Trump is not serious about Canada becoming the 51st state. He just wants to get rid of the artificial barrier between Canada and the US and make it a better trade deal for the US, which is what he wants. Canada needs to get on board with this.
00:00:00.000Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. So I find myself somehow one of the only maybe two or three Canadian political commentators who isn't setting their hair on fire over what President-elect Donald Trump is saying about annexing Canada and Greenland and all this other stuff.
00:00:19.380Guys, it's not actually serious. You, in fact, are fueling this language by Donald Trump talking about removing the artificial barrier between Canada and the US and Canada becoming the 51st state because the more you set your hair on fire, the more Trump will repeat it because guess what? Donald Trump is actually a very good negotiator.
00:00:42.400There are always people in the media trying to jab at Trump because he's had business failures in the past. Oh, look, here's one instance in his business career where he failed in a negotiation. He looked bad.
00:00:53.900But overall, Trump is pretty good at actually getting what he wants. Do you know what Trump wants with all this talk about annexing Canada? It's a better trade deal for the US. That's what he wants.
00:01:06.360And I would hope that Canadian politicians would be able to get their act together, including Canadian journalists, actually, because they're helping fuel this so that Canada can actually have a tougher negotiating position rather than us walking into the room looking all nervous and shaking because we don't want to get annexed.
00:01:23.580What's not happening, guys? It's just not happening. I'm going to play the clip that everyone's freaking out over right now.
00:01:29.780I'm going to talk a bit about it. Then I have another clip of it to play. And then I want to talk about some of the people who, in fact, are fueling, I find, this hysteria.
00:01:39.100And they really should know better, or I think they're pretending not to know any better.
00:01:43.780But here's Trump talking about it at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
00:01:47.960You were worried under the assumption that you're serious about making Canada the 51st state of the United States.
00:01:56.480The leader of the conservative party in Canada said, under no circumstances, it will ever be the 51st state.
00:02:01.080Maybe he won't win, but maybe he will.
00:02:03.940The question is, David, you had suggested that you're considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland.
00:02:12.400Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Panama?
00:02:16.080economic force. Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get
00:02:23.940rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like. And it would also
00:02:29.500be much better for national security. Don't forget, we basically protect Canada. But here's
00:02:34.360the problem with Canada. So many friends up there. I love the Canadian people. They're great.
00:02:41.280But we're spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it. Okay. Do you understand the thrust
00:02:48.720of what he's actually saying there? In terms of reading between the lines, what his real
00:02:53.720negotiation position is? He wants us to probably pay our 2% of our GDP towards military that we've
00:03:02.720promised to do for decades, and we've never done it. That's what he's probably hinting at there,
00:03:07.040as well as he probably wants freer trade into Canada. Trump is a protectionist on certain
00:03:12.880issues, and I oppose protectionism between Canada and the U.S. because it is kind of arbitrary
00:03:17.980that if lumber moves five inches from Canada into the U.S. that was cut like a kilometer away,
00:03:24.600suddenly there's a tariff on it. And vice versa, if something is cut down and Washington state moved
00:03:30.060into British Columbia, now there's a tariff. I think that it's silly, and really it's just
00:03:34.000trying to paper over the fact that our economy is weak because we have high regulations and taxes.
00:03:39.760If we reduce taxes and regulations, everything gets so much better in Canada. And free trade is
00:03:45.420not actually a problem. I don't like trading with hostile nations. I don't want free trade with China.
00:03:50.560I don't want free trade with Iran or any trade with Iran. But free trade with the U.S. is good.
00:03:56.220And people are thinking, well, they're taking our jobs. Well, it's just letting all of our economic
00:04:01.100power get siphoned to the U.S. No, it's not. It would still be happening, even if we didn't trade
00:04:05.900with them at all, if we still had bad taxes and regulations. Because bad taxes and regulations
00:04:10.940have this sort of funny way of pushing people to go somewhere else where they can economically
00:04:17.140thrive. You can't economically thrive in Canada right now because of our stupid government, both on
00:04:22.840the federal level as well as on the provincial level in certain areas of Canada. And Canada at
00:04:28.000different times has been the economic powerhouse. And the U.S., per capita, obviously, has been the
00:04:34.140lagging country. Remember the Obama administration? Stephen Harper was far better than Barack Obama.
