Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

Business

Trump’s bizarre 51st state comments and implied support for Carney were simply a ploy to blow up trilateral trade pact

Published

5 months ago

10 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Conservative Treehouse

Trump’s position on the Canadian election outcome had nothing to do with geopolitical friendships and everything to do with America First economics.

Note from LifeSiteNews co-founder Steve Jalsevac: This article, disturbing as it is, appears to explain Trump’s bizarre threats to Canada and irrational support for Carney. We present it as a possible explanation for why Trump’s interference in the Canadian election seems to have played a large role in the Liberals’ exploitation of the Trump threat and their ultimate, unexpected success.

To understand President Trump’s position on Canada, you have to go back to the 2016 election and President Trump’s position on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiation. If you did not follow the subsequent USMCA process, this might be the ah-ha moment you need to understand Trump’s strategy.

During the 2016 election President Trump repeatedly said he wanted to renegotiate NAFTA. Both Canada and Mexico were reluctant to open the trade agreement to revision, but ultimately President Trump had the authority and support from an election victory to do exactly that.

In order to understand the issue, you must remember President Trump, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer each agreed that NAFTA was fraught with problems and was best addressed by scrapping it and creating two separate bilateral trade agreements. One between the U.S. and Mexico, and one between the U.S. and Canada.

In the decades that preceded the 2017 push to redo the trade pact, Canada had restructured their economy to: (1) align with progressive climate change; and (2) take advantage of the NAFTA loophole. The Canadian government did not want to reengage in a new trade agreement.

Canada has deindustrialized much of their manufacturing base to support the “environmental” aspirations of their progressive politicians. Instead, Canada became an importer of component goods where companies then assembled those imports into finished products to enter the U.S. market without tariffs. Working with Chinese manufacturing companies, Canada exploited the NAFTA loophole.

Justin Trudeau was strongly against renegotiating NAFTA, and stated he and Chrystia Freeland would not support reopening the trade agreement. President Trump didn’t care about the position of Canada and was going forward. Trudeau said he would not support it. Trump focused on the first bilateral trade agreement with Mexico.

When the U.S. and Mexico had agreed to terms of the new trade deal and 80 percent of the agreement was finished, representatives from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce informed Trudeau that his position was weak and if the U.S. and Mexico inked their deal, Canada would be shut out.

When they went to talk to the Canadians the CoC was warning them about what was likely to happen. NAFTA would end, the U.S. and Mexico would have a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), and then Trump was likely to turn to Trudeau and say NAFTA is dead, now we need to negotiate a separate deal for U.S.-Canada.

Trudeau was told a direct bilateral trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada was the worst possible scenario for the Canadian government. Canada would lose access to the NAFTA loophole and Canada’s entire economy was no longer in a position to negotiate against the size of the U.S. Trump would win every demand.

Following the warning, Trudeau went to visit Nancy Pelosi to find out if Congress was likely to ratify a new bilateral trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico. Pelosi warned Trudeau there was enough political support for the NAFTA elimination from both parties. Yes, the bilateral trade agreement was likely to find support.

Realizing what was about to happen, Prime Minister Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland quickly changed approach and began to request discussions and meetings with USTR Robert Lighthizer. Keep in mind more than 80 to 90 percent of the agreement was already done by the U.S. and Mexico teams. Both President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and President Trump were now openly talking about when it would be finalized and signed.

Nancy Pelosi stepped in to help Canada get back into the agreement by leveraging her Democrats. Trump agreed to let Canada engage, and Lighthizer agreed to hold discussions with Chrystia Freeland on a tri-lateral trade agreement that ultimately became the USMCA.

The key points to remember are: (1) Trump, Ross, and Lighthizer would prefer two separate bilateral trade agreements because the U.S. import/export dynamic was entirely different between Mexico and Canada. And because of the loophole issue, (2) a five-year review was put into the finished USMCA trade agreement. The USMCA was signed on November 30, 2018, and came into effect on July 1, 2020.

TIMELINE: The USMCA is now up for review (2025) and renegotiation in 2026!

This timeline is the key to understanding where President Donald Trump stands today. The review and renegotiation is his goal.

President Trump said openly he was going to renegotiate the USMCA, leveraging border security (Mexico) and reciprocity (Canada) within it.

Following the 2024 presidential election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Mar-a-Lago and said if President Trump was to make the Canadian government face reciprocal tariffs, open the USMCA trade agreements to force reciprocity, and/or balance economic relations on non-tariff issues, then Canada would collapse upon itself economically and cease to exist.

In essence, Canada cannot survive as a free and independent north American nation, without receiving all the one-way benefits from the U.S. economy.

To wit, President Trump then said that if Canada cannot survive in a balanced rules environment, including putting together their own military and defenses (which it cannot), then Canada should become the 51st U.S. state. It was following this meeting that President Trump started emphasizing this point and shocking everyone in the process.

