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Epoch Times
10-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
US Tariffs and What's Next for Canada: Trump's Strategy Through a Canadian Lens
U.S. President Donald Trump's push to assert U.S. dominance—marked by trade tensions and uncertainty—should not be viewed simply by the 'chaos' those actions appear to create, says Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a Canadian think tank. Instead, he argues, they reflect Trump's broader goals, his negotiating style, and Canada's role in U.S. strategy. Brian Lee Crowley Courtesy of Brian Lee Crowley Trump's election last November and his repeated tariff threats shaped much of the Canadian political landscape in recent months, becoming one of the top federal election issues, and quickly reversing the fortunes of the governing Liberal party after it had become 'deeply unpopular,' said Crowley in a recent interview with Jan Jekielek, host of The Epoch Times' 'American Thought Leaders' program. In addition, he said, Trump's ideas of wanting Canada to become the 51st U.S. state made many Canadians 'deeply anxious,' prompting calls to reduce economic dependency on the United States or even join the European Union—a possibility Crowley says is unfeasible due to the deep economic integration between Canada and the United States. 'Donald Trump is looming so large in the Canadian consciousness right now,' Crowley said. 'I have seen a lot of my compatriots running around like chickens with their heads cut off saying, 'oh my God, Donald Trump is a mad man, you can't understand what he's doing.'' But Crowley argues Trump's strategy makes more sense when viewed through his priorities: restoring America to its 'top nation status,' standing up to China as its 'great rival,' recovering the promise of America 'for the people who were left behind,' and bringing an 'energy renaissance' to the American economy. Related Stories 5/7/2025 2/11/2025 As for his negotiating strategy, Crowley says Trump inherited the American tradition of a 'showman,' describing himself as a deal-maker and appearing unpredictable. 'I think he's scaring the pants off the people that he wants to make deals with and bringing them to the table frightened out of their wits–this is just the way he works,' Crowley said. 'They ' re letting him distract them with the shiny object up here, and getting caught up in his tactics, and forgetting to think about his strategy. And I think his strategy is quite clear.' An 'Existential' Relationship The economic relationship between the United States and Canada is of a different nature for both sides, Crowley says. Unlike the United States, Canada ' s economy relies largely on exports, which made up about one-third of its GDP in 2023. In contrast, U.S. exports accounted for just 11 percent of its economy that year. At the same time, more than 75 percent of total Canadian exports 'While for Canada, the relationship with the United States is existential, for America the relationship with Canada is convenient, nice–not existential,' Crowley said. Trump has on many occasions said the United States does 'He knows Canada's vulnerability to the United States, and he knows that for Canada, there is no realistic alternative, and he ' s basically signalling to Canadians [that] he knows this, and he's going to have high expectations of any negotiations that will take place between Canada and the United States over the nature of our trade and other relationships,' Crowley said. He also pointed to the centuries-old 'deep' integration between the two economies, describing them as a single North American economy that 'happens to fall under the jurisdiction of two separate nation states.' He says fully decoupling the two would be difficult, and said Canada would benefit more by reaching a deal with its southern neighbour that maintains the same market access. China Would Use Canada as a 'Storehouse of Natural Resources' The United States may require Canada to align with its China trade policy as a condition for continued access to the U.S. market, says Crowley, particularly to ensure Canada does not become a ' 'That will be a tough pill for the Liberal Party of Canada to swallow because they have, to a considerable extent, hitched their wagon to China as a rising power,' he said, arguing that the Liberal Party 'has been an active promoter of China as an important partner for Canada for many years.' In addition to aligning with the United States on trade policy, Crowley says Canada must also contribute more on security and defence. While he thinks Trump 'exaggerates' Canada's role in drug trafficking, he says 'there ' s no doubt that Canada is part of the international network that is flooding the United States with fentanyl.' 'I think the biggest role that we play in that is that we have become a haven for money laundering, for the people who are actually behind the drug trade, which is mostly China,' he said. On the defence front, Crowley highlighted the long-standing U.S. concern that Canada has not met its NATO defence spending commitment, which Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to fulfill by 2030. In his In 'We have not been a reliable ally on defence,' Crowley said. 'We have not been looking after the Arctic flank of North America.' He added that Canada should 'sit down with Trump' and negotiate on the full range of issues affecting both countries. 'I have been urging people on both sides of the border to think about what I call a 'grand bargain' between Canada and the United States,' Crowley said. 'Let's not get caught in the weeds on the trade relationship, that ' s very important. Let's make sure we get that right.' On the idea of Canada turning to China as a new top trading partner to replace the United States, as some floated amid trade tensions, Crowley said China could never offer Canada what the United States does. 