Canada Pulls Bad-Faith Stunt That Shuts Them OUT Of Trade Negotiations — Here’s The 411
Was the ego trip worth it, Premier Ford?
Remember that mayor of Toronto that was famous for smoking crack? Despite his questionable lifestyle choices, he was a far more competent politician than his brother, who is now running Canada’s largest Province.
You’d never know it by his policy choices both now and during the pandemic, but he’s leader of his province’s ‘Conservative’ party. And he has made it his life’s mission to be as antagonistic to Donald J. Trump as he possibly can.
You’d think, watching the major industry in his province — the automotive sector — packing up and heading South to Trump’s America, he might look at ways to negotiate a win-win situation, rather than be maximally provocative and find out what OTHER pain Trump’s hardball negotiations might drop in his lap.
Doug Ford spent $75 Million to run this ad in the US.
Of course, no mention was made in that ad of the fact that Trump’s tariffs have been explicitly used as leverage to attack protectionist policies that disadvantage US access to foreign markets. Markets like Canada’s, which have enormous longstanding tariffs on, for instance, agricultural products.
We have all watched other countries reduce the barriers to American access to other markets, and *just like that*, Trump brought his own tariffs down in like measure.
The lynchpin of his policy is the notion of ‘Reciprocal tarrifs’, with the goal of bringing down for both sides. This ad talks about Reagan’s attitude toward protectionism, not about ‘reciprocal’ tariffs that are intended on forcing a level playing field.
The words that this ad has Reagan speaking [more on THAT in a moment] criticize using tariffs to do — for example — what Canada has long been doing to make life difficult for American agriculture exporters hoping to sell goods to their northern neighbors. Sadly, Ford’s crack-smoking brother who died of cancer would almost certainly have been competent enough to understand the difference that his surviving brother does not.
Doug Ford was bragging about running this ad, oblivious of the enormous rake his is about to step on… and the insane degree of damage he’s about to do to his own national economy. He even said that he was a fan of Ronald Reagan. Well, Doug, the Reagan Legacy is NO fan of you using his speeches in what they view as the deceptive manner you used them (without permission) and are considering legal remedies.
And Trump has reacted to the allegation that a foreign government ran a deceptively edited ad in America in order to pressure changes to US policy in their own favor, and possibly (and this is key) with the aim of influencing a pending ruling by SCOTUS.
Trump did not take this news lightly.
Congrats, Doug!
Now ALL of Canada is going to suffer for one Province’s hard-headed leadership.
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