However, what everyone missed was the strategy Trump began outlining when contrast against the USMCA review and renegotiation window.

Again, Trump doesn’t like the tri-lateral trade agreement. President Trump would rather have two separate bilateral agreements; one for Mexico and one for Canada. Multilateral trade agreements are difficult to manage and police.

How was President Trump going to get Canada to (a) willingly exit the USMCA; and (b) enter a bilateral trade agreement?

The answer was through trade and tariff provocations, while simultaneously hitting Canada with the shock and awe aspect of the 51st state.

The Canadian government and the Canadian people fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Trump’s position on the Canadian election outcome had nothing to do with geopolitical friendships and everything to do with America First economics. When asked about the election in Canada, President Trump said, “I don’t care. I think it’s easier to deal, actually, with a liberal and maybe they’re going to win, but I don’t really care.”

By voting emotionally, the Canadian electorate have fallen into President Trump’s USMCA exit trap. Prime Minister Mark Carney will make the exit much easier. Carney now becomes the target of increased punitive coercion until such a time as the USMCA review is begun, and Canada is forced to a position of renegotiation.

Trump never wanted Canada as a 51st state.

Trump always wanted a U.S.-Canada bilateral trade agreement.

Mark Carney said the era of U.S.-Canadian economic ties “are officially declared severed.”

Canada has willingly exited the USMCA trade agreement at the perfect time for President Trump.

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
espionage / 42 mins ago

Canada’s federal election in April saw ‘small scale’ foreign meddling: gov’t watchdog

Immigration / 48 mins ago

Conservatives blame Liberals for allowing man on UK child sex offender list to enter Canada

Opinion / 1 hour ago

Jordan Peterson needs prayers as he battles serious health issues, daughter Mikhaila says

Business

Carney’s Bungling of the Tariff Issue Requires a Reset in Canada’s Approach to Trump

Published on October 6, 2025

By

Preston Manning's avatar

Preston Manning  

Rank and file Americans are best positioned to insist upon a relaxation of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies – that populist base which Mr. Carney neither understands nor respects but whom the President cannot afford to ignore or alienate if he wishes to retain their political support.

By now it is becoming apparent that Mark Carney’s government is seriously bungling Canada’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff initiatives. By ill-advisedly imposing counter-tariffs only to withdraw them later, Ottawa temporarily played with “elbows up” – only to learn that, as in hockey, pursuing such a strategy in the absence of a strong offence simply draws penalties and gives the other side a manpower advantage.

As the list of Mr. Carney’s missteps on the tariff file grows – costing Canadians jobs, incomes, and increases in prices – surely it is becoming clear that a fundamental reset is required in Canada’s approach to Mr. Trump and his tariff initiatives if their negative consequences for both Canada and the U.S. are to be overcome.

So what and where is the reset button that could be pushed to redress those initiatives? Who is in the best position to push it, and when is the best opportunity to do so?

That button is not to be found in Washington or on Wall Street, but rather among those to whom Mr. Trump made a promise – time and time again – namely, the American people. “We’re going to get the prices down. We have to get them down. It’s too much. Groceries, cars, everything. We’re going to get the prices down,” he declared repeatedly throughout the 2024 presidential election campaign.

That was the promise. But the current reality is price increases for Americans on food, energy, furniture, and paper products, as well as projected increases in the cost of homes, industrial structures, and public infrastructure as tariffs on steel, aluminum, softwood lumber and timber take their toll. In other words, the reality is not a decrease but an increase in the cost of living for millions of American consumers and voters.

Who then is best positioned to insist upon a relaxation of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies? Not Mr. Carney and his officials, nor even the traditional Washington influencers, but those rank-and-file Americans comprising the massive populist wave that put Mr. Trump in the White House for a second time – that populist base which Mr. Carney neither understands nor respects but whom the President cannot afford to ignore or alienate if he wishes to retain their political support.

So when will be the first real opportunity for Mr. Trump’s core constituency to speak to him effectively – through their votes – about modifying his approach to tariffs? It will be in the months running up to the midterm congressional elections in November, 2026, in which the 435 seats of the House of Representatives and, more crucially, the 35 seats in the US Senate, will be up for election.

Most of those Republican candidates standing for election will want to be pro-Trump to retain hardcore Republican voters, but they will also want to be anti-tariff to secure the support of voters suffering from tariff-induced price increases. How can they be both? By being fully supportive of Mr. Trump’s war on illegal drugs and migrants, bloated bureaucracies, and the mis-management of government finances, while at the same time campaigning as “tariff modifiers”. By asking voters to send them to Washington to support Mr. Trump but to remove the price-increasing-sting of his tariff policies through the negotiation of “reciprocity agreements” with major US trading partners to achieve that objective – just as former president William McKinley, whom Mr. Trump professes to admire, did many years ago.