00:04:39.940That's why our dollar was actually better in the late aughts and early 2010s than the American
00:04:45.280dollar. It has happened. And that's also why I don't want Canada to become the 51st state.
00:04:50.120One, from an international practical reason, I, as a conservative, don't want all of the conservative
00:04:55.440eggs to go into one basket where it's one central point of failure. And if that government ends up
00:05:00.540getting very corrupt or whatever, an entire massive swath of the world is completely lost.
00:05:05.700But also, generally speaking, I think it's good that we as Canadians get to have our own culture,
00:05:11.200our own democratic experiment going on on this side of the border. And we get to compete with
00:05:16.540the U.S. because iron sharpens iron. And I think it's better for Canadians to see what the U.S.
00:05:21.000is doing and us wanting to have a better version of it through our own making. But let's get into
00:05:28.420some of the people freaking out about this, because I find it literally is expanding the entire
00:05:33.400political spectrum. Here we have Bruce Arthur saying he is a Toronto Star journalist, also
00:05:38.440kind of an anti-Semite, if you remember him pretending all those Israeli soccer fans being beaten up in
00:05:44.700Amsterdam was actually just a normal response to people being rude to Muslims or something like that.
00:05:50.900Muslims are allowed to beat people if they're slightly insulted, apparently. But Bruce Arthur
00:05:56.440says he's not really joking. And Canadians either need to be patriots or they don't. I'm not sure if
00:06:02.360he meant to write something else there because there's no period. But like, what do you mean?
00:06:06.620He's not really joking. He actually is, in fact, really joking. I'm going to play a clip for you where
00:06:11.760Donald Trump explains how he negotiates with people. It's more of a clip where he's giving a scenario,
00:06:17.680but I'll give more context to it. But no, Trump is, in fact, kind of joking. He's just saying stuff
00:06:24.680in order to throw people off balance. Here we have, I think this is a good one to highlight here.
00:06:31.080We have Andrew Coyne, because of course Andrew Coyne is freaking out about this, the man who is
00:06:36.400collecting as many flags into his bio as possible or into his header. And I don't even, here's the funny
00:06:42.580thing. A lot of asides in this video. I don't even necessarily disagree with people supporting other
00:06:49.180countries internationally, wanting them to do well. One of the country flags he has in his header is the
00:06:56.040flag of Georgia. It's the one with the red cross with the other red crosses in it. It's a country in
00:07:00.740the caucuses, actually a very libertarian country when it comes to its economics. It's politically corrupt
00:07:06.000at the moment because, like, you know, sorry, but Russia is trying to politically corrupt them
00:07:11.040because they like setting up satellite states. The Syrian government under Assad was basically
00:07:15.900a satellite state of both Iran as well as Russia. And Georgia and Russia have always been at conflict
00:07:21.860because Russia has a tendency of trying to take over Georgia throughout history. People pretending
00:07:26.900like Russia keeps being aggressed. Were they being aggressed in 2008 where they rolled over the border
00:07:31.140to a much smaller country with tanks and tried to take the whole thing over? It's nuts. But
00:07:36.020Georgia, like, it's a great country to support. But like, really, do I think that Andrew Coyne
00:07:42.200actually understands all of the things going on in Tbilisi right now? I really don't. I think it's
00:07:47.780just virtue signaling. By the way, Georgia, great healthcare system. I wish we would copy them.
