Trump and trade - take a valium.
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Summary
Now that former President Trump seems likely to be leading the U.S. for a second term, Canada s left-wing government and paid for media are just excoriating the man, a frenzy of scorn and hatred. In fact, they are predicting that a second Trump presidency would be terrible for Canada as Trump tries to make America great again at Canada s expense. But is that really how it's going to be? With me today is political economist, author, and founder of Ottawa's leading public policy think tank, economist and author, Brian Lee Crowley.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford.
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Now that former President Trump seems likely to be leading the U.S. for a second term,
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Canada's left-wing government bought and paid for media are just excoriating the man and
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quite a hateful diatribe coming out from all of them, a frenzy of scorn and hatred. In fact,
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they are predicting that a second Trump presidency would be terrible for Canada as Trump tries to
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make America great again at Canada's expense. But is that really how it's going to be?
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With me today is political economist, author, and founder of Ottawa's leading public policy
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think tank, economist, author, Brian Lee Crowley. Brian, welcome to the show.
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Nigel, it's lovely to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
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Brian, you founded the McDonnell Laurier Institute 14 years ago to examine questions like this.
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So let's talk about three things. First, is it even going to be Trump? A lot has happened in the
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last two weeks with the assassination, with Biden removing himself from the nomination process,
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this apparent coronation of Kamala Harris, aided and abetted by an obviously partisan mainstream media
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in the United States. So maybe it isn't going to be Trump. I'm going to ask you what your feelings
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are about that. The second thing is, if it is Trump, is it so bad?
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You have a special perch. You have an office in Washington as part of the Economic Institute.
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What do you observe about that? And then thirdly, would a Harris administration be any better?
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Excellent question, Nigel. Two weeks ago, I would have been willing to bet serious money that Donald
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Trump was going to be president after November. I'm not saying that he's not going to be president,
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but I just think the balance of probability has shifted. You mentioned all the events that have
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happened in the last couple of weeks. I think they have shaken up the political scene in a way that
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could not have been foreseen even just a very short while ago. And as a result, you know,
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I think, for example, many Americans assume that the choice they had was between Biden and Trump.
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And clearly, if that was the choice, they were going to vote Trump. I don't think there was any doubt
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about it. But at the same time, many Americans were saying, but we're not very happy with that choice.
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And indeed, Nikki Haley, one of the candidates for the Republican nomination, had said early on in
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her campaign that the party that moved on from Trump and Biden first would be the one that would
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carry the day in the presidential election. And I think there's some truth to that. I think there are
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a lot of people who are saying, OK, now that the choice is different than what I thought it was going
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to be, I'm going to reevaluate. That doesn't necessarily mean that the choice they will come
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to will be, oh, then it's going to be Harris. I was going to vote for Trump, but no more.
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You know, I was quite struck by quite a prominent American pollster who said the other day,
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you know, that Kamala Harris was enjoying a bit of a honeymoon,
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you know, just newly minted candidate. And as you say, the mainstream media were
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were covering her with praise and trying to obscure some of the less savory parts of her political
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record. And this this pollster said, you know, today, i.e., the first day of her,
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you know, coronation as the Democratic Party candidate is going to be the best day of her
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campaign. It's going to be all downhill for here because there's going to be a huge effort,
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of course, on the part of the Republicans to bring out that political record of which Harris
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might not be necessarily so proud and and not wanting to put it in the window as she runs for
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for president. So, Brian, why do why does American business like the Democrat Party so much? Surely the
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Democrats are the party of the blue collar unions and the Republicans should be the party of big
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business. Isn't that what we've always understood? Well, it's certainly been the traditional positioning
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of the the the two parties that the Republicans were the party of business. They, you know, were
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often criticized by the Democrats for lowering taxes and privileging the rich, you know, that they were
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country club Republicans. I think this is this is completely in the past now. Trump and, you know,
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his vice president J.D. Vance, his vice presidential candidate, I should say, J.D. Vance have worked very
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hard to reposition the Republican Party as essentially a blue collar party, party of traditional American
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values as opposed to the Democrats who have become, you know, culture warriors that they're the people
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who are pushing the the diversity inclusion equity agenda, the transsexual agenda, the in my view, the
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corruption of universities, dragging them to the left, the exclusion of a whole range of opinion from
