Joe Oliver: For Carney, Trump is the gift that keeps giving

Skip to Content News Archives Economy Energy Oil & Gas Renewables Electric Vehicles Mining Commodities Agriculture Real Estate Mortgages Mortgage Rates Finance Banking Insurance Fintech Cryptocurrency Work Wealth Smart Money Wealth Management Investor Personal Finance Family Finance Retirement Taxes High Net Worth FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials More Innovation Information Technology FP500 Podcasts Small Business Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Financial Post Store Obituaries Place a Notice Advertising Advertising With Us Advertising Solutions Postmedia Ad Manager Sponsorship Requests Classifieds Place a Classifieds ad Working Profile Settings My Subscriptions My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ News Economy Energy Mining Real Estate Finance Work Wealth Investor FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.HomeFP CommentJoe Oliver: For Carney, Trump is the gift that keeps giving'Elbows-up' benefits the prime minister politically but getting to a deal will require compromises with a president Canadians truly dislikeU.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Prime Minister Mark Carney at a working lunch with leaders of G7 and the Middle East on June 16 in Evian-les-Bains, France. Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/Getty Images filesAccording to the Angus Reid Institute, Canadians have “widespread detestation” of U.S. President Donald Trump: 79 per cent viewed him unfavourably as of Aug. 5, and that was before trade talks collapsed and Trump decreed a new name for Lake Ontario.THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountFor Prime Minister Mark Carney’s political prospects, however, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving — leading Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady to ask in a recent piece: “Is President Trump secretly working for Canada’s Liberal party?”The prime minister’s partisan interests are bound up with the public’s visceral impulse to confront Trump’s bullying, putting him in a conflict of interest when his elbows-up policy risks undermining the national interest.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againTo end 18 months of economic uncertainty, Canada needs a trade deal. But getting one means making compromises with a president who loves tariffs, views trade negotiation as a zero-sum game and mistakenly believes Canada is ripping him off. So any agreement will be challenging to sell politically. Fifteen-per-cent auto tariffs and possibly a 25 per cent tariff on heavy trucks were clearly a bridge too far for Ontario Premier Doug Ford.Most observers agree that Mark Carney owes his election victory to the surge in patriotism generated by Trump’s threats — even though Trump said during the campaign that the Liberal leader was “very nice” and they “agreed on many things.” The ballot question was which leader could best deal with Trump and voters evidently believed Carney was. Public opinion has since gradually shifted to the view that no one can deal with Trump, who now refers to our “nasty leadership.”As Carney tells it, he withdrew from the trade talks because of last-minute demands from the U.S. But John Ivison has disclosed on these pages that the real reason Carney scuppered the deal was Ford’s opposition. Unfortunately, our government stubbornly refuses to divulge details to Canadians, so questions linger.Carney says American demands jeopardized French-language rights, which was a red line for Canada. But U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer quickly defused that issue, referring to it as a “funny, fake story.” Overnight, French-language labelling and online discoverability were off the table.Carney also claimed that the Americans tried at the last minute “to restrict our ability to have other trade deals” and require us to match certain American tariffs against third countries. But he conceded that common external tariffs could make sense in integrated sectors such as steel, though only if Canadian products received preferential access to the United States. He didn’t add that in 2018 Canada accepted the CUSMA “China clause,” under which entering into a free-trade agreement with a “non-market country” would permit the U.S. and Mexico to terminate CUSMA with Canada. Because the detailed notes have not been disclosed, we don’t know how extensively Washington sought to restrict Canada’s trade or which countries were targeted.This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Last month, Carney appointed Maia Johnson as Chief Operating Officer of the PMO, a position he appears to have created specifically for her. She is an American who worked with Carney on climate change initiatives at the UN and for Hillary Clinton. Choosing an American to manage the inner workings of the PM’s office, while very peculiar, evidently did not concern the legacy media, though its hair would have been on fire had former prime minister Stephen Harper put a U.S. Republican in a similar role during the Obama administration. Johnson must understand that prolonging the trade crisis could help Democrats prior to the midterm elections, when control of both houses of Congress is at stake. We don’t know to what extent she has influenced the trade file.The American-Israeli attack on Iran, designed to prevent that country’s genocidal theocracy from pursuing its nuclear program, also served Carney’s political interests, allowing him to indulge his predilection for British Arabism and international legalism and criticize Canada’s two allies for taking action to achieve an objective he in fact supports. His moralizing also likely strengthened his electoral support from the usual suspects in the red-green anti-Israel alliance.The prime minister seems hell-bent on trade diversification, government direction of the economy, multilateralism, closer alignment with the EU and middle-power co-operation against the major powers, now including the U.S. This program represents a major change from the path we have followed for at least the past half-century. To judge whether it is wise or even possible and to compare it with alternative programs, we need details about the deal Carney rejected. We also need clarification, after a decade of relative decline and division, about what is realistically achievable in view of our still close commercial, social and security ties to the U.S.In any properly functioning democracy, questions as fundamental as these would require a national conversation. Yet Carney’s ideas and values have not been adequately debated, nor tested in the real world. Liberals believe they know best, but keeping Canadians in the dark raises legitimate doubts at what really seems to be a turning point in the country’s history.Joe Oliver was minister of natural resources and finance in the Harper government. Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.