00:07:52.920Everything is privatized, except it's still technically a universal system. Because if you live under a certain
00:07:58.660income level, they give you a stipend that you can then go use at one of, like, several private
00:08:04.140insurance companies. And so even the poorest person can get actually pretty good healthcare
00:08:08.780coverage for the state minimums. And because there's so much competition, both in the insurance
00:08:12.980and hospital systems, it means that there's tons of doctors everywhere. And you can get like a knee
00:08:17.800surgery within a week for like the equivalent of 200 Canadian dollars. Anyways, so getting back to it,
00:08:23.520he says, all clear now, whether the end game, whatever the end game may be, this country is
00:08:29.400under attack. Oh, yes, we're under attack by Trump's words, by our neighbors. The basic assumption of
00:08:35.680Canadian history that we would always have a stable democratic ally to ourselves is over. They are not
00:08:41.620stable, not likely to remain democratic for much longer. And they are not under Trump, our allies.
00:08:47.100Andrew Coyne is a weasel. If you think that because Trump is making some negotiation jabs at Canada,
00:08:55.080that they are no longer our allies, and that we are under attack, you are not an ally of the US.
00:09:01.060That's the problem. With all the flags in your bio, you should probably realize that you're not going
00:09:05.880to like everything one of the country's leaders says. I don't like a bunch of the country leaders in
00:09:10.760Georgia right now. I don't particularly like a lot of politicians in Ukraine. I don't like some of the
00:09:15.680people who are in government in Israel. That doesn't mean they're not allies. Because guess
00:09:20.320what? You don't even like your own domestic politicians. Am I no longer a Canadian because
00:09:25.280I don't like Justin Trudeau as our prime minister? Obviously not. That's stupid. Anyways, I think the
00:09:31.540other country flag he has there is Moldova. Moldova, another good country. Also, by the way, you guys ever
00:09:37.080going on vacation? Go to Georgia. That cartoon book up there is actually from Georgia. Great country.
00:09:41.960It's like going to Switzerland on a discount and there's like no crime. Anyways. But like, what is
00:09:48.400this? It's hysterical. And let me tell you here, because this is a great example. So we have Bruce
00:09:52.880Arthur. We have supposed conservative Andrew Coyne. And then we have supposed Canadian nationalist
00:09:59.840Harrison Faulkner. I don't doubt he's a Canadian nationalist. But I think I was just saying supposed
00:10:05.200it again. But he says here, Donald Trump commits to using economic force to acquire Canada, but rules
00:10:12.500out using military force. This is insane. Harrison, baby, you sweet summer child. Do you actually think
00:10:19.880that Donald Trump is going to waste his second term in government, probably fighting with his own
00:10:25.420Congress and the Senate in order to get like economic force applied to Canada to try and annex us?
00:10:31.920Do you actually think Trump is going to blow his legacy, even for something like Greenland or the
00:10:37.700Panama Canal? Do you think he's actually trying to acquire these things? Or is it that when he talks
00:10:43.380about, well, maybe we should take back Panama Canal, maybe we should take back Greenland, he's probably
00:10:48.140just jabbing the Denmark government to increase military support. With Panama, he's probably just
00:10:55.400jabbing them to get better rates for trade for the US going through the Panama Canal. That's probably it.
00:11:00.360That's literally it, guys. Everyone pretending I'm such Canadian patriot because I'm setting myself
00:11:05.980on fire over this. You're virtue signaling, but not in a woke manner. This is like Canadian patriotic
00:11:12.380virtue signaling. I like Handa as much as the next guy. I'm also not going to be stupid walking into a
00:11:18.760trade negotiation with Donald Trump. Here is Donald Trump on Larry King's show, Larry King Live,
00:11:25.120back in 1999. Ignore the little top text. We don't really, it doesn't really mean anything.
00:11:32.480But it's just making a meme about what he says here. But the context of what Donald Trump is saying
00:11:37.720here is Larry King is interviewing him saying, well, everyone says you're the guy who can make deals.
00:11:42.240You wrote the art of the deal, all this stuff. Well, how do you actually enter a negotiation?
00:11:46.540And this is a joke. And people thought it was him mocking Larry King. But Trump is giving an actual
00:11:52.360example of things he says right when he sits down for a negotiation.
