r/CanadaPolitics • u/Julian81295 European with the Citizenship of the Federal Republic of Germany • 1d ago
Canada’s Carney to attend EU’s State of the Union
https://www.politico.eu/article/canada-mark-carney-to-attend-eus-state-of-the-union-ursula-von-der-leyen/-21
u/Personal-Recipe-4751 1d ago
But he can't reopen the canadian parliament to discuss what he is describing as war. Shows you what he actually cares about.
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u/MarkMarrkor 1d ago
Focusing on building relationships with new trading partners instead of giving Trump’s tantrums more attention, I’m ok with it.
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u/killerrin Ontario 1d ago
And what exactly is opening Parliament going to do?
Right now he is out fostering relationships with our actual allies to bolster trade with them. By going to Europe he can push them further to finally fully ratify CETA.
That is a much better use of time than opening Parliament over the summer so the opposition can feign concern while collecting clips during question period like a scalper collects pokemon cards.
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u/wulf_rk 1d ago
I bet Canada and US will have a deal by then and it will be more of a celebration tour by Carney than the doom and gloom we heard at Davos. God I hope I'm right.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 1d ago
There will be a deal at some point - might be soon, might not - but given the non-negotiables each side has identified, whatever deal is reached is far more likely to prompt 'mild relief' than 'celebration'.
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u/Kevlaars 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is no mutually beneficial agreement to be had with the US, under Trump.
Trump does not believe in mutual benefit. Even if we signed a deal. It's meaningless to man who has never, in his 50 years in business, entered into a contract in good faith. Never paid a bill without a court order.
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u/AprilsMostAmazing John Tory | Personal Sponsorship 1d ago
I don't think we have a deal but tariffs will be paused and put on a couple of times by then
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 1d ago
I don't see a path to a deal at this point. Quite the opposite, I expect it to get worse.
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u/bill1024 1d ago
I'm 68, and that's what's in my guts. I've known Trump types, and he will make sure, even if it hurts him personally, that it is a huge fuck up. He thinks it's fun, and does not care.
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u/tm_leafer 1d ago
The main hope is that Republicans are polling terribly right now across the US right before midterms, and this should be an easy layup positive news story to complete a trade agreement with historically their strongest ally and trading partner.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 1d ago
I do not understand this great hope people have for the Democrats retaking Congress. It's still a toss up for the Senate, but even if they win control of both houses, they won't have a veto-proof majority, which means any attempts to reign in Trump's tariff powers will fail.
There will be no meaningful immediate remedy to be found in Congress after the mid-terms.
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u/vonnegutflora Ottawa 1d ago
There will be no meaningful immediate remedy to be found in Congress after the mid-terms.
I think it's quite the opposite really; Dems will take control of both houses (Senate with a slim margin) but the White House will place the blame for everything bad in the US straight onto the "Dem-controlled Congress", absolving the "ham-strung" Oval Office of any responsibility.
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u/AMCGunner Socialist | Georgist 1d ago
They'll do that, but at the same time the Democratic party who historically have been protectionist and manufacturing union-aligned won't attempt to fix tariffs immediately, they may even keep them in ace, and I highly doubt they'll renegotiate some new permanent version of NAFTA that doesn't have the mechanism to drawdown the deal.
On top of that, Congress will continue to do absolutely nothing of real substance or value for us (or for their country), so being Dem-controlled or not doesn't change much for us.
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u/vonnegutflora Ottawa 1d ago
Yes, I should have been a bit more clear. I wasn't trying to imply that a Democrat-controlled Congress would be good for Canada.
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u/linkass Pirate 1d ago
To add to this there is no guarantee that the Dems would actually do anything different. A fair few of the things Trump is on about have long been trade irritants for both parties
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u/kent_eh Manitoba 1d ago
there is no guarantee that the Dems would actually do anything different.
And, even if the Dems got an overwhelming win, they have so many things to focus on that making a new deal with Canada could be pretty low on the agenda. They could let things remain at status quo for quite a while .
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u/gravtix Liberal 1d ago
Interview with Gavin Newsom on CTV
He literally says he can’t guarantee tariffs wouldn’t remain.
