Trump starts a victory dance over Canada border moves

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has been roasting Canada like a maple-glazed ham in recent days. But amid all the sizzle in his punchlines, some less-noticed messages might have more meat on them.

The running gag about Canada as a 51st state is clearly generating a torrent of yuk-yuks on Fox News and indignation from his critics.

But new statements from his transition team, his campaign, his press secretary and Capitol Hill Republicans could ultimately point to a more hopeful development for Canada.

Trump’s victory lap

It involves the risk of tariffs crushing Canada’s economy. And the pretext Trump initially cited as his reason to impose them: wanting new border controls on the flow of migrants and fentanyl.

The development is that his team is now taking a victory lap. It’s celebrating the changes Canada announced at the border Tuesday as evidence of Trump getting the job done.

“President Trump is making good on his mandate for sweeping change,” said a press release from his transition team Wednesday, headlined, “President Trump Is Securing The Border And He Hasn’t Even Taken Office Yet.”

“Promises made, promises kept.”

This is exactly what Canadian officials predicted after meeting Trump at Mar-a-Lago: They understood he wanted to declare that, even before taking office, he was saving American lives.

Now the incoming White House press secretary is also posting that triumphant message on her Instagram and X accounts, and Capitol Hill Republicans were boasting about a Trump win.

“We’re aware of that,” pro-Trump congressman Andy Biggs said, when asked by CBC News about the previous day’s announcements from Ottawa.

“And indeed that’s what happens when you have a strong leader come in and lay down markers. And so we’re really happy about that.”

Canada has announced a multitude of new changes, ranging from new helicopters at the border, to migration controls, to new money-laundering rules, to a joint Canada-U.S. anti-fentanyl police task force.    

Now here’s a key question: is it enough to make Trump drop his threat of a 25 per cent tariff? That’s unclear. Trump’s own congressional allies profess to be in the dark. 

“I dunno,” Biggs said, when asked. He turned to other Republican colleagues nearby and asked if any knew the answer. None did.

“You’re asking me to read the mind of President Trump. I will say that I support him, and he’s doing a masterful job.”

It’s certainly possible Trump could still impose tariffs on Canada.

But in doing so, he’d now risk running against three cross-currents. A couple of polls now suggest a Canada tariff is unpopular, especially with swing voters; it threatens his signature campaign promise to keep prices low; and, now, it could risk the co-operation from Canada he’s celebrating.

Trump has still left himself wiggle room to proceed with tariffs or other future trade actions; he’s repeatedly referred to Canada’s trade deficit with the U.S. as a rip-off, ignoring its close connection to the price of oil.   

51st state a ‘great idea’, Trump posts

Oh, and there’s one other thing he’s not easily letting go: The jokes. The ones at the expense of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the country next door.

On Wednesday, Trump once again posted favourably about Canada becoming the 51st state, calling it a “great idea.”

“No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense! Many Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State,” he posted on Truth Social. “They would save massively on taxes and military protection.”

Trump has made a series of statements and social media posts since his Nov. 5 election win mocking Canada and Trudeau, previously referring him to as “governor” of the 51st state.

Earlier this week, Trump reacted to the stunning resignation of Chrystia Freeland from cabinet, calling her “toxic.”

Freeland was intensively involved in trade talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer during Trump’s first term. The pair, along with a top Mexican official, signed the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, or CUSMA, in 2019, updating the previous North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Repeating an old trade-deficit claim?

Biggs, the Republican congressman from Arizona, brushed it off when asked about the Canada-as-state comments from Trump: “Humour is dead,” Biggs replied. “I think Donald Trump is being humorous, OK?”

While some suggest Trump is just engaged in trolling, others suggest the threat is an effective political tactic.

“It’s to dominate and intimidate, he’s been very successful at using those strategies, and typical politicians don’t usually know how to respond,” Jennifer Mercieca, Texas A&M communications professor and author of Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, told CBC News recently.

