Western Standard - Trump and trade - take a valium.

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford.

00:00:21.740 Now that former President Trump seems likely to be leading the U.S. for a second term,

00:00:30.000 Canada's left-wing government bought and paid for media are just excoriating the man and

00:00:37.740 quite a hateful diatribe coming out from all of them, a frenzy of scorn and hatred. In fact,

00:00:45.500 they are predicting that a second Trump presidency would be terrible for Canada as Trump tries to

00:00:53.800 make America great again at Canada's expense. But is that really how it's going to be? 0.65

00:01:00.000 With me today is political economist, author, and founder of Ottawa's leading public policy

00:01:07.200 think tank, economist, author, Brian Lee Crowley. Brian, welcome to the show.

00:01:17.160 Nigel, it's lovely to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

00:01:20.880 Brian, you founded the McDonnell Laurier Institute 14 years ago to examine questions like this.

00:01:27.200 So let's talk about three things. First, is it even going to be Trump? A lot has happened in the

00:01:34.800 last two weeks with the assassination, with Biden removing himself from the nomination process,

00:01:40.780 this apparent coronation of Kamala Harris, aided and abetted by an obviously partisan mainstream media

00:01:50.320 in the United States. So maybe it isn't going to be Trump. I'm going to ask you what your feelings

00:01:55.840 are about that. The second thing is, if it is Trump, is it so bad?

00:02:02.960 You have a special perch. You have an office in Washington as part of the Economic Institute.

00:02:15.440 What do you observe about that? And then thirdly, would a Harris administration be any better?

00:02:22.480 Brian, let's start. Is it going to be Trump?

00:02:24.480 Excellent question, Nigel. Two weeks ago, I would have been willing to bet serious money that Donald

00:02:33.680 Trump was going to be president after November. I'm not saying that he's not going to be president,

00:02:42.080 but I just think the balance of probability has shifted. You mentioned all the events that have

00:02:48.560 happened in the last couple of weeks. I think they have shaken up the political scene in a way that

00:02:54.400 could not have been foreseen even just a very short while ago. And as a result, you know,

00:03:02.480 I think, for example, many Americans assume that the choice they had was between Biden and Trump.

00:03:09.120 And clearly, if that was the choice, they were going to vote Trump. I don't think there was any doubt

00:03:14.000 about it. But at the same time, many Americans were saying, but we're not very happy with that choice.

00:03:21.920 And indeed, Nikki Haley, one of the candidates for the Republican nomination, had said early on in

00:03:30.960 her campaign that the party that moved on from Trump and Biden first would be the one that would 0.86

00:03:39.680 carry the day in the presidential election. And I think there's some truth to that. I think there are

00:03:46.000 a lot of people who are saying, OK, now that the choice is different than what I thought it was going

00:03:50.720 to be, I'm going to reevaluate. That doesn't necessarily mean that the choice they will come

00:03:56.880 to will be, oh, then it's going to be Harris. I was going to vote for Trump, but no more.

00:04:04.480 You know, I was quite struck by quite a prominent American pollster who said the other day,

00:04:11.680 you know, that Kamala Harris was enjoying a bit of a honeymoon, 0.97

00:04:14.640 you know, just newly minted candidate. And as you say, the mainstream media were

00:04:20.640 were covering her with praise and trying to obscure some of the less savory parts of her political

00:04:28.160 record. And this this pollster said, you know, today, i.e., the first day of her,

00:04:35.680 you know, coronation as the Democratic Party candidate is going to be the best day of her 1.00

00:04:45.120 campaign. It's going to be all downhill for here because there's going to be a huge effort,

00:04:50.720 of course, on the part of the Republicans to bring out that political record of which Harris

00:04:57.120 might not be necessarily so proud and and not wanting to put it in the window as she runs for

00:05:05.760 for president. So, Brian, why do why does American business like the Democrat Party so much? Surely the

00:05:18.480 Democrats are the party of the blue collar unions and the Republicans should be the party of big 0.69