00:11:55.540Do you mind if I sit back a little bit? Because your breath is very bad. It really is. Has this
00:12:00.720ever been told to you before? No. Huh? Okay. That's actually 1989. Sorry, it's not 1999. But Trump
00:12:06.720has said in the past, both in this interview and others, when he sits down to negotiate with someone
00:12:12.180on a tough land deal or a building deal, he's dealing with a union or whatever, he sits down,
00:12:17.820and he's like, you know, your tie doesn't match your suit. And then he gets right into it. He is
00:12:21.740throwing us off balance by talking about, well, you know, the line between Canada and the US is
00:12:26.640just an artificial line, calling Trudeau, Governor Trudeau, all this stuff. It's a negotiation tactic,
00:12:32.680people. It is literally just meant to make us be thinking about things like, it's meant to be making
00:12:40.160us think about things that we shouldn't be thinking about while we are going into negotiating serious
00:12:45.560trade deal, that we are thinking about Trump might annex us. So we are thinking about all the
00:12:50.080stupidest wrong things, while he really just wants better, like, better deal, a better deal when it
00:12:56.300comes to softwood lumber, or dairy. That's literally all he wants.
00:12:59.840So you're considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland? Are you also considering military
00:13:06.660force to... That's the same clip. I don't even think I need to show any more of what Trump was saying on
00:13:12.400this. But even we have, like, Justin Trudeau chiming in. And it's like, Justin, why are you still
00:13:21.520around? I know he's only intending to resign. But you think this would be the one thing where he
00:13:26.880would just be quiet? He said, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Canada would become
00:13:31.960part of the United States. Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from each other's
00:13:37.300biggest trade and security partner. Well, then spend more on military, man. You've had how many
00:13:42.980years in office? Almost 10 whole years in office. How does our military suck even more than when you
00:13:50.000first got in? That is the issue that Trump has a problem with. We are actually very trade
00:13:56.620protectionistic. And also, again, Canada is only actually economically benefiting right now.
00:14:02.800Our GDP is only increasing. One, because of mass immigration. Trudeau just importing like a million
00:14:07.560people a year, which obviously will in some way raise productivity. Our per capita productivity is
00:14:13.540down, which is why our also per capita incomes are down. But our overall GDP is up because, one,
00:14:19.240the mass immigration. And then, two, because our economy legitimately sucks so bad right now
00:14:23.880that our dollar is worth so little compared to the US dollar that people will instead manufacture
00:14:29.700in Hamilton or Windsor. Because, well, the American dollar is like, I think it's like 1.44 Canadian
00:14:37.940dollars. So why not manufacture in Canada? The tax and regulations are still terrible in Canada,
00:14:42.980but we make up for it by our dollar being very weak. We're like becoming the China of North America
00:14:48.220alongside Mexico, where there's not really that many benefits to doing things in our country. But the
00:14:54.760economy sucks so much in terms of the dollar that it's easier to pay people in Canada to do work than
00:15:01.020it is in the US. That's literally the only way we're being held up right now. So I don't even know
00:15:07.300how to end this off. I don't like dumb clickbait. I don't like people pretending. Things are happening
00:15:16.300that are not happening. Trump is trying to get the border secured on the southern border. That's like
00:15:22.600his main thing. He wants to make the Trump tax cuts from 2017 permanent. Do you think he is going
00:15:30.080to waste political capital? Because as popular as Donald Trump is at this moment in the US, more
00:15:35.900popular than he was going into his first term, is he going to waste any of that political capital?
00:15:40.640Because it's always limited. No matter who you are, you always have only limited political capital.
00:15:44.880You think he's going to waste that trying to acquire Canada, which if it's a state would
00:15:49.360immediately become a democratic state. We are still less conservative than the US is. We don't
00:15:54.360exactly have Wyoming's or Alabama's or places like Utah in Canada. Alberta is pretty conservative.