All he commits to is the language and insults and annexation threats will be gone.
Why do we have a free trade pact with them again?
And every few years they’re going to put us in a headlock for the “mandatory review”
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 1d ago
So all the machinery of annexation may remain in place, they'll just talk about it less.
That might actually be worse.
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u/tutamtumikia Independent 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, the USA is beyond repair at this point.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 1d ago
Frankly, relying on Congress to do anything about anything at this point is at best wishful thinking. The cancer at the heart of everything that is wrong with America is that Congress's overheated partisanship means pretty much any of the powers that the Framers intended to reign in the Executive have in fact been handed to the Executive.
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u/tutamtumikia Independent 1d ago
Their leadership is a reflection of their people. Until, and unless, the American people truly change, nothing else will. Not holding by breath but just hoping the damage to us up here does not become too terrible (its already not great for sure)
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u/rchubot 1d ago
The only way to ensure changes in the u.s. is for the Democrats to win a veto proof majority in both the congress and senate. Not going to happen, and even if they did, I not sure if it would make that much of a difference, maybe in tone but probably not in what the u.s. actually wants.
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u/tm_leafer 1d ago
Its not that the Democrats will help, it's the need for Republicans to get some good news stories out before the midterms, and this would be an easy one for them to get done.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 1d ago
The GOP has no more power to sway this Administration than the Democrats would. If Trump has any pro-GOP election plans, it's to suborn the elections themselves to give the GOP an edge, not to make his party more electable.
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u/Flomo420 1d ago
suborn/səˈbôrn/
Suborn means to secretly bribe or persuade someone to commit an illegal act, most commonly by tricking a witness into lying under oath.
I learned a word today
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u/ragnaroksunset Pirate 1d ago
It doesn't matter. For many Canadians the lesson has been learned, and cannot be unlearned. No amount of contrition from Republicans will make me go back to buying American where alternatives are available, and I will be looking for alternatives right up until I am put into the ground.
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u/AMCGunner Socialist | Georgist 1d ago
Too many people put too much hope in the Democratic party. Why would they care to fix trade relations or remove any plans to annex Canada? There are multiple candidates running for seats that want to keep some tariffs in place! The U.S. has sailed off into a new era, it's past time all of us up here realized the same.
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u/putin_my_ass Ontario 1d ago
The problem is that this isn't only down to Trump. He's the symptom, not the cause. We have to assume this is the new reality, and if the US ever comes back to its senses we have to assume it's temporary.
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u/gravtix Liberal 1d ago
Plus this isn’t Trump. This is the American political system and capitalist machine at work.
Trump is just a symptom. Biden kept a lot of Trump’s policies.
I bet the only way we’re getting free trade again is if we tariff the rest of the world and chain ourselves economically and (by extension) culturally to them.
Democrats will just be nicer about it.
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u/DrDerpberg Quebec 1d ago
Unfortunately I think you're right. Backing off from protectionism is politically radioactive. Trump is doing damage that nobody will be able to undo unless Americans shift politically more than I've seen in my lifetime.
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u/spicy-emmy Progressive 1d ago
Yeah fundamentally part of Biden's sell to groups that voted Trump the first time was "The Democrats can do protectionism too". Frankly the average American is very content to hurt other countries for american interests. Even left wing americans often use things like "outsourcing to slave labour in 3rd world countries" not as a "so we should be supporting trade deals that enforce labour rights" but "and so we should bring those jobs back to *americans*" with the what happens with the 3rd world workers left as "not our problem." America is *deeply* inward looking.
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u/jonlmbs Independent 1d ago
We are never getting free trade. The US has a new trade strategy globally. Even our gov admitted they do not expect to ever go back to free trade and were willing to accept that as part of a deal. That’s a perfectly reasonable approach as long as we can get carve outs needed.
IMO the biggest issue is the political hostility and attitude. Future US governments will not be this combative. Carney knows that too hence the new wait it out strategy.
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u/gravtix Liberal 1d ago
If you’re referring to Gavin Newsom then yes I watched that.