00:05:24.080 business. Isn't that what we've always understood? Well, it's certainly been the traditional positioning

00:05:30.640 of the the the two parties that the Republicans were the party of business. They, you know, were

00:05:38.480 often criticized by the Democrats for lowering taxes and privileging the rich, you know, that they were

00:05:45.680 country club Republicans. I think this is this is completely in the past now. Trump and, you know,

00:05:56.880 his vice president J.D. Vance, his vice presidential candidate, I should say, J.D. Vance have worked very

00:06:05.520 hard to reposition the Republican Party as essentially a blue collar party, party of traditional American

00:06:11.120 values as opposed to the Democrats who have become, you know, culture warriors that they're the people

00:06:19.920 who are pushing the the diversity inclusion equity agenda, the transsexual agenda, the in my view, the

00:06:30.000 corruption of universities, dragging them to the left, the exclusion of a whole range of opinion from

00:06:37.200 uh from respectable uh positions within uh within the universities uh and so you have I think a wide

00:06:48.320 range of institutions which have been taken over uh by Democratic leaning groups not because of economic

00:06:57.760 issues but because of cultural issues and I would say that these cultural issues are now the fundamental

00:07:03.760 divide between Democrats and Republicans uh Republicans for example want to portray themselves

00:07:09.920 as the party the rule of law whereas the the Democrats want to say oh well you know stop talking

00:07:15.840 about illegal immigrants because they're really only irregular and we're going to have a path to 1.00

00:07:21.120 citizenship for them even though they weren't invited into the country and and and are here uh under

00:07:28.160 false pretenses etc etc uh these are now the issues that divide the parties and now that actually leads

00:07:36.320 right on to whether Trump is going to be good for Canada the people that Trump represents are essentially

00:07:44.240 people who would like to be working at well-paying jobs in their home states in their hometowns they that

00:07:52.320 was how things were 30 years ago 40 years ago those jobs have been exported uh so they are very interested in

00:08:00.560 economic development is Trump going to make America great again at Canada's expense well uh i i i i i think that

00:08:13.280 Trump uh is definitely going to be excellent uh assuming he wins uh at doing something that he did in the first 0.70

00:08:24.320 term which was to make people believe that uh he is an absolutely crazy man who is going to do crazy things

00:08:34.880 and anybody who's read uh his book the art of the deal which i i commend to people he is

00:08:42.880 completely open about his negotiating tactics and it basically he says the the way to win uh to get

00:08:50.720 the deal you want is to go into the room and scare the pants off people make them think you're the

00:08:56.320 craziest guy in the room and if you don't get what you want you're going to blow everything up uh but 0.67

00:09:03.040 this is in my experience of Trump this is a negotiating tactic this does not actually represent

00:09:09.760 his actual feelings or objectives in his negotiation so let's take the example of the last uh renegotiating

00:09:18.080 of renegotiation of NAFTA which became KUSMA the Canada-US-Mexico agreement uh for continental free

00:09:26.400 trade you know uh Trump said oh you know NAFTA worst trade deal in American history it's sold American workers

00:09:34.560 down the river i i mean he couldn't say enough terrible things about NAFTA and he scared the

00:09:41.600 Mexicans and the Canadians uh into thinking that he was going to put everything on the line and

00:09:47.120 you know he'd be he'd walk away from free trade and of course that would be disastrous for Canada

00:09:51.920 there's no doubt about it now if you actually examine the agreement that came out of that negotiation

00:09:58.080 if you put the NAFTA agreement and KUSMA side by side you would be kind of hard-pressed to say that

00:10:06.720 one was damaging to Canada's interest whereas the other promoted Canada's interest

00:10:11.840 i think brian i mean let's remember in 2018 he imposed a a tariff on Canadian aluminium 20 obviously that's

00:10:20.320 damaging to Canadian manufacturers of aluminium how far can i i understand that the industries are actually

00:10:27.680 very integrated one motor car chassis probably goes back and forwards over the u.s canada border more