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uh from respectable uh positions within uh within the universities uh and so you have I think a wide
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range of institutions which have been taken over uh by Democratic leaning groups not because of economic
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issues but because of cultural issues and I would say that these cultural issues are now the fundamental
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divide between Democrats and Republicans uh Republicans for example want to portray themselves
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as the party the rule of law whereas the the Democrats want to say oh well you know stop talking
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about illegal immigrants because they're really only irregular and we're going to have a path to
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citizenship for them even though they weren't invited into the country and and and are here uh under
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false pretenses etc etc uh these are now the issues that divide the parties and now that actually leads
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right on to whether Trump is going to be good for Canada the people that Trump represents are essentially
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people who would like to be working at well-paying jobs in their home states in their hometowns they that
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was how things were 30 years ago 40 years ago those jobs have been exported uh so they are very interested in
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economic development is Trump going to make America great again at Canada's expense well uh i i i i i think that
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Trump uh is definitely going to be excellent uh assuming he wins uh at doing something that he did in the first
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term which was to make people believe that uh he is an absolutely crazy man who is going to do crazy things
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and anybody who's read uh his book the art of the deal which i i commend to people he is
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completely open about his negotiating tactics and it basically he says the the way to win uh to get
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the deal you want is to go into the room and scare the pants off people make them think you're the
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craziest guy in the room and if you don't get what you want you're going to blow everything up uh but
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this is in my experience of Trump this is a negotiating tactic this does not actually represent
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his actual feelings or objectives in his negotiation so let's take the example of the last uh renegotiating
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of renegotiation of NAFTA which became KUSMA the Canada-US-Mexico agreement uh for continental free
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trade you know uh Trump said oh you know NAFTA worst trade deal in American history it's sold American workers
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down the river i i mean he couldn't say enough terrible things about NAFTA and he scared the
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Mexicans and the Canadians uh into thinking that he was going to put everything on the line and
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you know he'd be he'd walk away from free trade and of course that would be disastrous for Canada
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there's no doubt about it now if you actually examine the agreement that came out of that negotiation
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if you put the NAFTA agreement and KUSMA side by side you would be kind of hard-pressed to say that
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one was damaging to Canada's interest whereas the other promoted Canada's interest
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i think brian i mean let's remember in 2018 he imposed a a tariff on Canadian aluminium 20 obviously that's
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damaging to Canadian manufacturers of aluminium how far can i i understand that the industries are actually
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very integrated one motor car chassis probably goes back and forwards over the u.s canada border more
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than once before the car is finally complete and exported but there are some obstacles to being
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America first but that's pretty much his uh his mindset isn't it well uh i think again i would i would
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make the case that uh he talks a good game he he is very liberal with threats uh he will make you
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think if you don't do exactly what he wants he's gonna slap uh 20 or 30 or 50 or whatever his number is
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uh uh on uh imports from your country and then you're really gonna be in terrible shape
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uh my experience of watching him carry out these negotiations is he actually uh if you can if you
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can dig in behind uh this kind of positioning uh before negotiations get underway um he actually is
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looking for a rather more balanced outcome than a lot of people think he understands that uh america is
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damaged by uh uh you know excessive aggressiveness with uh trade partners and so on uh he uh has been
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very successful at renegotiating many trade agreements and in seeing that canada uh you know
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pulls in its horns on things like uh um supply management and so on which in my view uh more
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power to trump i i i hope he puts the boots to supply management in the next round of trade negotiations
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with canada because trade supply management isn't in canada's interest this ten dollar a pound butter
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is killing us well exactly and um uh you know getting access to cheaper american dairy products uh is
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in canada's interest i've never understood why political parties in canada think that it's a losing
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proposition to campaign on the idea of low food prices for canadian uh but be that as it may um
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uh uh trump uh remember that uh trump even if he wanted to trump has to get uh trade agreements
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adopted by congress it's a he is constrained in many ways in what he can do and uh he will not have a
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free hand uh he understands that the world is more complicated than make america great again uh he's
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going to seek to rally americans uh behind a a a broad program uh he's going to want to get his allies
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on side against china uh there are a whole series of ways in which uh he does not have the freedom of
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movement that his aggressive rhetoric suggests now okay let's move to the third point brian and that is