'On almost every level, China is, in my view, a poor partner for Canada,' he said, adding that China wants to benefit from Canada's resources but is not interested in a serious partnership involving Canadian manufacturers or processed goods. 'If we were to deepen our relationship with China, I'm here to tell you that China would only care about us as a storehouse of natural resources that they would be able to dominate,' he said. 'So in every way, China is a poor, indeed not just a poor substitute, a completely impossible substitute for our relationship with the United States.' He said there is a misconception that Canada's relationship with the United States is 'all about natural resources,' without considering wider trade, security, and defence ties. Canadian Identity Trump's comments about making Canada part of the United States and questioning the country's existence 'drove the anxiety levels of Canadians who cared about these issues to unprecedented heights,' said Crowley, adding it led to questions about Canadian identity. The difference between Americans and Canadians is hard to define, he said, not because it doesn't exist, but because 'the differences are subtle and hard to express.' He noted that the United States was born from a revolution against the Crown, while some territories that would later become Canada remained loyal to it. 'We tend to be people who believe more in the quiet, thoughtful evolution of institutions,' he said, contrasting it with a 'radical break.' 'Canada has chosen an evolutionary path in which we put a little more emphasis on the idea of the common good [and] a little less emphasis on the idea of individual liberty,' he said, adding that Canadians are 'great believers' in individual freedom in the context of an ordered society. He noted that to people from outside North America, like Europeans, the differences between Americans and Canadians may not seem significant, but there are differences. 'From the inside, the differences to us are quite obvious, and without in any way feeling that it means that we ' re superior to America, it does make us feel that we've chosen a slightly different path in North America,' he said. 'It ' s one that our ancestors fought and suffered and paid for and that we have inherited, and it's ours and that matters to us.'
Toronto Sun
05-05-2025
- Business
- Toronto Sun
Carney must sell Canada as vital to continental security, economy: Expert
Prime minister there to 'anchor a partnership with Canada and help set the terms globally,' says former Canadian diplomat In this combination photo: Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks to the media after meeting with his cabinet to deal with the U.S auto tariffs on March 27, 2025, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa; U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on March 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Dave Chan, Win McNamee / AFP viaOTTAWA — He needs to sell Canada as an indispensable part of North America's security and economic future. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create 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 account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account That's what Prime Minister Mark Carney must do when he meets with Donald Trump Tuesday as Canada hopes to carve out some relief in the U.S. president's trade war. 'He's not just there to smooth tensions, he's there to anchor a partnership with Canada and help set the terms globally,' said Alan Kessel, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a former Canadian diplomat. 'The pitch to Trump is simple: A strong U.S.-Canada alliance makes North America the powerbase everyone else has to work around. That's good for American leadership, but it's crucial for protecting Canadian sovereignty, too, and if Carney locks that in, it's a win for those countries.' In an interview with the Toronto Sun , Kessel said the best thing Carney has going for him is that he isn't Justin Trudeau. 'His job should be to anchor Canada's position as a co-architect of 'Fortress North America,' economically and militarily, and to defend Canadians' interests while enhancing our leverage globally,' he said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Canada, he said, has four key continental issues on the table — economic security, defence modernization, strategic leverage for global leadership and ensuring U.S. participation in next month's G7 summit in Alberta. 'A way to do that is for (Carney) to showcase American leadership alongside Canada,' Kessel said. 'Maybe G7 becomes a stage where 'Fortress North America' is rolled out as a model for strength, not retreat.' It's Carney's job, Kessel said, to convince Trump that Canada's essential to that strategy. 'We need this blueprint where Canada is the architect together,' he said. 'We don't want to be a bystander.' bpassifiume@ X: @bryanpassifiume Read More Columnists Toronto Blue Jays Canada Federal Elections Columnists
National Post
27-04-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Barbara Kay: Crucial case challenges defamatory accusations of Islamophobia designed to intimidate and silence
