Mark Slapinski - Top Economist LAUGHS Trump Out Of The Room, Carney WINS

00:00:00.000 When asked about Trump's economic attacks on Canada, an economist brilliantly explained just

00:00:05.100 how stupid and pointless this whole situation is. This comes as Trump threatens to escalate

00:00:09.880 the ongoing trade war between Canada and the United States. There is no such thing as a deal

00:00:14.180 with the U.S. because the president doesn't keep his word. He makes a deal and then says something

00:00:19.260 else needs to be added to it. With that in mind, how do you think Canada should navigate any of

00:00:25.000 this when thinking about trying to make a trade deal yeah i think actually let's actually talk

00:00:30.020 about a different kind of deal but it's the same economics which is let's think about marriage

00:00:33.620 now you know a lot of people when they get married that's for better for worse and sickness and in

00:00:38.380 health till death do us part and what happens when you get married you've got that guarantee that you

00:00:42.660 and your partner are going to be together forever so you really mix your lives you intermingle them

00:00:46.860 you find every way that you can support each other and enrich each other's lives that's one

00:00:54.000 model. And that's how we used to think about trade deals. Now, let me tell you about a different

00:00:57.900 kind of bloke. There are some people out there who get married, then get divorced, and then get

00:01:03.000 married and then see a sheila out the side of their eye and then get divorced. And then they

00:01:06.720 get married and they get divorced. And after they've been married a few times, certainly the

00:01:11.240 next person that bloke meets is sort of going to realise this is not a bloke who keeps his promises.

00:01:16.660 As a result, you're going to end up with a different sort of marriage. It's going to be

00:01:19.620 more transactional marriage you're not going to get deeply embedded in each other's lives and i

00:01:24.820 think that's the problem that's where we are with the president right now which is canada was serious

00:01:29.380 about a deep marriage that's what nafta was and the good faith reenactment of kuzma the problem

00:01:36.420 is that uh you're dating the wrong bloke right now and he's not shown that track record of

00:01:41.940 reliability justin wolfers used an analogy to describe trade deals trade deals are like a

00:01:46.980 marriage. Marriages work best when both sides are honest and fully committed to making the

00:01:51.300 relationship work. Likewise, trade deals work best when both sides are honest and they honor

00:01:56.260 the deal they made with each other. Trump is not an honest person, and he has shown that he won't

00:02:01.000 honor any deal he signs. Trump was the one that negotiated the current trade deal with Canada,

00:02:05.800 USMCA, in his first term, and he arbitrarily ripped it up in his second term. This has shown

00:02:10.700 that Trump can't be relied upon. Now, before I show you the next clip, if you're enjoying this

00:02:14.720 video give me a like subscribe and tell me what city you're watching from just for reference

00:02:19.540 he hasn't but the deal largely has i mean kuzma still defends canada against the worst part of

00:02:26.640 these terrorists because everything that is mostly everything that is kuzma compliant uh is is not

00:02:31.880 applied i guess how do you square those two when you think about we're we're supposed to be

00:02:36.700 intensifying talks with the u.s right now how should those negotiators be thinking about how

00:02:41.620 to approach this particular administration. Yeah. So it's worth remembering the whole

00:02:47.340 history of this. Recall, you know, Kuzma was in pretty good shape when we entered the second

00:02:51.560 Trump administration. After all, it was a deal that some bloke called Trump had negotiated.

00:02:57.500 The first thing that Trump did was he put fentanyl tariffs on Canada, despite the fact

00:03:02.360 Canada doesn't really have much fentanyl. There was no carve out there for Kuzma compliant goods.

00:03:08.960 that was just, we're going to whack you over the head. So that was the first, you know,

00:03:11.860 if we want to go back to the marriage analogy, that's the first time the bloke cheats and he

00:03:14.860 got caught. But you're right. He sort of came back and he sort of felt bad about it. And he said,

00:03:19.980 I tell you what, we're going to whack you with all these tariffs, except if you're Kuzma compliant.

00:03:24.420 And by the way, they didn't do that for anyone else. They didn't do it for the Aussies or the

00:03:28.340 South Koreans or the Brits, just this nice carve out. So the Canadians were doing something really

00:03:33.100 Well, until last week, this new 50% tariff, it's one that says, you know what, we're going to go

00:03:39.380 at you even if it's KUSMA compliant. So that's the thing that I think is a whole new phase in

00:03:44.300 the trade war. Now, the funny thing, by the way, is the president then put a 10% tariff on every

00:03:48.660 country around the world, including Canada, except for once again, KUSMA matters. So KUSMA matters

00:03:53.680 except when it doesn't. So the question, I guess, is if these tariffs on August 19th go ahead,

