not be known to be unfaithful until their desired moment to do their thing is executed. Are there ways to flush that out sooner? I believe yes. So in like fashion, on a much larger and far more complex scale, this would be what Trump has done and will continue to do as we go. Because if you don't know your enemy well enough, you will make too many bad moves based on assumption.
In addition to that being par for the course Trump world, he does have plans to address globalism in orchestrated ways around the world. What Trump does not exactly do (that may or may not be so easily discerned) is that he does not rush to go at his opponents directly often. This may seem like a foolish observation. Because we know Trump as a vindictive personality. Which is the quintessential definition of going at your opponents directly. But I believe what we have seen over time is that Trump can use this optic to his advantage keeping his enemies guessing. "Lock her up," was mentioned as something he just said to get elected. By Trump himself. But now, we see wagons surrounding all of that in a much more comprehensive indirect way some 10 years later. It is yet to be seen if the clinton's will be indicted. But it is safe to say (with the Trump cabinet) that there are deep longsuffering interests to go after a huge swaths of players in the globalist cabal. So yeah we will see. But the point is, Trump can be seen as vindictive and reactionary...and I believe he wants that persona because there is another slow patient side to him that is not worn on his sleeve but is every bit as real as his vindictive side.
So just saying all that to say that the way Trump plays the field is nuanced. And as attractive as that might be for some, its not really the point. It's just a feature. The point more so is his need to do so. The point is a need to decouple the US and world systems from globalists influence. And to do that somewhat successfully, to make an near real world dent in that armor in anyone's lifetime takes incredibly intricate strategy. And one of those strategies is how to size up those who seem to be aligning with his larger agenda. In that sense, I would even suggest Trump's taunt toward Canada in the early days would fit very well with his style of seeing the reaction. And with Poilievre, it was seen by Trump to hurt US commerce in retaliation. And if the US is a huge global commerce in the hands of one who overcame impossible odds in his own country, and that he might try moves to test the wherewithal from others, and a politician does not take that into account, that could suggest to Trump a rogue operative. And since that rogue operative is in Canada, our neighbor, the scrutiny by which Trump my hold value in Poilievre's reaction would likely be that of 10 times more than how the UK might react similarly. Because Canada so near and part of US defense infrastructure, being lenient on Poilievre where down the road Poilievre might not wisely navigate other waters, is just too much of risk in light of everything else. Given that as an option or Carney (someone Trump is well aquainted with the weaknesses thereof), well, better the devil you know, than the devil you don't know. And by virtue of that principal would mandate in Trump's mind it be necessary to turn his back on Poilievre. I believe mostly because he would be one scene as playing miniature golf in a global real golf course tournament. It might be nice to have Poilievre on the docket. But at what potential cost? Clearly Trump's eyes are on addressing global globalists enterprise. And to me in general, that does not seem very wise of Poilievre not to recognize that. And in that demonstrating real concern that Poilievre may not understand the real playing field enough to be able to do the things needed with 4 years in the balance. If that is the resume Poilievre brings to Trump (one known for yielding tremendous US authority by endorsement as a real world playing card factor), Trump would likely consider that a helpful revelation early on of how well Poilievre might work with Trump in general. And for Poilievre not to have an idea of what his context actually is, that is enough, being a hugely strategic neighbor as Canada is for the US, very hard odds to overcome, if one is using those optics to win elections. It just demonstrates a naiveness not affordable in a world whose Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists doomsday clock is at 89 seconds to midnight. Poilievre simply does not belong in that world. And it would be a risky danger to consider if he might because of other potentially favored positions he holds or may hold.
This may not be something you completely agree with. And I understand the loss of what Poilievre could bring in massive help toward Canada--especially in the ripe attitude Canada was in that would have lent incredible favor to Trump and the US. But if we end up in WW3, none of that matters. There would not be a Canada to make its greatest. In general to me it was a choice of less risky. Go with the devil you know. Because the devil Trump knows, wants WW3. And will use any political weakness to lean everything in that direction. If that might make sense though on some level? Blessings.
www.lbc.co.uk
Blessings.