The election of just a few tariff-moderating Republicans to the U.S. Senate in 2026, to be present when the tariff bill embodying Mr. Trump’s policies eventually gets to that chamber, will do more to improve tariff-disrupting Canada-U.S. trade relations than the ineffectual efforts of those like Mr. Carney who seek to get to Mr. Trump by traditional elite-to-elite negotiating practices.

Getting to Mr. Trump on the tariff issue through his own populist base raises some obvious questions. Which U.S. states, for example, are experiencing the greatest price increases as a result of the tariff wars, and of those, which offer the greatest opportunities to nominate and elect tariff-modifying Republicans to the Senate? Where in the U.S., at the state or national level, are there the beginnings of a grassroots tariff-modification movement, and how might such a movement be encouraged and supported by Canadians as well as Americans.

Americans of course have a vested interest in securing research-informed answers to such questions. But so do Canadians. More on these questions and answers shortly. They are the keys to achieving the desire of the vast majority of rank and file citizens on both sides of the border for a restoration of amicable economic and social relations between our two countries.

Continue Reading

Business

Labour disputes loom large over Canadian economy

Published on October 6, 2025

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Fred McMahon

With labour disputes on the rise, Team Canada faces our greatest economic challenges in decades. It’s a bad look when team members jump the bench for the walk-out/lock-out penalty box—elbows up on the team, not on the ice.

Economic difficulties have escalated in recent years—miserable productivity growth, COVID and its inflation-drenched recovery, the uninvited U.S. trade war, and a government spending spree that left Canada deeply in debt and exacerbated all other difficulties.

Over the same period, labour disputes grew. Hours lost to disputes have been trending down for decades, but up since 2015. For the nine preceding years, the average hours lost annually was 224,000; for the nine years since, it’s been 190,000, but increasing over the years. In 2016, 74,000 hours were lost compared to 362,900 hours in 2023 and 293,600 last year.

Ironically, work stoppages typically occur only if they can wreck havoc on the Canadian economy. They hit sectors where customers and clients have little or no alternative. When customers have choices, they’ll walk away from a shutdown supplier. That encourages workers and businesses to figure out a solution before a strike.

Disputes in transportation and government services are particularly damaging. When Air Canada grounds flights, people and businesses already have tickets and plans. Options are limited and pricey. There is only one Port of Montreal. If it shuts down, there are no other Ports of Montreal. Cargo diversion is, well, limited and pricey. When government employees go on strike, people can’t turn to another government for service.

In 2023 and 2024, Canada suffered 62 transportation such work stoppages, including at the ports of Montreal and Vancouver, Canada’s two largest railways, and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

More disputes are on the way. Canada Post workers recently walked off the job hours after the federal government announced a major move from door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes. In British Columbia, civil servants are on the picket line. Public service unions are preparing to fight efforts to bring federal finances under control. And Air Canada and its flight attendants are now in arbitration after attendants rejected Air Canada’s most recent offer by 99.1 per cent.

As Keith Creel, CEO of Canadian Pacific Kansas City, wrote: “Canada’s message to the world is not one of efficiency, affordability and reliability. Lately, and repeatedly, it’s been the opposite: Disruptions. Delays. Diversions.” This is not a good for Team Canada when Canada needs new investment and entrepreneurship.

Everyone involved in a labour dispute loses. That means Canada losses. Air Canada says its recent strike, three-days long, cost the company $375 million. Employees and customers lose through foregone pay.

More than half a million passengers were directly affected, piling up the losses. Worse is the ripple affect on those not directly affected. When any part of the transportation network is impaired, business and people suffer. The economy is further damaged as investors become skittish about Canadian uncertainty, exacerbating economic difficulties.

Things may get worse. Canada’s economy is shrinking due to the trade war and our own economic mismanagement. That means there’s less stuff to go around. People’s pay on average has to shrink. The economy is not producing enough for everyone to make up “lost wages.” If all wages go up, the economy doesn’t magically start producing more. Instead, money buys less, inflation grows, economic damage intensifies, and there’s even less stuff to go around.

Resentment deepens as workers fight each other over the limited supply of stuff. Those who win make those who lose pay a disproportionate slice of the cost.

Three ways could eliminate or reduce these costs. One is to end unionization in government and essential services. Let the market decide wages. If pay is too low, employees leave for other opportunities, forcing employers to up pay. Another is to incentivize unions to resolve disputes before strikes, for example, by allowing replacement workers. The third is requiring mandatory arbitration, which has an admirable record in Canada of resolving disputes. Legislation should take into account reasonable complaints, whether employers or workers are favoured, and address them.

If Canada’s employers and unions can’t get their act together, only action will avoid dead-loss damage to the Canadian economy, leaving the rest of us as drive-by victims of labour bickering.

Fred McMahon

Senior Fellow, Dr. Michael A. Walker Chair in Economic Freedom
Continue Reading

Trending

X