00:04:00.280 how should we respond and you had a great analogy for this that tariffs are like what did you call

00:04:04.440 it rocks in the harbor and it might mess up their stuff but why like make make your argument because

00:04:09.240 i think it's a it's a valid one this is by the way it's not my argument it belongs to the great

00:04:13.720 joan robinson who's one of the great unheralded geniuses of economics um obviously she's dead

00:04:18.600 many decades now but she basically said look if some other country puts rocks in their harbor

00:04:24.040 and i want to be clear on the analogy when you put rocks in your harbor you make it harder for

00:04:27.960 boats to go in and out. You make it harder for trade. So rocks in the harbour is if the US puts

00:04:32.760 rocks in its harbour, that's what tariffs are. The US put rocks in its harbour. If the US puts

00:04:37.160 rocks in its harbour, why would it make sense for Canada to put rocks in its harbour? The first

00:04:41.880 people who are going to be hurt by Canada putting rocks in its harbour are the Canadians.

00:04:46.040 So this is the economic argument that yes, the president is attacking, but understanding that

00:04:51.240 retaliation is going to hurt the Canadian people. And so the argument for trading is simply trading

00:04:57.480 is good for Canadians on its face. I want to recognise that's an economic argument. Now,

00:05:02.200 I've got a whole lot of friends who are a lot more political than me and they think about global

00:05:05.500 strategy and things like that. And they say things like, you know, if every time I punch you in the

00:05:09.740 mouth, you just stand there and take it, I'll just keep punching you in the mouth. So that's

00:05:13.060 the counter argument. But I do want folks at home to really understand the argument for trade really

00:05:18.200 does say it's in Canada's best interest to even just to import, even if it weren't able to export.

00:05:24.020 So, you know, to Prime Minister Carney, be thoughtful.

00:05:27.720 Do you really want to punch the Canadians in the mouth?

00:05:30.340 Wolvers makes a great point here that a lot of people might not understand.

00:05:33.960 When Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, it did hurt Canadian businesses,

00:05:37.540 but it mostly hurt American consumers, since they're the ones that actually pay the bill.

00:05:41.920 Likewise, if Carney puts retaliatory tariffs on American products,

00:05:45.220 it's Canadians that would foot the bill.

00:05:47.320 Carney is fighting back against Trump,

00:05:48.860 but he's doing it by diversifying Canada's exports away from America

00:05:52.060 and building alliances with other countries.

00:05:54.620 And I don't think we do a good enough job in this country

00:05:57.740 of talking about the pain that has been caused

00:05:59.620 to American companies and American workers

00:06:02.160 by American tariffs.

00:06:03.980 You know, the opening of this bridge is great

00:06:06.140 and it's fantastic news for Canadian trade,

00:06:08.280 but the delay of it hurt American companies.

00:06:10.920 The imposition of these new set of tariffs

00:06:13.100 are going to hurt American companies.

00:06:15.160 And yeah, some of it's hockey sticks,

00:06:16.620 but some of it's cement that is crucially important

00:06:18.660 to building the factories that Donald Trump

00:06:20.680 says he wants to do.

00:06:22.060 how important is it to let the damage of the tariffs happen and exist and just sort of point

00:06:28.780 to it and say, that's the problem here, not our response? Yeah, I do. You know, mate, I live very

00:06:34.780 close to that bridge and my neighbours are a big part of Canadian US trade and it really affects

00:06:40.320 my part of Michigan. We're very close to the border. The, you know, the hard issue is, it is

00:06:46.900 true, the president is hurting Americans. The president is also hurting Canadians. And with

00:06:50.620 your audience, I want to be very clear, you are feeling the pain. But we are also feeling the

00:06:55.940 pain because, for instance, the steel and aluminum tariffs make it so that US factories are the only

00:07:02.160 ones in the world that have to pay 50% more for steel and aluminum. It's actually really,

00:07:07.480 really hurting not just American businesses, but also American consumers. Let me just say a couple

00:07:12.220 of things. One, that the president is not winning the argument. The president is proceeding, but if

00:07:19.200 you look at public opinion polls, he's lost the argument with the American people. They don't like

00:07:23.560 his tariffs. Two, to advise Prime Minister Carney of anything, I think actually just laying out the

00:07:29.820 facts even a little more clearly to the American people about the many ways they've lost. They've

00:07:34.500 lost wine sales, they've lost tourism, they've lost higher education, they've lost a war on

00:07:39.120 the cusp of losing some part of the auto sector that lies in the northern part of the United

00:07:44.180 States. We got a pretty big dog in this fight too. And yet, even though Donald Trump is losing

00:07:51.080 on a lot of those fronts, as you say, he's not changing his argument. And we still got,

00:07:56.720 I think it's 912 days left of Donald Trump in this term. What do we do? And there are people

00:08:03.780 who say, wait it out, make a deal with whoever's the president in 2028. That feels like a long

00:08:08.940 time for, as you say, those companies that really are hurting as a result of this.

