Dumb and Dumber

It’s impossible to live in North America and not read about President-elect Trump’s various blusters about the US’s relations with Canada and Mexico. Living in the former naturally causes me to focus on it, but my impression so far is that the government in Mexico is doing a much better job of dealing with said bluster. Mexico’s president hasn’t said much, and what she did say was pretty clear.

A major kerfuffle up here in the Great White North is Trump’s threat to impose a 25% tariff on all goods imported into the US from either country. His ‘reason’ to do this is to get Canada to stop the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants into the US.

Let’s start there. If one knows anything about international relations, one knows that it is the duty of each country to police its own borders. Specifically, if the US or Uganda or Sweden wants to keep something from coming into the country – whether animal, vegetable, mineral or people – then it is responsible for doing that. This is why, when Canadians travel to the US, they do not find themselves talking to a Canadian Border Agent about where they’re going, how long they plan to stay, and what they might be bringing with them. They get to talk to a very nice US border guard about all those things. If there are Canadian border guards patrolling the Great Lakes in boats, they are there to stop things and people from entering Canada, not from entering the US.

There are and have been countries in which citizens leaving the country have to talk to a border guard working for their own government. Citizens of good ol’ East Germany and the Soviet Union had to do that, back  in the day, and they could be sure they would be turned around and sent back home – if not arrested – if they did not have documented high-level permission to leave. We don’t live in countries like that. Thankfully.

I had to answer an hour’s worth  of questions from Israeli border security agents when I left their country after my one visit there in the 90s. We don’t live in a country in Israel’s precarious position of constant war, either. Thankfully, again.

For a while in the aftermath of 9-11, US border officials (in combat fatigues, no less) would lurk on the US roads that run from the US onto the Ambassador Bridge, randomly stopping cars that were heading to Canada. I don’t know what they would have asked me had I been stopped, I was always waved on, but I viewed it as one more step toward Big Brother when I saw it. Maybe they’re still doing it, I don’t know, I have not crossed that bridge in a long time.

So, if Mr Trump is proposing we start doing that to people leaving Canada for the US, the appropriate Canadian governmental response would be – ‘We’re not that kind of country. What enters your country is your responsibility.’

This has not been the response of Canadian government(s). They have instead looked like the proverbial chickens running around with their heads cut off, because not only the PM and his ministers have responded to this tariff threat, but so have a number of provincial premiers.

I will consider these responses in a bit, but first we have to be clear about the nature of Trump’s threat. The President-elect has said he will punish Canada for ‘letting bad things and people into the US’ by imposing a 25% tariff on all goods the US imports from Canada.

So, he is proposing to raise the prices of a large set of goods purchased by Americans and US -based companies, as a way to punish Canada, presumably until it stops those bad things from going to the US. To be sure, these tariffs, if enacted, will not be good for Canadian companies that export to the US, or their workers. The rise in prices in the US that the tariff will surely cause will reduce US demand for those products and that will mean lower sales and presumably lower profits for those Canadian companies. It is not impossible that some companies in Canada will be driven out of business by this.

So, definitely bad for (some) Canadians for sure. But also bad for most American consumers, and many American companies. Higher prices are not good if you are a buyer.

In other words, Trump is saying  ‘Do what I want or I will kill this puppy.  Yea, I know it’s my puppy, but dammit, I’ll shoot it, and you’ll be sorry.’

He is proposing to get what he wants by punishing his own citizens and companies. Waytago, Donald.

Not to be outdone, various Canadian officials in various governments have proposed to retaliate in much the same spirit. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has suggested his government will stop selling hydro-electricity to three US states in which, according to this Canadian Press story Ontario sells enough electricity to power 1.5 million homes. The three states involved are apparently New York, Michigan and Minnesota.

What will this cost Ontario and its taxpayers? Anyone? The answer hinges on what will happen if Ontario does stop exporting that electricity to the US. If it just means Ontario produces less electricity, then the question becomes whether Ontario was making a profit on those exports. If so, then we are foregoing those profits, and once again a government is punishing its own citizens to retaliate against a government leader who is punishing his citizens. If, on the other hand, the Ontario suppliers were not making a profit on that electricity then….well, why not?