00:10:35.920 than once before the car is finally complete and exported but there are some obstacles to being

00:10:43.040 America first but that's pretty much his uh his mindset isn't it well uh i think again i would i would

00:10:53.440 make the case that uh he talks a good game he he is very liberal with threats uh he will make you

00:11:04.720 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

00:11:12.960 uh uh on uh imports from your country and then you're really gonna be in terrible shape 0.88

00:11:20.560 uh my experience of watching him carry out these negotiations is he actually uh if you can if you

00:11:30.880 can dig in behind uh this kind of positioning uh before negotiations get underway um he actually is

00:11:42.720 looking for a rather more balanced outcome than a lot of people think he understands that uh america is

00:11:52.160 damaged by uh uh you know excessive aggressiveness with uh trade partners and so on uh he uh has been

00:12:03.280 very successful at renegotiating many trade agreements and in seeing that canada uh you know

00:12:13.440 pulls in its horns on things like uh um supply management and so on which in my view uh more

00:12:20.400 power to trump i i i hope he puts the boots to supply management in the next round of trade negotiations

00:12:27.120 with canada because trade supply management isn't in canada's interest this ten dollar a pound butter

00:12:33.440 is killing us well exactly and um uh you know getting access to cheaper american dairy products uh is

00:12:43.280 in canada's interest i've never understood why political parties in canada think that it's a losing

00:12:49.120 proposition to campaign on the idea of low food prices for canadian uh but be that as it may um

00:12:57.120 uh uh trump uh remember that uh trump even if he wanted to trump has to get uh trade agreements

00:13:07.680 adopted by congress it's a he is constrained in many ways in what he can do and uh he will not have a

00:13:17.280 free hand uh he understands that the world is more complicated than make america great again uh he's

00:13:24.560 going to seek to rally americans uh behind a a a broad program uh he's going to want to get his allies

00:13:34.160 on side against china uh there are a whole series of ways in which uh he does not have the freedom of

00:13:41.280 movement that his aggressive rhetoric suggests now okay let's move to the third point brian and that is

00:13:50.160 whether harris would be any better the democratic party does not to my observation seem to have much

00:13:57.040 of a tradition of free trade bernie sanders certainly bernie sanders didn't go anywhere but

00:14:04.240 he represents a strand of american democratic party thinking that was actually quite against

00:14:12.480 free trade with canada with mexico with anyone trump at least seems to have a he's not doesn't seem to be

00:14:19.120 in favor of global free trade agreements but he's very happy with bilateral ones but how would you

00:14:28.000 and i'm thinking here of your washington office what do you observe from that point viewpoint about

00:14:34.480 how harris would feel about it and what would she do about it it was certainly true that uh the republicans

00:14:41.600 uh were for many years the party of uh free trade uh but uh it's also true that the uh the democrats were

00:14:52.080 uh prepared to defend free trade i mean there was a bit of a washington consensus as it was called for

00:14:58.160 many years you remember that um uh bill clinton who beat george uh w bush's father uh george hw bush uh for the

00:15:08.880 presidency uh bush senior who had negotiated nafta uh and seen it successfully uh implemented uh clinton

00:15:20.160 did nothing to interfere with that and in fact you know when uh the kind of uh blue-collar voters that

00:15:28.160 we're talking about used to complain to clinton about uh you know how free trade was damaging their economic

00:15:35.440 prospect you're you you remember he would famously say i feel your pain so you know he he was empathetic

00:15:43.200 to the problem but he wasn't prepared to do anything to undermine uh free trade so uh uh what we have now

00:15:50.560 is both the democrats and the republicans rather skeptical about uh about free trade the democrats like

00:15:59.760 to sugarcoat it a little more but uh remember that the the swing states on which the presidency hinges

00:16:08.880 are full of exactly the kind of people that were thrown out of jobs um at least uh according to the

00:16:17.440 the stories that americans tell themselves by free trade we're talking about pennsylvania we're talking

00:16:22.800 about uh ohio we're talking about michigan um you know these are these are places that are full of