00:08:13.780 Yeah, so I'm not really a political strategist.

00:08:16.060 So what do you do is be on my pay grade.

00:08:18.120 But look, one thing we have seen that works,

00:08:20.800 and don't tell anyone south of the border I told you this,

00:08:24.380 but if you give the president a press conference

00:08:26.320 and he gets to announce something but you never get around

00:08:28.380 to signing a deal, he sort of tends to get bored

00:08:30.600 and walk off and leave you alone.

00:08:32.560 That's probably a pretty good idea here.

00:08:34.800 The one thing you don't want to do is do a deal

00:08:37.280 where Canada's doing a lot of costly investment up front

00:08:40.080 because I reckon if you do a deal,

00:08:41.900 there's a pretty good chance that the president wakes up again and undoes the whole thing

00:08:46.020 within a few weeks from here. So, you know, the bloke likes pomp and ceremony,

00:08:50.320 give him the pomp and ceremony, but you might just have to wait it out for the next president.

00:08:56.340 One of the things that keeps happening, and it happened again last night, just before Asian

00:09:00.580 markets opened up, is they announced they're going to continue with talks and that brought

00:09:04.580 the oil prices down. And it works to a certain extent, but it just adds to this volatility and

00:09:11.500 these uncertainties. Uncertainty on day one is bad. Uncertainty on day, I don't know how many

00:09:19.300 days we're into the Iran war. It's a compounding figure. How difficult is that uncertainty weighing

00:09:26.420 on the whole North American economy? Enormously so. Look, let's just bring it back to something

00:09:32.560 light because I heard a funny joke I want to share with you. You remember the old days of

00:09:36.180 the taco trade, Trump always chickens out. They're now talking about nachos here. Never again can

00:09:41.880 Hormuz open. That's, you know, it's dark humour because it really is harming, not, in fact,

00:09:48.940 it harms the US far less than many of our neighbours, not Canada, because we actually

00:09:53.160 produce energy as does Canada. But, you know, consumers on both sides of the border are

00:09:57.380 definitely feeling it at the pump right now. This tremendous degree of uncertainty, but I think it's

00:10:02.560 actually worse than that. I just want to remind you, as much as my friends north of the border

00:10:06.940 are worried about, you know, these very, very big issues, south of the border, we're even worried

00:10:11.320 about simpler things like can we and will we have free and fair elections? The stakes here are pretty

00:10:16.960 big. Indeed, they are. And just before I let you go, given those stakes and given on the one hand,

00:10:24.440 we've seen some progress, the bridge opened, isn't that great? On the other hand, we're seeing more

00:10:28.240 uh more tariffs potentially added on on august 19th just zoom out for me what what is your

00:10:34.580 sense of optimism sense of anxiety where where are you at in terms of the canada u.s trade relationship

00:10:41.040 oh mate um one of the reasons you don't see any worry lines here is because i understood just how

00:10:47.160 worried i would be so i went and got botox um and so you know try and make long-term plans

00:10:53.760 So the worrying doesn't get to you too much is sort of what I'm saying there.

00:10:59.180 You know, I think there's very, very real reasons to be concerned about the future of that relationship.

00:11:04.260 I think, you know, some deep level Canada has more options than some of us in the U.S.

00:11:08.920 because, you know, I think Carney, the middle powers approach, things like that.

00:11:13.220 You guys can be pretty sure you're going to have elections.

00:11:16.700 So it's it's a tough moment, mate.

00:11:19.000 While Canadian Conservatives continue to obsess over Justin Trudeau, falsely claiming he's

00:11:23.900 a dictator, the Americans are dealing with a real authoritarian. Canada still has free

00:11:28.640 and fair elections, whereas Trump is doing everything he can to rig the midterms and

00:11:32.480 stay in power indefinitely. He falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election and launched

00:11:37.020 an insurrection on the Capitol building. He's likely going to do something much worse when

00:11:40.960 Republicans lose the midterms later this year. That's why I'm glad I live in Canada. We

00:11:45.800 might not be perfect but we're doing much better than the americans carney is the right man to

00:11:50.560 lead this country and i'm excited to watch him lead canada into a new era of excellence if you're

00:11:55.460 not excited yet just have some patience have some faith this video was not made with artificial

00:12:00.680 intelligence it was made 100 by humans for real humans thanks for tuning in talk to you next time

Mark Slapinski - August 05, 2026

Top Economist LAUGHS Trump Out Of The Room, Carney WINS

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