Ford’s other idea is to stop the LCBO from importing US-produced alcoholic beverages, so….Bourbon, wine, and – one can hope – their crappy beer.

Bad for Jim Beam, Jack Daniels and California wine producers, I guess, as the LCBO does buy a lot of booze, but once again, it’s gonna be us Canadian consumers who also pay, through less choices in booze.

The province apparently (the CP story gives no source for this) is also considering restricting exports of minerals to the US that are used in battery production. It’s not clear to me that a province has any ability under the Canadian constitution to restrict what Canadian companies export, but once again, if they can, this is punishing the companies in Ontario that would otherwise be making a profit and employing Canadians by selling these minerals. I mean, c’mon, folks. Trumps says he will tax something we sell to the US and Ontario’s response is well, then we won’t sell it at all? That’s all you got? We’ll shoot our own puppy?

Now, not every Canadian premier is clueless. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is quoted in the article as saying “Under no circumstances will Alberta agree to cut off oil and gas exports,” she said. “Our approach is one of diplomacy, not threats.”

And, we are not going to cut our own throats, she might have added.

Another quote from the CP article:

Michael Sabia, president and CEO of Hydro-Québec, said “it’s not our current intention” to cut off Quebec’s exports to Massachusetts or New York state, but he conceded it might be possible.

“Our intention is to respect those contracts, both because they’re legally binding, but also because it’s part of, in our view, a sound relationship with the United States,” he said. “It’s a questionable instrument to use in a trade conflict.”

Okay, then if these contracts are legally binding, what about the contracts Ontario has with US states for providing electricity? Are they not legally binding? Did any journalist think to ask Ontario’s officials about that? And, given what Sabia says in that last paragraph, did the writer of the article mean to write that Sabia ‘….conceded that it might be impossible’ (to cut off electricity to the US). Y’know, beecause they have legally binding contracts. (Sorry, I have zero faith that journalists get things right any more….)

Another quote from the Ontario Premier in the CP article.

“We’re sending a message to the U.S. (that if) you come and attack Ontario, you attack livelihoods of people in Ontario and Canadians, we are going to use every tool in our tool box to defend Ontarians and Canadians. Let’s hope it never comes to that.”

Give a 21^st century politician any excuse to use combat metaphors and they can’t stop themselves. Trump is attacking Ontarians and Canadians. I imagine that’s how Trump sees it, too, but what in fact he is doing, if we’re going to stick with the combat rhetoric, is attacking us in a way that guarantees his own people get hit with friendly fire. And, of course, our own ‘generals’ are threatening to ‘defend’ us by responding in kind.

I say keep your head down for awhile, none of these leaders can shoot – or think – straight.

Oh, yea, and just to make sure there is something completely ridiculous in this post, there’s the ‘Canada as 51^st state with Governor Trudeau’ jab from Trump. It says a lot about 21^st century journalism that journalists write intentionally serious stories about Canada becoming a US state, and their employers print/post them. There remain few grownups in the room anymore. Any room.

Endnotes

1, I was talking to someone the morning before I wrote this article and she told me she’d heard that Trump was going to stop selling US booze to Canada. I just said ‘That sounds implausible’ and of course it isn’t true, but it shows that people watching all this happen often have no idea about how things work. Who can do what, who is actually doing what, what are its impacts; none of this is obvious to most people. This makes it all more of a shame that the media is so bloody bad at explaining anything.

2. More beating up on CP. They deserve it. This note appears at the bottom of the CP article I quote above:

“Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version stated that Ontario exported enough energy to power 1.5 million homes in three states in 2013.”

Um….that’s still what the story says, and in addition, it names three specific states, but doesn’t give the year. So……just what was wrong about that original story? Is it that you are now saying you don’t know what bloody year those numbers apply to? Or…..you know the year but you’re not going to tell us? But, you’re sticking to the 1.5 million homes number?

You know things are bad when you can’t tell what mistake a correction is correcting.