00:16:31.760 these blue-collar uh workers who used to get you know good union wages uh at regular jobs and uh in the

00:16:40.640 last 20 years have found their economic prospects deeply damaged and the the the great appeal of uh of

00:16:48.720 trump to those voters is that he says you know uh you were sacrificed uh in the interests of elites on

00:16:56.560 the coasts in the united states who uh you know love to buy japanese cars and uh take their holidays in

00:17:04.160 europe these are just not the preoccupations of blue-collar workers in uh uh in pennsylvania and michigan

00:17:11.040 so uh anyway is that a valid analysis uh is is what a valid analysis well that uh the blue-collar

00:17:21.440 workers were sacrificed for the interests of a an american elite i mean that's the basically the trump

00:17:26.560 message so uh is that a fair examination of what what happened in the last well since china joined the

00:17:33.440 world trade organization in 1999 2000 or something well you see i think that uh it's interesting one

00:17:41.840 one of the few things on which there is a consensus in washington across across the aisle between the

00:17:49.520 political parties is that uh china has not been a good faith player in the in the international trading

00:17:57.200 system uh and in fact uh china is to be distrusted on a whole series of fronts uh i i i think that uh

00:18:06.960 the the conclusion that people in both parties have come to is that the the free trade movement uh

00:18:13.680 you know the the principles behind free trade uh are still defensible i i believe in free trade uh but

00:18:21.200 that china uh doesn't play by the free trade rules china uh pursues its national interest uh through

00:18:30.080 the openness of western institutions you know that why is it that uh uh china has seized control of

00:18:37.840 the critical minerals industry so that all of the minerals on which the so-called green economy uh depends

00:18:44.960 to make solar panels to make solar panels and windmills and uh ev batteries and so on uh all of these things

00:18:51.440 are controlled by china to an unbelievable extent they have far greater control over these highly valuable 0.96

00:18:58.400 minerals than opec has over the oil industry for example uh and uh china has uh used the opening up of

00:19:08.160 the tree the the trade system to invest money in american and other companies not to be uh an owner and

00:19:16.400 uh you know provide uh goods and services through these companies to americans but rather to plunder them

00:19:23.680 for their technology uh move it to china and essentially shut down the uh the uh the the american

00:19:32.080 companies that were at the origin of this important intellectual capital and so on so uh

00:19:38.400 china is really i think the driver behind a lot of what's happened in the united states in terms of the

00:19:45.760 falling reputation of uh free trade i i i i don't think that uh america uh and certainly not congress

00:19:53.920 thinks that canada is uh responsible for the the the poor conditions of uh of blue-collar workers in the

00:20:02.320 rust belt um there there is increasingly talk in the united states about things like friend shoring

00:20:10.480 uh so in other words saying okay uh we don't want to be dealing with china we don't want our uh standard 1.00

00:20:19.040 of living to depend on raising uh china's economic status in the world so if we're not buying from china 1.00

00:20:26.080 let's buy from our friends uh and so there's uh there's a lot of positioning to get a lot of

00:20:35.360 manufacturing and other economic activity into the hands of not just the united states but also its

00:20:41.680 friends in the in the western alliance so brian let me ask you this you said that uh there were

00:20:46.800 constraints upon what trump could and couldn't do presumably those same constraints would operate on a

00:20:54.320 harris presidency if that's in fact what what turns out to be uh that being so and and what you have

00:21:03.440 just said about the underlying conflict over trade with china does it really make an awful lot of this

00:21:12.880 difference to canadians who occupies the white house from the point of view of trade only

00:21:19.200 i i i actually don't think it does uh and i think uh this uh all these people who are pouring contempt

00:21:29.520 on trump and i'm trying to elevate harris i mean they they may have their reasons for doing so but

00:21:35.680 it's not actually contributing terribly much to the debate no i i i i think this idea that uh you know

00:21:44.720 a democratic administration in washington is heaven and a trump administration is hell uh is is completely

