Trump seeks to use Canada's recognition of Palestinian state as leverage in trade talks
Trump's threat, posted in the early hours Thursday on his social media network, is the latest way he has sought to use his trade war to coerce countries on unrelated issues and is a swing from the ambivalence he has expressed about other countries making such a move.
The Republican president said this week that he didn't mind British Prime Minister Keir Starmer taking a position on the issue of formally recognizing Palestinian statehood. And last week he said that French President Emmanuel Macron's similar move was 'not going to change anything.'
But Trump, who has heckled Canada for months and suggested it should become its 51st U.S. state, indicated on Thursday that Prime Minister Mark Carney's similar recognition would become leverage ahead of a deadline he set in trade talks.
'Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine,' Trump said in his Truth Social post. 'That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh' Canada!!!'
Trump has threatened to impose a 35% tariff on Canada if no deal is reached by Friday, when he's said he will levy tariffs against goods from dozens of countries if they don't reach agreements with the U.S.
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Some imports from Canada are still protected by the 2020 United States Mexico Canada Agreement, which is up for renegotiation next year.
Carney's announcement Wednesday that Canada would recognize a Palestinian state in September comes amid a broader global shift against Israel's policies in Gaza.
Though Trump this week said he was 'not going to take a position' on recognizing a Palestinian state, he later said that such a move would be rewarding Hamas, whose surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel prompted a declaration of war and a massive military retaliation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump's new cudgel against Canada comes after he sought this week to impose steep tariffs on Brazil because it indicted its former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally who like the U.S. president has faced criminal charges for attempting to overturn the results of his election loss.
Citing a personal grievance in trade talks with Brazil and now Canada's symbolic announcement on a Palestinian state adds to the jumble of reasons Trump has pointed to for his trade war, such as stopping human trafficking, stopping the flow of fentanyl, balancing the budget and protecting U.S. manufacturing.
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Winnipeg Free Press
29 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Recognizing a state, and making a point
Opinion Canada will recognize a state that does not exist. A state that may never exist. A state that has yet to meet the internationally accepted attributes of statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and exercised sovereignty. This is Palestine. Palestine is not yet a reality, but Canada is recognizing another reality. The reality of war, hunger, hardship, and politics. Almost two years after the horrific Hamas massacre of Israelis and others on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel is locked into a grinding war of lethal attrition against Hamas in Gaza. No immediate ceasefire prospects and no clear end game by any of the protagonists except the destruction of the other exists. ABDEL KAREEM HANA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES A Palestinian boy carrying a plastic jerry can of water walks past buildings destroyed during Israeli air and ground operations in Gaza City on July 25. The most volatile neighbourhood in the world has seen more than 50 wars, insurgencies, coups, and rebellions of one sort or another since the end of the Second World War. The pattern is violently familiar and, therefore, depressingly inuring to most of us. Many expected Gaza to follow this same pattern. Israel's right to exist in peace and the monstrous scale of the Hamas terrorism gave it the legal and moral agency to strike back, hard. Retaliation by Israel would be harsh but somehow acceptable. Few shed any tears when key Hamas leaders were hunted down and eliminated. The tears came afterwards. The relentlessly dangerous and difficult task of eradicating a deeply embedded terrorist network in dense urban areas has meant more civilian casualties and visible suffering than much of the international community could stomach. With no end in sight. This is what prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney's momentous decision to recognize the State of Palestine during the next United Nations General Assembly this fall. 'The deepening suffering of civilians leaves no room for delay in co-ordinated international action to support peace, security, and the dignity of all human life', he said in a formal statement this week. There is something else, though. Canada has concluded that the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu will never accept a two-state solution of a fully sovereign Palestine living side by side with Israel. This has been the bedrock foreign policy principle of Canada — and many other countries — for peace in the Middle East. Unwilling to dismiss this principled approach, the Canadian prime minister has decided to dismiss the Israeli prime minster's approach to the principle. 'Regrettably, this approach is no longer tenable', Carney said. 'Prospects for a two-state solution have been steadily and gravely eroded' he went on, listing four reasons, three of which identify Israeli actions, making clear where most of the blame resides. With zero influence over how Israel is prosecuting the war, Canada is joining other countries to influence what happens after the war. In that sense, Canada is remaining consistent with the United States. Not the U.S. of President Donald Trump but the U.S. of former president Joe Biden. One month into the war, in November 2023, the U.S. set out a 'day after the war' declaration for Gaza and Israel. Meant to prevent a wider conflict from erupting, that declaration stated: 'The United States believes key elements should include no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Not now. Not after the war. No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza.' Weekday Evenings Today's must-read stories and a roundup of the day's headlines, delivered every evening. This may yet come to pass, but it appears very far off right now. Politicians though live in the here and now. They see hunger lines in Gaza and become distressed. They read motions to annex the West Bank from the Israeli Knesset or statements by the Israeli prime minister to never agree to a fully fledged Palestinian state and become disturbed. They see no end in sight and are frustrated. All this is leaving Israel more politically isolated today than it was before Oct. 7. But it is also more militarily powerful, capable, and dominant in the region than ever before. And it has a fast friend in Donald Trump creating a superpower 'alliance of two' giving it more licence to act as it sees fit in Gaza and the region. It is doing so, and countries have taken notice. Short of declaring war, recognizing a governing entity, no matter how tenuous, as a sovereign state is as declaratory you can get in international relations. Canada, like France and Great Britain, is utilizing the entirely precedented and legal discretion it has under international law to unilaterally recognize another state. But doing so now, absent a negotiated peace settlement to create such a state, is not so much a diplomatic gesture of support for Palestinians, but a diplomatic rejection of Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank. For Canada, the momentous part is not breaking with international law by declaring its recognition of Palestine as a state but breaking with its own international tradition of allying with the U.S. on key international issues. Indeed, this decision signals a widening chasm with America. Trump wants 'to break us, so that America can own us', said Carney on election night. What he didn't say is that maybe Canada has to break with America first. David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.
