So, tariffs went into effect March 4th at midnight. Now what? This, despite most rational people and virtually all non-MAGA economists claiming they’re a bad idea and will have dire economic consequences for both countries. This, despite Trump’s campaign promise to bring down the cost of living on day one in office. And, the 25% on all Canadian goods coming into the US will be compounded with further tariffs on steel and aluminum, retaliatory tariff increases he has promised on any tariffs we levy in response (currently 25% targeting $155 billion in US goods, and additional tariffs on Canadian made automobiles exported to the US.
As he has threatened these tariffs over the past month, stock markets have lost value and will likely continue tanking. On the face of it, they make no sense at all. We already know that Trump isn’t persuaded by facts, reason or logic (shiny objects and flattery, though, are another story altogether), but actively sabotaging the North American economy is on a scale of absurdity that defies sanity (he also slapped the same broad tariff of 25% on all goods from Mexico). Effectively, this is a declaration of economic war on America’s two biggest trading partners, isolating America from its North American allies. Taken in isolation it’s hard to see any kind of plan to the madness. However, in context with so much of what else he has done since taking office, a troubling trend seems to be emerging.
The speed with which Trump has chosen to try to remake the US government and, in fact, America’s place in the world is stupefying. It’s by design too. Steve Bannon once famously said that the Trump strategy is to flood the media with so much, so fast, that the media’s desire to try and focus on everything means they can’t focus on anything. It allows a lot of things to slip through the cracks, even in the 24 hour news cycles we now have.
In no particular order and not remotely a complete list:
- Signing a barrage of executive orders to avoid congressional oversight of his decisions
- Appointing the world’s richest man to an unelected position to find “efficiencies” based on his whims and biases (sorry, but DOGE is only tracked on Twitter)
- Killing the DEI (Department of Equity and Inclusion) and ending initiatives aimed at equity for underrepresented groups
- Attacking gender diverse Americans by proclaiming recognition of only two genders (a claim refuted by experts)
- Gutting USAID funding/programs and laying off/firing most of its staff
- Mass layoffs/firings across many government departments and agencies
- Firing DOJ and FBI agents involved with January 6, 2020 investigations
The list above barely scratches the surface, but you get the idea. In terms of just the presidency, it’s clear that, from his desire for everything to be transactional to behaving more like a dictator than a president, he more wants to be America’s CEO than its true leader. He also thrives on chaos, as getting press and notoriety for his actions are his biggest aphrodisiac.
“We are in a new kind of presidency with Donald Trump,” said H.W. Brands, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin. “He is trying to make the presidency like a CEO position in a corporation.”
If Trump’s actions were limited to only the tariffs and the list above, they’d be bad enough, but beyond all that, Trump has also been busy on foreign policy in a horribly unprecedented way. He has openly mused about annexing Canada and Greenland; one a sovereign state and one a territory of Denmark, even going so far as to refer to Canada’s Prime Minister as the “governor of America’s 51st state.” Never mind that, with massive provincial differences, its sheer size and official bilingualism, Canada could never be absorbed like Trump simplistically thinks it could. It’s a silly fantasy to get access to our natural resources and nothing more.
Beyond his poorly conceived tariffs and territorial expansion fantasies, he has talked about re-taking control of the Panama Canal, has continued pressuring America’s European NATO allies to increase defence spending, threatened tariffs on any goods coming into the US from almost anywhere, and most bizarre of all, re-established formal relations with Russia, an almost unthinkable development until very recently. To emphasize his NATO and Russian stances, he has suspended all funding to Ukraine and abandoned them diplomatically. It is crucial to note that, presently, Ukraine is all that stands between Russia and the rest of Europe. He also gaslit history with respect to who started the war in Ukraine (it was Russia of course), and referred to Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskyy as an unelected dictator (he was elected in 2019, with no elections since because of the war with Putin’s Russia).
I won’t post the video of the bizarre attack on Zelenskyy by Trump and Vance in the White House last Friday, but Google it if you haven’t seen it. It’s worth noting that Zelenskyy was only at the White House to sign a deal worth billions in precious minerals, which he balked at doing when there was no guarantees for continue US military support in exchange. Reports today suggest that he’s willing to bend and give away the minerals for … no guarantees of US military support, only to “salvage” the relationship with Trump.
Coming back to the tariffs momentarily; they are also a poorly disguised effort to cripple our economy, making Canada (in Trump’s mind) more amenable to caving to whatever future demands he may make. First he claimed it was illegal migration and fentanyl coming into the US. When Canada added well over $1 billion in border improvements (including a hastily conceived and hired fentanyl “czar”) and demonstrated the effectiveness of the measures, and Canada already represented less than 1% of both flowing into the US, he was unmoved and went ahead with the tariffs. So, to be clear, tariffs have never been about the border in any way, shape or form. Also, I think the dismantling of USAID is important. That’s the agency that the US has used to distribute all manner of humanitarian assistance around the world. Whether Trump sees nothing for him in humanitarian leadership and soft diplomacy, or he actually believes it’s a corrupt organization, it plays directly into my main thesis below.
Russia
So, if you’re keeping score so far, Trump has alienated his traditional North American and European NATO allies economically and militarily, has eyes on territorial expansion and has begun pulling out of the eighty year old alliance by withholding funding and military protection, which has primarily been aimed at providing security for Europe against Russian aggression, most notably with Ukraine so far. He also wants to lift the economic sanctions imposed on Russia three years ago, for starting the war.
To me, this is where the really worrying aspects of this begin. Trump has long admired Vladimir Putin and, even just yesterday said that both of them had been the subject of the same “witch hunt,” presumably referring to his false claim that the election he lost in 2020 was stolen, and, one guesses, that reported Russian interference (in Trump’s favour) in the same election was unfounded. He has a long history of admiring strong men; from Putin to North Korea’s Kim to Hungary’s Orbán. One could even throw Netanyahu into that group and he wouldn’t look out of place.
I honestly believe that Trump not only wants to remake the presidency as “America’s CEO,” but he wants to remake the world order into that of two superpowers again – the US and Russia. It’s really difficult to explain his behaviour in any other way. His actions could easily be taken as paving the way for Russian expansion into Europe. Reducing or eliminating America’s financial and military support of Ukraine and NATO forces Europe’s hand to beef up their military. Recall, if you will, that one thing Putin is absolutely opposed to, is Ukraine’s admission into NATO, because he knows that makes them much stronger, with any attack on them being an attack on all of NATO. He wants Ukraine to be isolated and Trump is ensuring it happens. It’s beyond just being an unwitting accomplice. He’s actively trying to help Putin and it’s not clear why. Having his own expansionist desires, and admiring or sympathizing with Putin doesn’t completely explain it.
Eliminating economic sanctions on Russia and normalizing relations with them legitimizes Putin’s regime (in Trump’s eyes, if no one else’s) and all of it destabilizes the world order. It’s obvious Trump doesn’t actually care what happens in Europe, and Putin may well be eyeing a Soviet Union reboot. By all available evidence he seems as if he’d be fine with Russian annexing the whole continent, or at least the former Soviet block. The rest of the European NATO countries and Canada realize the kind of threat Putin poses to the world. It’s hard to fathom that Trump is too stupid or arrogant to see it too.