A quick note on the continuing adventures of Dealmaker Don, America’s diplomatic bull in the china shop. As some may already know, Trump has embarked upon an unusual economic and foreign policy approach with regard to our northern neighbors in Canada, slapping 25 percent tariffs on all exports, as prelude to a “better deal”: outright annexation as the 51st state. It’s all total nonsense — aggressively insulting nonsense at that — and has had the predictable effect of tanking support for Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives right as Canadians are heading into an election to decide who will replace the awful Justin Trudeau as prime minister.
I don’t know whether Trump particularly cares about the political fortunes of the Canadian Right — given that he can’t stop talking about how much he wants to annex the entire country outright like Putin dreams of taking Kyiv — but last night’s interview on Fox News suggests he’s at least aware of the disastrous impact his snarky online insults (and much more practically, his tariff policy) have had on them, because he has started to steer his rhetoric with more craft. Well aware that he has become the Voldemort of Canadian politics — an evil so feared and hated that even to invoke his name is to be suspected of collaboration — Trump had fun twisting the knife last night while talking to Laura Ingraham by endorsing the Liberal candidate, acting Prime Minister Mark Carney, as Canada’s next leader. And why? “The Conservative that’s running is, stupidly, no friend of mine . . . I think it’s easier to deal with a Liberal.”
It was the sort of anti-endorsement Pierre Poilievre was so happy to see that he tweeted it out himself. And I actually take Trump completely at face value — he doesn’t like Poilievre and actually thinks Canadians would be happy as Americans, and not the largest domestic terrorism network in modern history. But Trump understands politics as well — well enough to know that his endorsement is an anti-endorsement in a land which has been given every good reason to loathe him.