Winnipeg Free Press
29 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Slow wisdom of David Fleming: leadership, lean logic, richness we've forgotten
Opinion Imagine leading not with strategies and growth metrics, but with stories. Imagine a boardroom where 'value' isn't calculated in quarterly reports, but in rituals, friendships, skills passed down to apprentices and trust born from shared time and shared purpose. David Fleming — the British economist and philosopher whose posthumously published Lean Logic: a Dictionary For the Future and How to Survive It has quietly found its way into the hands of community builders, transition leaders and ecological thinkers across the globe — made the case that we might do just that. Though his name isn't widely known outside sustainability circles, Fleming's work explores the value of human culture and warns of what's lost when we focus solely on efficiency. SUPPLIED David Fleming is the author of Lean Logic: a Dictionary For the Future and How to Survive It He was no ivory tower idealist. Fleming trained as an economist, worked in the corporate world, chaired the Soil Association and was an early contributor to the United Kingdom's Green Party. But in Lean Logic, published six years after his death in 2010 at age 70, he stepped outside the structures of conventional economics and into a very different rhythm — one where community, ritual and meaning are not decorative, but essential. Fleming called it the 'lean economy.' Unlike the lean management principles many leaders may be more familiar with — cutting waste, streamlining, maximizing throughput — his lean economy was rooted in something ancient. It was lean in the way a forest is lean: abundant, but never excessive. It works through reciprocity, local knowledge, social capital and trust. It values depth over speed, relationship over transaction, memory over convenience. In Fleming's world, a local festival is not an indulgence, it's an economic and social necessity. A song shared across generations is as vital as any spreadsheet. His book, structured as a sprawling dictionary, touches on everything from carnival to collapse, from energy descent to conviviality, all cross-referenced in loops of meaning that reward the curious and the unhurried. It's not a manual, it's a conversation, one that assumes the reader is not just a brain with a credit card, but a citizen, neighbour and steward of culture. For those in leadership today, whether in public institutions, private enterprise or community organizations, Fleming's ideas land as both a challenge and a balm. The challenge is plain: the model we've been taught to lead within, the one that prizes scale, growth and efficiency above all, is unlikely to hold. Not because the ideas are bad, but because they are incomplete. As the systems we rely on (energy, environment, food, and labour) begin to fray under pressure, leadership will demand more than better KPIs. It will require soul. The balm is this: we already know what to do. The knowledge is not new; it's old. It sits around kitchen tables and lives in language and story. It's found in the patience of teaching a skill by hand, in the integrity of fixing instead of replacing and in the joy of a potluck that feeds more than hunger. This is not anti-technology or anti-modern, it's post-hurry, post-extraction and deeply pro-human. In the lean economy, wealth is not defined by accumulation, but by the capacity to sustain and regenerate life. It's a view that doesn't deny hardship (Fleming fully expected the future would be harder than the present), but insists richness is still available, especially when we let go of the idea that life must always be getting faster, bigger, richer in the narrowest sense of the word. This can feel far away from the practical pressures of today's leadership. We are asked to deliver, to compete, to anticipate disruption, to do more with less. 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What he did have, and what Lean Logic offers, is a framework for noticing. Noticing what sustains us. What brings joy. What rituals still matter. What relationships endure. For leaders, that's a quiet invitation: to pay more attention to the human ecology of our teams, our communities, our organizations. Perhaps prosperity, then, is not what we've been told. Perhaps it's not about having more, but about being rooted, connected and trusted. Perhaps it's about the slow, reciprocal dance between people and place. And perhaps leadership is not about moving the needle, but about helping others remember what matters and making space for it to grow again. Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. Fleming's ideas may be counterintuitive, but for those weary of chasing the wind, his lean economy may offer something sturdier. A slower pace. A deeper rhythm. A reminder we are, after all, cultural beings — not units of productivity, but citizens of a shared and beautiful world. Tory McNally, CPHR, BSc., vice-president, professional services, is a human resource consultant, radio personality and problem solver. She can be reached at tory@
Winnipeg Free Press
29 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Nuclear option
