By Jeffrey Blehar
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
A quick note on the continuing adventures of Dealmaker
Don, America’s diplomatic bull in the china shop. As some may already know,
Trump has embarked upon an unusual economic and foreign policy approach with
regard to our northern neighbors in Canada, slapping 25 percent tariffs on all
exports, as prelude to a “better deal”: outright annexation as the 51st state.
It’s all total nonsense — aggressively insulting nonsense at that — and has had
the predictable effect of tanking support for Pierre Poilievre and his
Conservatives right as Canadians are heading into an election to decide who
will replace the awful Justin Trudeau as prime minister.
I don’t know whether Trump particularly cares about the
political fortunes of the Canadian Right — given that he can’t stop talking
about how much he wants to annex the entire country outright like Putin dreams
of taking Kyiv — but last night’s interview on Fox News suggests he’s at least
aware of the disastrous impact his snarky online insults (and much more
practically, his tariff policy) have had on them, because he has started to
steer his rhetoric with more craft. Well aware that he has become the Voldemort
of Canadian politics — an evil so feared and hated that even to invoke his name
is to be suspected of collaboration — Trump had fun twisting the knife last
night while talking to Laura Ingraham by endorsing
the Liberal candidate, acting Prime Minister Mark Carney, as
Canada’s next leader. And why? “The Conservative that’s running is, stupidly,
no friend of mine . . . I think it’s easier to deal with a Liberal.”
It was the sort of anti-endorsement Pierre Poilievre was
so happy to see that he tweeted
it out himself. And I actually take Trump completely at face value — he
doesn’t like Poilievre and actually thinks Canadians would be happy as
Americans, and not the largest domestic terrorism network in modern history.
But Trump understands politics as well — well enough to know that his
endorsement is an anti-endorsement in a land which has been given every good
reason to loathe him.
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