Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Where is Kevin Vickers Now That We Might Need Him?


Think about it. What are we going to do if Donald Trump takes a shine to our lithe, very attractive prime minister and decides to grab Justin by the pussy or, as it's known, the Trump Handshake.

We've seen this play out before.  Who can forget Tony Blair's bromance with Bill Clinton and how that morphed into something else altogether when Blair got into the leather stuff with Clinton's successor. That was the hardcore master-slave, no holds barred stuff that even led to a Middle East quagmire and major war crimes once Tony succumbed to Bush/Cheney.

We know that Justin can't stand up to anybody - First Nations, environmentalists, all British Columbians and most ordinary Canadians excepted. To the powerful, however, he's a pushover or, when it comes to Trump, a bendover.

Notice how Trump's inauguration had Trudeau and his cabinet gather up their crinolines and hightail it to Calgary as though General Sherman himself was about to march through Ottawa? They got to Calgary and hunkered down until Trump dispatched his son in law with a bag of Midol.

And now it begins. The Toronto Star headline says it all - Canada signals possible U.S. trade deal that excludes Mexico.

The U.S. and Canada are signalling most of the pain from reworking the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will hit Mexico, with an adviser to Donald Trump flying to Calgary to tell Justin Trudeau’s team that commerce is balanced and running smoothly north of the border.

Trudeau’s cabinet gathered in the nation’s oil hub to weigh Trump’s impact, as Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. said he would consider bilateral measures with the U.S. in talks about the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The comments — which came as Trump signed an executive order that abruptly ended the decades-old U.S. tilt toward free trade — suggest the new administration is splintering the continental pact as the president prepares to meet Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto later this month.
...

“I don’t think he should be enormously worried because Canada is held in very high regard,” Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive officer at Blackstone Group LP and head of the president’s strategic and policy forum, told reporters after speaking to cabinet. “We have balanced trade between the U.S. and Canada, and that’s not the kind of situation where you should be worrying about the kind of issues you are.”

David MacNaughton, Trudeau’s ambassador in Washington, said upon arrival in Calgary that his focus is on avoiding Canada being “collateral damage” in trade actions aimed at China and Mexico. “We will co-operate on trilateral matters when it’s in our interest and we’ll be looking to do things that are in our interest bilaterally also. Some of them may be within NAFTA, some may not be,” he said Sunday night.

The message is pretty clear. What Donald Trump wants, Justin is all too willing to deliver. We will go along to get along. We've already told Trump what he most wants to hear - that we're terrified of him.



9 comments:

Toby said...

Americans can take care of themselves; the US is their country, their responsibility. All Canadians need to understand that our country is Canada. When I look around I can see that most Canadians don't get it. In particular, our politicians don't get it. Whatever the issue, they look south for solutions. We need our own solutions and if our solutions don't jibe with Washington dreams, so what?

The Mound of Sound said...


Toby, you be sure to send your thoughts and best wishes to Justin.

rumleyfips said...

The trade agreement with Europe is a step closer to finalization today. This may be the most important move the liberal government makes in its first term.

Digressing, I notice that a couple of lefty websites that supported Trump and hated Clinton have now started to criticize Trump. That didn't take long.

Anonymous said...

The U.S. and Canada are signalling most of the pain from reworking the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will hit Mexico.

This is very bad decision-making from the Liberal government. Trump is a seasoned negotiator trying to negotiate the best deal from two parties. His strategy is divide and conquer. Once Mexico is safely out of the picture, he'll go for Canada's throat. Canada should be showing a united front with Mexico. It's the only way of redressing the power imbalance when negotiating with the US.

Cap

The Mound of Sound said...


It was in vogue to demonize Clinton, Rumley. WikiLeaks was foremost among them. Do let me know when Assange turns himself in at the first US airport he reaches.

The Mound of Sound said...


It's certainly spineless decision making, Cap. Trudeau's been in power long enough that really shouldn't come as a surprise.

Anonymous said...

Justin Trudeau is lapping up Trumps decisions as it takes the decision making out of his hands.

Eventually; like Trump his decisions will be found to be faulty and his reign will be short.
Meanwhile, what damage will be done?

TB

Jay Farquharson said...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176234/tomgram%3A_john_feffer%2C_a_globalism_of_the_1%25/#more

Purple library guy said...

rumleyfips: While there are plenty of lefty websites that hated Clinton (she is after all quite hateful), perhaps even demonized her (she is fairly demonic), I've yet to see any lefty commentary that actually supports Trump. I'm not saying there is none, just . . . what I have seen is a lot of small-l liberals blaming anyone and everyone except their own camp for the failure of their own camp to win. You know, when the NDP lost in BC and then federally, I blamed the crappy NDP campaigns and NDP gutlessness. Isn't it about time the Democrats took a little break from whining about the Russians and the FBI and the press and the left and the leaks and the weather and their bad horoscope, and started looking at the Democrats a little bit?

As to Mexico and loss of NAFTA, if the Mexican politicians had the interests of the Mexican public at heart (which they don't), they'd be saying "Please, Brer Brainless, don't throw us in that briar patch!" and then going for land reform once they had them some tariffs on corn again. Heavily subsidized American corn has ruined Mexican agriculture and created mass poverty. If some of those maquiladora sweats getting shot in shantytowns by drug mafia could have their land back and a decent price for their produce, they'd jump at it.