SNOBELEN: Trudeau is going to get Trumped
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Rahm Emanuel once opined that governments should never let a good crisis go to waste. Unfortunately, it seems the Trudeau government didn’t get that message.
The election of Donald Trump is nothing less than a crisis for the comfortable folks who occupy the deep cocoons of United States federal bureaucracies. From education to health care, change is coming.
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On the global stage Trump is a disruptor. He continues to threaten friend and foe alike, ultimately leaving the people who whisper in the ears of world leaders to ponder, over late-night whiskys, just how crazy he really is.
Against this backdrop, Trudeau and his crew reassure Canadians not to worry, they’ve got this. Heck, they have started up a cabinet committee on bilateral relations and thrown Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland into the battle.
By golly, they backed this Trump fellow down the last time he was president. Or so the rhetoric goes.
Which means the Trudeau government hasn’t got a clue. Trump 2.0 is a completely different ride.
Donald Trump is a man in a hurry. He has been battling for four years to return to the White House and this time he knows his way around the place. In 2016 he was a stranger in a strange town. When he is sworn in as the 47th president he will be the dominate force in global politics.
Trump must act fast. There will be no Trump 3.0. After the 2026 mid-term elections, Trump will be a lame duck president. Until then a hurricane of change is coming.
The first Trump presidency was less prepared, less focused and ultimately overtaken by a pandemic. The Trudeau team managed to mount a charm offensive that produced a trade agreement we could live with. Those tactics won’t work this time.
Trump sees Canada as a protectionist country that demands free access to American markets while freeloading on America’s military might. Trouble is, he’s right.
Which puts Trudeau in a bit of a pickle. Canada is not, thanks largely to the Trudeau government, in a position of strength.
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It’s hard to argue you are for free trade while defending tradewalls around a gaggle of protected industries that run the gamut from milk to cellphones. It’s hard to get anyone to believe you intend to meet NATO commitments when you have already declared you won’t. And it’s hard to hold an economy together battling the headwinds of massive government debt, onerous restrictions on natural resources, stagnant bureaucracies, high taxes, and a dollar the world values at 70 cents.
The Trudeau strategy, if it can be called that, is to use Trump as a foil against the Conservatives and attempt to survive the next two years only a little worse off. Everything his government does is viewed through the lens of a desperate need to hold on to power.
This is Trudeau’s ultimate weakness in a time of change. He is reactive, not proactive, and his timelines are ridiculously short.
The times call for leadership that embraces the challenge of change. We need a government that is building prosperity for the next two decades, not the next election cycle.
Trump represents a one-time opportunity to examine how Canadians are affected by our protectionist ways, focus on a long-term trade strategy, get our fiscal house in order, and clean up our global commitments.
But sadly, we do not have that kind of leadership and Trudeau is about to get Trumped.
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