Islamism — defined most benignly as 'the belief that Islam should influence political systems'— is, according to Joe Adam George, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's National Security Analyst, the 'biggest existential threat to Canada within its borders.' Yet, in the English-language leaders' election debate, when Bloc Québécois leader François Blanchet dangled the word 'Islamism' for discussion, nobody took the bait. Article content Article content Article content Writing on the subject in these pages last year, George observed that, unlike China and Russia, 'what makes Islamists such a formidable force to reckon with is their ability to weaponize Islam to silence, punish and deter' their critics. One Islamist group, the politically influential National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), is particularly active on this front. Article content Article content Leaning on the charge of Islamophobia, the NCCM launched a successful campaign to oust human rights lawyer Collin May from his positions as director of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Tribunal (AHRC) shortly after his May 2022 appointment. Two weeks ago, the Lawfare Project and law firm Zacharias Vickers McCann LLP announced the filing of a defamation lawsuit against the NCCM on May's behalf. Article content May brought sterling qualifications to his appointment. He had already served three years as a part-time commissioner, had written over 40 published decisions and conducted more than 40 mediation sessions. He has degrees in political philosophy and religion, including the intellectual history of rights. May is the first openly gay man to serve in the role. Nevertheless, he is also philosophically conservative, which stirred complaints amongst progressives that his was a patronage appointment by Alberta's UCP government. Article content Article content The campaign to unseat May began in earnest, like so many cancel-culture witch hunts, with a deep dive into May's publishing history. In early July 2022, a NDP-affiliated blogger, Duncan Kinney (included as a separate defendant in the defamation suit), unearthed a positive 2009 review by May of the Yale University Press published book, Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh, professor and head of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London. Article content Article content In a blog post, Kinney criticized the review, citing an Edmonton Al Rashid Mosque Imam Sadique Pathan who criticized May's review of the book as 'binary thinking that is very convenient for people who engage in Islamophobia or outright racist views towards Muslims.' Article content May's ' rather esoteric ' review had not raised objections at the time, but in July, 2022, Kinney erroneously attributed May's summation of Karsh's view of Islam as 'one of the most militaristic religions known to man' directly to May, sparking NCCM's call on the government to rescind the appointment. Premier Jason Kenney instructed May to meet and make peace with the NCCM. May met with them, but stopped short of apologizing. The NCCM was not amused. Kenney fired May in September, 2022.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ottawa to remove half of its exceptions in Canadian Free Trade Agreement: source
The federal government plans remove half its exceptions in the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) in an effort to improve interprovincial trade, according to a senior government source. The agreement was first signed by the federal government and the provinces and territories in 2017. Its intention was to modernize the Agreement on Internal Trade signed in 1995 and was designed to increase the flow of goods, services and labour across provinces and promote regulatory co-operation within Canada. However, critics of the agreement argue that a large number of exceptions remain in the agreement that render it less effective in fostering free internal trade in Canada. The federal government initially had 56 exceptions in the agreement, before removing 17 of them last July. Some premiers have expressed a willingness to improve interprovincial trade, with Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston announcing on Thursday his intention to table a bill that will remove barriers and make trade with other provinces easier. Anita Anand, Canada's internal trade minister, is set to meet with the committee on internal trade next week, where she expects a progress report from provincial counterparts on the removal of interprovincial trade barriers. In recent weeks, there has been a renewed sense of urgency in making Canada's economy more resilient in light of trade threats by U.S. President Donald Trump. A 30-day pause on Trump's threat to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods and a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy, is set to end March 4. In total, internal trade represents 18 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP). A 2022 study by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, based on research done by University of Calgary professor and economist Trevor Tombe, found that the country's GDP is between 3.2 per cent and 7.3 per cent smaller because of internal trade costs. Macklem warns of no 'bounce-back' for Canada in trade war Bank of Canada says trade war will hurt Canada more than the U.S. Business heads ask Trudeau to recall Parliament to deal with trade A report published by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business this past summer estimates the removal of internal trade barriers would boost the Canadian economy by as much as $200 billion annually. • Email: jgowling@ Sign in to access your portfolio
CBC
08-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
Once a 'crass mathematical calculation,' NATO's spending target is now an article of faith for Liberals