00:16:02.760Maybe Alberta as its own state would be a Republican state, but we'd probably be like a soft Republican
00:16:08.620state. We'd be like, I'm trying to find an example here, we'd be like a Michigan in the sense that
00:16:14.520Michigan often the state House and Senate are Republican, but the senator overall might be a
00:16:22.160Democrat, might be a Republican. It goes back and forth. The Republicans won't want that. The
00:16:26.680Republicans will be the people who would stop Trump from doing this. They don't want these things.
00:16:31.000Do you think that Trump actually wants Greenland? Or do you think he probably wants to see if he can
00:16:35.920get some deals over mineral extraction in Greenland for the United States? That's probably it.
00:16:41.640Think about it, people. Have a clue. Have literally any clue of what you're talking about before chiming
00:16:48.780in on Trump's trying to annex us. No, he's not. My goodness. I like Canada. I don't want to become
00:16:56.320the 51st state. I was mocking people who wanted to become the 51st state. One, because it would hurt
00:17:03.080America for Canada to join because we were just culturally and politically out of sync with them.
00:17:07.480And then two, it's like, guys, how about we solve our own problems here rather than immediately
00:17:12.780giving up and saying, well, we better just basically sell ourselves off. But I'm this
00:17:16.840person and I'm saying, guys, stop freaking out. Trump is using a negotiation tactic and you are
00:17:22.320falling for it so hard. Anyways, that's it for this video, guys. Subscribe to the video,
00:17:30.620like this video, comment on it. I don't even know what you would comment on. Do you think that
00:17:36.660we're going to get annexed? The answer is no. The correct answer is no. I guess you could say
00:17:41.580whether or not what you think a pure Polyev stance should be with all this stuff. Like
00:17:46.460Polyev is saying, yeah, we're not going to be joining the US, which Polyev is saying what
00:17:49.840he needs to say. And even Polyev gets it because when Polyev talks about this issue, he always
00:17:54.180goes into, and of course I start rambling before I, when I was supposed to be ending the
00:17:58.100video, but that's just me. But Polyev, of course, was just saying, yeah, Trump's going to
00:18:03.320say whatever he thinks is good for his people. I'm going to say whatever is good for my people.
00:18:06.740And that's really what's happening here. Trump is taking the American position and Canadian
00:18:11.160politicians should be taking the Canadian position. But Canadian politicians are often
00:18:15.220too busy freaking out and sending their hair on fire to actually take the tough Canadian
00:18:20.040negotiating stance on a new trade deal, on a new security deal, on the border. I'll give,
00:18:26.060and even though I criticized her in the past for things, I think we need to reduce spending and
00:18:29.420taxes in Alberta. Danielle Smith has been doing it right. Mike Ellis, as her deputy premier,
00:18:34.960has been doing it right on the border. They are saying, okay, yeah, fair enough. We should be putting
00:18:40.120some drones on the border, extra police, stopping fentanyl and other drugs and stuff from going over
00:18:44.840the border and stopping illegal guns from the US coming into Canada. Great idea. Good. That's good
00:18:50.580because they are focused on the actual policy issue. They are doing a good job on that one.
00:18:55.080David Eby in BC, the BC NDP premier, easily the worst stance on the border issue so far. He's like,
00:19:03.040well, actually, we should be trying to like, we should be like, you know, getting ready to
00:19:07.520economically fight the US if they're going to have a 25% tariffs on it. I'm like, David,
00:19:12.320part of this family of provinces and territories, you're the screw up here. You're the one who is
00:19:17.940helping get fentanyl into the US because you have made it easy to transport fentanyl. You have
00:19:23.220hydromorphone pills everywhere provided by the government. And those are going to the US and
00:19:27.260Trump has a problem with it. And you're going to be the one coming into the negotiating table of
00:19:31.580all the other Canadian provinces, figuring out what we should do, banging your hand on the table
00:19:35.340and being like, we should fight. You're the problem, dude. How about you sort your garbage out? And then
00:19:41.340we might not have to have a problem with the US at all. You're literally the problem child here.
00:19:46.340Anyways, that's actually truly the end of the video. See you guys later.