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whether harris would be any better the democratic party does not to my observation seem to have much
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of a tradition of free trade bernie sanders certainly bernie sanders didn't go anywhere but
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he represents a strand of american democratic party thinking that was actually quite against
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free trade with canada with mexico with anyone trump at least seems to have a he's not doesn't seem to be
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in favor of global free trade agreements but he's very happy with bilateral ones but how would you
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and i'm thinking here of your washington office what do you observe from that point viewpoint about
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how harris would feel about it and what would she do about it it was certainly true that uh the republicans
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uh were for many years the party of uh free trade uh but uh it's also true that the uh the democrats were
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uh prepared to defend free trade i mean there was a bit of a washington consensus as it was called for
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many years you remember that um uh bill clinton who beat george uh w bush's father uh george hw bush uh for the
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presidency uh bush senior who had negotiated nafta uh and seen it successfully uh implemented uh clinton
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did nothing to interfere with that and in fact you know when uh the kind of uh blue-collar voters that
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we're talking about used to complain to clinton about uh you know how free trade was damaging their economic
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prospect you're you you remember he would famously say i feel your pain so you know he he was empathetic
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to the problem but he wasn't prepared to do anything to undermine uh free trade so uh uh what we have now
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is both the democrats and the republicans rather skeptical about uh about free trade the democrats like
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to sugarcoat it a little more but uh remember that the the swing states on which the presidency hinges
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are full of exactly the kind of people that were thrown out of jobs um at least uh according to the
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the stories that americans tell themselves by free trade we're talking about pennsylvania we're talking
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about uh ohio we're talking about michigan um you know these are these are places that are full of
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these blue-collar uh workers who used to get you know good union wages uh at regular jobs and uh in the
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last 20 years have found their economic prospects deeply damaged and the the the great appeal of uh of
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trump to those voters is that he says you know uh you were sacrificed uh in the interests of elites on
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the coasts in the united states who uh you know love to buy japanese cars and uh take their holidays in
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europe these are just not the preoccupations of blue-collar workers in uh uh in pennsylvania and michigan
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so uh anyway is that a valid analysis uh is is what a valid analysis well that uh the blue-collar
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workers were sacrificed for the interests of a an american elite i mean that's the basically the trump
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message so uh is that a fair examination of what what happened in the last well since china joined the
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world trade organization in 1999 2000 or something well you see i think that uh it's interesting one
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one of the few things on which there is a consensus in washington across across the aisle between the
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political parties is that uh china has not been a good faith player in the in the international trading
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system uh and in fact uh china is to be distrusted on a whole series of fronts uh i i i think that uh
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the the conclusion that people in both parties have come to is that the the free trade movement uh
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you know the the principles behind free trade uh are still defensible i i believe in free trade uh but
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that china uh doesn't play by the free trade rules china uh pursues its national interest uh through
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the openness of western institutions you know that why is it that uh uh china has seized control of
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the critical minerals industry so that all of the minerals on which the so-called green economy uh depends
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to make solar panels to make solar panels and windmills and uh ev batteries and so on uh all of these things
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are controlled by china to an unbelievable extent they have far greater control over these highly valuable
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minerals than opec has over the oil industry for example uh and uh china has uh used the opening up of
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the tree the the trade system to invest money in american and other companies not to be uh an owner and
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uh you know provide uh goods and services through these companies to americans but rather to plunder them
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for their technology uh move it to china and essentially shut down the uh the uh the the american
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companies that were at the origin of this important intellectual capital and so on so uh
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china is really i think the driver behind a lot of what's happened in the united states in terms of the
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falling reputation of uh free trade i i i i don't think that uh america uh and certainly not congress
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thinks that canada is uh responsible for the the the poor conditions of uh of blue-collar workers in the
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rust belt um there there is increasingly talk in the united states about things like friend shoring
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uh so in other words saying okay uh we don't want to be dealing with china we don't want our uh standard
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of living to depend on raising uh china's economic status in the world so if we're not buying from china
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let's buy from our friends uh and so there's uh there's a lot of positioning to get a lot of
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manufacturing and other economic activity into the hands of not just the united states but also its