NATO's two per cent defence spending target, derided only last summer as a "crass mathematical calculation" by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was feverishly embraced this week by the Liberal leadership hopefuls vying to replace him. The statements represent a remarkable conversion for the governing party, which has looked upon the gross domestic product goal — even under intense allied pressure and the occasional public shaming — as arbitrary and meaningless. "We've always questioned the two per cent as the be-all, end-all of evaluating contributions to NATO," Trudeau said last July in Washington — after meeting with allied leaders and leading U.S. lawmakers and after belatedly committing to reach the benchmark by 2032. What a difference six months and a presidential election makes. This week, it looked somewhat like a policy bidding war as candidates attempted to out-promise each other on when they could get the country over the elusive line, which could run the federal treasury anywhere from $55 billion to $81.9 billion per year, depending on the year and the economic outlook. Former central bank governor Mark Carney set 2030 as his mark — two years ahead of the current plan. The next day, Chrystia Freeland, the former deputy prime minister and finance minister, claimed Canada could get there by 2027. "The world has changed. We need defence spending now — not in the next decade," said Freeland in a campaign statement. It is hard to look at that as anything other than a dig at her former boss. Defence analyst Richard Shimooka, a senior research fellow at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said you can't understate the degree to which attitudes have changed. "There's a clear understanding now that defence and security really is the bedrock of our foreign relations," Shimooka said. "Until just very recently, I don't think that many people within the Liberal Party fully appreciated that … there was always a real reticence to actually spend to the two per cent mark." With a defence budget of just over $33 billion in 2024-25 and when spending on the Canadian Coast Guard and Veterans Affairs is added in, Canada hits roughly 1.37 per cent of GDP on the defence scale. WATCH | Canada looking to accelerate defence spending timeline: Canada 'examining how to accelerate' defence spending, Anand says 3 days ago Duration 2:41 Freeland, who was until just recently in cabinet, proposed increasing the size of the military to 125,000 members and giving the regular force a 50 per cent pay bump. It's clear from Defence Minster Bill Blair's remarks in Washington on Thursday that some elements of the idea have already percolated as a quick and easy way to move the needle on defence spending. "Part of our planning is to invest — first of all — in the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces," Blair said, while acknowledging the longstanding bottleneck in recruiting and training that has stymied efforts to rebuild the military. All branches of the military continue to suffer an acute shortage of personnel. Last fall, the top military commander told a parliamentary committee that as of the end of August, there were a total of 92,798 people in uniform out of an authorized strength of 101,500. Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan said once enrolled, the military only has the capacity to put 6,400 recruits through basic training each year. On Friday, the Department of National Defence released figures that show the military will only grow by 1,100 regular members this year when attrition is factored in. It is hoping to enroll 6,496 new recruits by the end of the fiscal year in March. In a statement, the department said the military expects to reach the current authorized strength of 71,500 regular and 30,000 reserve by 2029. Freeland is proposing a force of 125,000. Shimooka said that's not going to happen any time soon. Much of what's being proposed — especially the 2027 benchmark — is beyond the capacity of the system to deliver, he added. Both Carney and Freeland pledged to remove the obstacles that have made buying military equipment a painful and glacial exercise. That is interesting because the Liberals pledged in both the 2015 and 2019 elections to fix defence procurement. Responding to the rising anti-American public sentiment around President Donald Trump's tariff threat, the two leadership contenders promised a pivot away from the U.S. defence industrial complex, where possible. Carney said 80 per cent of defence purchases made by this country involve the U.S. and that has to change. "It's not just about setting the target between now and the end of the decade, but it's also spending that money wisely and effectively. And above all, as much as possible, potentially the majority of the increase in that money spent here in Canada as opposed to the United States," Carney said on Wednesday. Defence ties to U.S. run deep Surprisingly, while would-be prime ministers were floating those ideas, Blair and Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne were trying to preserve and deepen the existing ties. Blair told reporters on Thursday the ministers had "really important conversations" with colleagues in Congress and the U.S. Senate — as well as representatives from the military and aeronautic industries. "We have been able to impress upon them the importance of the integration with Canadian industry and Canadian workers," Blair said. "We talked about the things that we have to do in our military, but the importance of working together and collaboratively and making sure that every dollar spent is seen as an investment, not only in capability, but investment in our industries, our workers and our economy." The Liberal government has most recently faced calls to reconsider or cancel major Canadian contracts with the U.S., including a more than $19-billion deal to buy 88 F-35 fighter jets with U.S. defence company Lockheed-Martin. Disentangling Canada from the U.S. defence industrial complex is not going to happen any time soon — if ever, Shimooka said. Many of the high-end military capabilities — from fighter jets to drones to sophisticated command and control systems — are primarily manufactured in the United States. Turning to Europe is a possibility, but Shimooka said even those countries are to some degree reliant on American technology. "The reality of the Canadian defence industrial base is that since the 1950s it's been highly integrated into the United States," he said. "Disentangling oneself, it makes a good sound bite, but the reality is that it's effectively impossible, except in the very long-term — and even then, it's unlikely to occur."