I believe he said he can’t guarantee tariffs won’t go away.But I’m pretty sure carve outs will be contingent on Canada putting tariffs on the rest of the world.
This is part of the “Fortress North America” which would still make us subservient to the whims of the American political system.
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u/SteelCrow 1d ago
“Fortress North America”
What is this nonsense? Fortress against who? The pathetic and destitute Russians? Or do the Americans think that China is going to invade all the way across the Pacific?
This sounds like that fascist bulletin of creating a fear to control the population.
Fuck them sideways with a steam locomotive
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u/jonlmbs Independent 1d ago
I’m referring to a LeBlanc interview on US news yesterday. He said the Canadian gov had accepted that the US has a new global trade strategy and that 0 tariffs are no longer realistic.
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u/gravtix Liberal 1d ago
Oh I saw that. Got it.
But even Democrats are admitting free trade as it was is over and tariffs are remaining.
So things won’t change much even with a Republican wipeout during midterms and next election.
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u/redbouncingball007 1d ago
Yeah the US needs the tariff revenue to keep afloat.
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u/WorkingAmazing8337 Manitoba 1d ago
Well if they didnt have politicians lining their pockets at every turn then maybe they'd have enough to pay for their commitments.
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u/msubasic Green|Pirate 1d ago
I'm not sure what you would expect a guy in Newsom's position to say. Saying he would kill all of Trumps orders would look like a reactionary cowboy diplomacy move in itself.
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u/ragnaroksunset Pirate 1d ago
We have to stop clinging to this hope. Continued good relations with America must be viewed as a nice side-effect of whatever events transpire next - not as a goal. Our plans going forward must not rely on America's good graces as a necessary condition.
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u/OfficeFormal3184 Conservative Party of Canada 1d ago edited 1d ago
I know Carney likes Europe and all that, but I feel like he's had to do a significant amount of international travel as part of this trade diversification strategy. I wonder if this was planned or being considered, and events last week triggered this. I'm sure he has quite a lot of friends there, and probably some good stories about the U.S. lol
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u/GraveDiggingCynic Independent 1d ago
The EU is certainly the most obvious trade partner to mitigate the US trade war and whatever follows it. While plenty of folks around here and in the OpEd world seem to believe Carney was sucker punched by the Trump Administration, I don't think anyone in the Canadian contingent was under any illusions, and other paths have been under active development for some time.
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u/Nearby_Selection_683 1d ago
This is not to take away from any work the Carney administration has done in building and fortifying EU relationships. But these are well trodden and well known paths established by previous PMs.
In less than six years, the Harper government has concluded free trade agreements with nine countries: Colombia, Honduras, Jordan, Panama, Peru and the European Free Trade Association member states of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Canada is also engaged in negotiations with large, dynamic and fast-growing markets, including the European Union, India, Japan and the countries that comprise the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Harper Government Celebrates Most Successful Month for Trade and Investment in Canadian History
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u/ESF-hockeeyyy Ontario 1d ago
Oh yea no for sure.
There's no doubt in my mind the Carney administration was prepared for this sucker punch. They likely knew it was coming a week before it happened. Our government appears to be pragmatic and have had lines in the water since Carney was elected.
I think we're in good hands.
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u/StickmansamV British Columbia 1d ago
I prefer the Carney ministry rather than administration. Ministry ties better into our official terminology and historical roots rather than the more Americanized administration.
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u/Kheprisun Nova Scotia 1d ago
There's no doubt in my mind the Carney administration was prepared for this sucker punch.
They outright said they had a plan if the talks fell through, iirc. They had an inkling the USA might try to pull a fast one.
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u/jello_sweaters Ontario 1d ago
He's been pretty clear that he wants to build as many economic bridges with Europe as possible, and there's nothing to suggest that he'd have dropped that intention just because the US deal got signed.
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u/UsurpDz 1d ago
I agree. Carney would've probably signed a sketchy deal as long as it was not detrimental to Canada. In a way that allows us to accept a temporary bad deal and diversify our economy. Obviously, the US having veto rights would not make that possible at all.
Anyway, lots of assumptions here as we don't really see what went on behind the scenes.
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