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friends in the in the western alliance so brian let me ask you this you said that uh there were
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constraints upon what trump could and couldn't do presumably those same constraints would operate on a
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harris presidency if that's in fact what what turns out to be uh that being so and and what you have
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just said about the underlying conflict over trade with china does it really make an awful lot of this
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difference to canadians who occupies the white house from the point of view of trade only
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i i i actually don't think it does uh and i think uh this uh all these people who are pouring contempt
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on trump and i'm trying to elevate harris i mean they they may have their reasons for doing so but
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it's not actually contributing terribly much to the debate no i i i i think this idea that uh you know
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a democratic administration in washington is heaven and a trump administration is hell uh is is completely
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overblown uh i'm not saying that there won't be specific issues on which uh trump might be an
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unpleasant negotiating partner but i think the the the the reverse is also true uh you know the uh
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the uh the uh the democrats if they want to uh burnish their uh credentials on the border might well
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come after uh the canadian border where you know there's there's a lot of concern about uh canada's
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uh inability to guarantee american security so uh uh i i i'm i'm i'm pretty sure that canada's
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position will be pretty much the same under either a trump or a harris administration from a trade point
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of view there will be lots of other things where uh you know those two administrations would do things
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differently but uh trade with canada wouldn't be high on their list okay that's ryan that's great
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look what just tell us quickly about your washington operation or what you're trying to achieve down there
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and how that might influence matters back here in canada well you know uh my view is that uh canadians
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think they understand americans nobody in the world understands americans better than canadian uh i i i
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think this is a a some kind of metaphysical conceit i i i i i think this is not true i think we have an
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image of what americans are like uh but that image isn't always uh isn't always real and i thought that
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the fact that in the in the entire think tank community in canada uh there wasn't one that
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had an office in washington uh plugging into the american political system the the administration
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you know the judicial system uh and and really dealing face to face with americans so that we
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weren't talking canadians to canadians oh yes we understand americans but actually talking to
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americans and saying what do you think about these issues that uh that uh possibly divide canadians
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and americans and i i i'm here to tell you that um they're you know the the the problem that canada
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has in washington is that washington is the is the world's superpower they care about everything and
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every problem that arises in the world has an american dimension and if there are 100 problems
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that washington is wrestling with right now uh you know afghanistan iran uh north korea you know the
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list goes on and on canada doesn't make the list of top 100 problems uh we're you know we're friends
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we share a continent we're not military adversaries uh so america just can't devote the kind of attention
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to canada that canadians think it should and i i think the only way for canada to get america's
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attention for canadian problems is to demonstrate to americans that we think about their problems
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you know the only way to get the attention of americans is to show up in their offices and not say
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i need this from you but to show up and say you know you have problems x y z you've got problems
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in the caribbean you've got problems with china you've got problems in the middle east here's how
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we can help solve those problems and by the way if you would like our help there's a couple of things
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we would like in return that's the only way you know washington is a terribly transactional town
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you've got to have something to offer if you want something in return and i think canadians have
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never understood that i think the the number of times that canada shows up and sort of rings its
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hands is oh you know why are you so mean to us you're your best we're your best friend this is
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completely useless in dealing with americans so you know brian i know you've got good inroads into the
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into government and opposition both uh perhaps more with the opposition i hope that this message that
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that you're offering today is getting through because i'm not sure that we've seen an awful lot
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over the last nine years of the of canada going and saying this is what we have to offer
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this has been great a lot has happened in the last 14 days we've got 100 days before the election
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i think we're going to be wanting to talk to you again brian as the as the story develops
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i i think there will be lots to talk about in the next 100 days that that's so that that's the center
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for in washington that's the center for north american prosperity and security we call it
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prosperity and security and in canada the mcdonald laurie institute you're probably crowley
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you're a busy man thank you for giving us this time all the best great to talk to you for the western