00:21:52.000 overblown uh i'm not saying that there won't be specific issues on which uh trump might be an

00:21:58.560 unpleasant negotiating partner but i think the the the the reverse is also true uh you know the uh

00:22:06.160 the uh the uh the democrats if they want to uh burnish their uh credentials on the border might well

00:22:14.240 come after uh the canadian border where you know there's there's a lot of concern about uh canada's

00:22:21.440 uh inability to guarantee american security so uh uh i i i'm i'm i'm pretty sure that canada's

00:22:32.160 position will be pretty much the same under either a trump or a harris administration from a trade point

00:22:39.360 of view there will be lots of other things where uh you know those two administrations would do things

00:22:45.280 differently but uh trade with canada wouldn't be high on their list okay that's ryan that's great

00:22:51.440 look what just tell us quickly about your washington operation or what you're trying to achieve down there

00:22:57.600 and how that might influence matters back here in canada well you know uh my view is that uh canadians

00:23:07.520 think they understand americans nobody in the world understands americans better than canadian uh i i i

00:23:15.520 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

00:23:23.040 image of what americans are like uh but that image isn't always uh isn't always real and i thought that

00:23:31.200 the fact that in the in the entire think tank community in canada uh there wasn't one that

00:23:38.000 had an office in washington uh plugging into the american political system the the administration

00:23:46.480 you know the judicial system uh and and really dealing face to face with americans so that we

00:23:52.640 weren't talking canadians to canadians oh yes we understand americans but actually talking to

00:23:57.760 americans and saying what do you think about these issues that uh that uh possibly divide canadians

00:24:06.800 and americans and i i i'm here to tell you that um they're you know the the the problem that canada

00:24:15.040 has in washington is that washington is the is the world's superpower they care about everything and

00:24:23.040 every problem that arises in the world has an american dimension and if there are 100 problems

00:24:29.440 that washington is wrestling with right now uh you know afghanistan iran uh north korea you know the

00:24:39.360 list goes on and on canada doesn't make the list of top 100 problems uh we're you know we're friends

00:24:47.040 we share a continent we're not military adversaries uh so america just can't devote the kind of attention

00:24:54.080 to canada that canadians think it should and i i think the only way for canada to get america's

00:25:02.400 attention for canadian problems is to demonstrate to americans that we think about their problems

00:25:08.880 you know the only way to get the attention of americans is to show up in their offices and not say

00:25:13.440 i need this from you but to show up and say you know you have problems x y z you've got problems

00:25:19.600 in the caribbean you've got problems with china you've got problems in the middle east here's how 0.97

00:25:25.040 we can help solve those problems and by the way if you would like our help there's a couple of things

00:25:31.520 we would like in return that's the only way you know washington is a terribly transactional town

00:25:38.240 you've got to have something to offer if you want something in return and i think canadians have

00:25:42.560 never understood that i think the the number of times that canada shows up and sort of rings its

00:25:47.680 hands is oh you know why are you so mean to us you're your best we're your best friend this is

00:25:52.880 completely useless in dealing with americans so you know brian i know you've got good inroads into the

00:26:00.720 into government and opposition both uh perhaps more with the opposition i hope that this message that

00:26:07.360 that you're offering today is getting through because i'm not sure that we've seen an awful lot

00:26:14.160 over the last nine years of the of canada going and saying this is what we have to offer

00:26:22.480 this has been great a lot has happened in the last 14 days we've got 100 days before the election

00:26:30.480 i think we're going to be wanting to talk to you again brian as the as the story develops

00:26:36.400 i i think there will be lots to talk about in the next 100 days that that's so that that's the center

00:26:42.640 for in washington that's the center for north american prosperity and security we call it

00:26:48.640 prosperity and security and in canada the mcdonald laurie institute you're probably crowley

00:26:53.680 you're a busy man thank you for giving us this time all the best great to talk to you for the western

00:26:59.360 standard i'm nigel hannaford

00:27:16.080 you

Western Standard - July 30, 2024

Trump and trade - take a valium.

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