Opinion The quest for more power to meet rising demand from electric vehicles and data centres running artificial intelligence technology has led to an apparent 'renaissance' of nuclear energy. The White House recently posted an op-ed piece exalting U.S. President Donald Trump's executive orders for reinvigorating America's nuclear power generation using that just that term, while effusively lauding his agenda to increase the nation's output by 300 gigawatts by 2050. That's enough to power about 300 million homes or, more likely, thousands of data centres for AI, as well as millions of EVs. Climate change commitments may not be high on the U.S. president's mind, but it is on China's list, as it seeks to add as much as 400 GW more from atomic energy by 2050 while aiming to decarbonize its economy. It's arguably off a faster start with 119 GW of nuclear power generation in construction or development. India is next in activity with 32 GW potentially under development. The United States is much further behind at eight GW, even trailing nations like France and Poland. Actual activity and planned growth suggests trillions of dollars being invested in nuclear energy over the coming decades — and investors are intrigued. 'The ducks are coming in a row, finally,' says Scott Clayton, Toronto-based senior analyst for the Canadian Wealth Advisor with the TSI Network in Toronto. The last time nuclear energy was on an upswing with investors was in the 2000s as oil prices surged. Then, the Fukushima plant disaster in Japan in 2011 put the brakes on nuclear power. Companies like Cameco Corp. — based in Saskatoon and the world's largest uranium producer — saw growth put on ice. That is until recently. Today, Cameco's share price, fuelled largely by all the talk of plans for new reactors, is at all-time highs. Although Canada may be an oil and gas powerhouse, its potential as a supplier of the fuel for nuclear energy has arguably more upside. It has the third largest discovered reserves in the world. It is also the second-largest producer behind Kazakhstan and potentially much more production is coming, as exploration companies like NexGen Energy and Paladin Energy look to develop mines in the Athabasca Basin (home to the highest-grade deposits of uranium in the world). Yet before jumping into a surging industry, driven by the future promise of much more nuclear power (not to mention the unnerving revival of the nuclear arms race), let's splash a bit of cold water on the overheating rods of speculation. 'It still faces challenges,' Clayton says. Among them are regulatory concerns. Mining projects in Canada take a notoriously long time to be approved and uranium is particularly tricky, given its environmental impact. Power plants are equally complicated. The public might appreciate the cheap, abundant power, just don't generate it close to where they live. 'The other problem is that the costs (of construction) are just astronomical,' Clayton says. The newest nuclear power generating station in the U.S, for example — two reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia — cost US$35 billion and were behind schedule and over budget. 'We definitely think it's (nuclear energy) going to be needed,' says Andrew Bischof, senior equity analyst at Morningstar in Chicago. Yet many projects are far from construction, let alone completion, and a history exists of projects being cancelled, especially in the U.S. Bischof says many major utility companies are talking about amping up nuclear power, but those are far-away ambitions, part of five- and 10-year plans to build capacity, which could take several more years before that power is added to the grid. There does seem to be more buzz around small modular reactors, he adds. These are scaled-down power plants that take less time to build, but it's an emerging technology. To that end, Canada is a leader with a project underway in Darlington, Ont. 'Duke Energy has also mildly stated that it's exploring SMRs, but again, that is 2030 to 2035 for a time frame,' Bischof says about the U.S. power provider, which presently has six nuclear power plants in the U.S.. Notably, big tech — Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet (Google) — are considering or currently entering into contracts with power providers, providing cash up front to restart or build new nuclear capacity, often involving small reactors, to meet climate change goals and growing energy-hungry AI capabilities. The need is substantial. AI is forecast to eat up 20 per cent of new energy growth through 2030. EV expansion is expected to increase demand by 15 per cent. Whether all this growth translates into future profits remains to be seen. In the meantime, investors might consider risk-adjusted exposure. 'If you're looking to invest in more speculative areas, it's best to get exposure through stocks that already have a solid business,' Clayton says. He points to U.S.-based Constellation Energy Corp. as one viable choice. Nearly 70 per cent of its output is nuclear and it pays a small dividend (0.47 per cent yield). Another way to invest in this theme is exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Investors have close to a handful of choices. One of the longest running is VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF, launched in 2007. It has seen renewed popularity, after peaking in price around 2011. '(Its) recent asset growth mirrors a broader nuclear renaissance fueled by surging electricity demand, the global pursuit of dependable low carbon power and fresh policy support extending plant life and financing next generation reactors,' says Brandon Rakszawski, director of product management, VanEck in New York. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Its portfolio also holds the aforementioned stocks with Constellation and Cameco among the largest positions. While the stars might be aligning for nuclear, conditions quickly change — i.e. battery power for renewables — that could make a long-term investment in nuclear suddenly less ideal. Still, for investors with an appetite for risk and a long time horizon, the nuclear option could power long-term profitability. Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist joelschles@