Mercieca said Trump’s humour has the consequence of creating an “in group and out group,” putting people into different divisions.

It’s not specifically clear where the $100 million came from that Trump is quoting, though it appears he is repeating a figure that is seven years old based on statements made at the time by Lighthizer.

According to reporting by CBC’s Evan Dyer at the time, Lighthizer cited a figure in his export calculations that included goods that pass through Canada but don’t originate here as Canadian exports, artificially inflating the United States’s trade deficit in goods with Canada. The figure did not take into account trade in services.

Trump has long lamented U.S. trade deficits with other countries, though some economists argue that a trade deficit alone does not offer a full accounting of the health of an economy.

“A larger trade deficit can be the result of a stronger economy, as consumers spend and import more while higher interest rates make foreign investors more eager to place their money in the United States,” said the think-tank Council on Foreign Relations in a 2019 report.

Canada’s defence spending under scrutiny

Previous U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama urged NATO alliance members to bolster domestic defence spending, and in 2014, NATO members agreed to commit two per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to defence spending over the subsequent decade. At the time, Canada was spending only 0.9 percent of its GDP on defence.

Trump in his first presidential campaign and subsequent term in office has railed at alliance members and incorrectly stated they are “delinquent” in spending.

It is now estimated that Canada’s military spending is between 1.3 and 1.4 per cent of its GDP.

This summer, Trudeau told a meeting of parliamentarians from NATO nations that Canada is on track to meet its commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defence by 2032, a pledge that has been met coolly in the U.S.

Canada and other countries should hit the NATO-imposed target of spending two per cent of GDP “as rapidly as humanly possible,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, while Republican congressman Jim Risch of Idaho last month suggested that Trump would let out a “very large guffaw” at Canada’s current timeline.

Canada’s federal Defence Minister Bill Blair said in recent weeks he was “ready to go faster,” and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte earlier this month issued a clarion call to alliance members to increase their defence spending to a “lot more than two per cent.” Alliance members need to be on a “wartime footing” with their defence spending, he said.

Some analysts have said the flat metric can provide an incomplete picture.

“Spending at two per cent says very little about a country’s actual military capabilities; its readiness, deployability, and
sustainability levels; and the quality of the force that it can field,” the think-tank Carnegie Europe said in a 2015 report. 

As well, despite a $38-billion modernization package announced by the Liberal government in 2022, Canada’s commitments to the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) have also come under scrunity.

Blair said last month that he is asking for help from the U.S. because much of what the Canadian Armed Forces has to acquire comes from American corporations and defence contractors.

Canadians cool to being 51st

A recent Leger poll suggests 13 per cent of Canadians would like the country to become the next U.S. state. The demographic breakdowns show there’s higher support among men, at 19 per cent, compared with only seven per cent of women.

Conservative party supporters came in at 21 per cent, while one in 10 Liberal voters said they were in favour of the idea. The People’s Party of Canada showed the highest level of endorsement among the federal parties, at 25 per cent, while the NDP was the lowest, at six per cent.

Among the overall population, 82 per cent opposed the idea, the highest of which comes from Atlantic provinces, women and Canadians over the age of 55. Leger polled 1,520 people between Dec. 6 and Dec. 9. The poll does not have a margin of error because online polls aren’t considered truly random samples.

It’s not a question Canadians have often been surveyed on, though it has happened in the past.

A Gallup poll in 1990 around the time of heated Meech Lake accord negotiations revealed that just 13 per cent of those surveyed would support the idea of their province joining the United States, with 79 per cent opposed.

In 1964, Maclean’s ran a special issue covering U.S.-Canada relations. In a poll commissioned by the magazine and a few other Canadian media outlets, including the CBC program Inquiry, 17 per cent favoured a union of Canada and the U.S., and an additional 12 per cent strongly favoured a union.

Canadians sounded off on the prospect of becoming part of the United States on the most recent episode of CBC’s Cross Country Checkup.

You can hear to what listeners had to say here:

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