Trump Fiddles As America Burns: GRAY

Welcome to Grenada or Cuba or Baghdad or Chile or, perish the thought, Vietnam.

If you ever wondered why Americans have that peculiar habit of sewing Canadian flags on their travelling bags, now you know. The tariff war is an example of how the United States treats the rest of the world. And people around the world don’t like it.

As pundit and comedian Jon Stewart said recently, the U.S. has always been about America first. It just disguises it as “liberating you.”

Well guess what? Our turn came. We’re being “liberated.” Must be about democracy and freedom? No. All those oddly dressed protesters in the ’60s were right. It’s about imperialism.

While Canadians died by the hordes in places like Vimy Ridge, the Americans finally got troops in the field during the First World War in May 1918. The war ended in November 1918. Why? Because the Americans wanted a place at the peace table to pick up the spoils having lost about as many men as Canada during the conflict. America first.

The Americans were quite willing to let Britain burn, Russia bleed, Canadians die and Jews be killed by the millions while they sat comfortably selling arms and making profits in the Second World War. It took the Japanese to foolishly attack Hawaii in late 1941 to bring the U.S. into the conflict. Germany had to declare war first in Europe to get the Americans to join the fray there.

The Americans won the war in the Pacific but then they had been attacked there and had colonies to protect in that sphere plus markets in China and Australia. In the other theatre, they had a sojourn in North Africa before finally landing in force on Normandy in June 1944 while the Russians did the heavy-lifting in the Nazi defeat. The European war ended 11 months after D-Day. Some say the European landings were an effort to keep the western part of the continent in the American economic sphere and to provide a defence cushion between Britain and the Americas from the Soviet Union.

As usual American “liberation” had its political and economic priorities. Imperialism perchance. Western Europe was a huge market. It’s all about them. Altruism. Democracy. Liberty. Odd terms those … maybe within its own borders if you ignore the Black experience.

So why are the Americans treating Canada so poorly? Because for decades, we were convenient. We cut lumber and dug for minerals. We fought in American wars. Americans signed a free-trade deal figuring they could play the stupid Canadians. They were wrong.

Canada prospered under free trade after a cruel adjustment period. We could out-enterprise the enterprising Americans.

Take film-making. How many U.S. movie credits feature Canadian locations? Alberta, British Columbia, Toronto. That’s because Canadian film expertise matches the Americans’ at 69 cents on the dollar.

American industry hates the Canadian dollar and universal health care. Canadian companies don’t pay for health care and you build with 69-cent dollars and similar skills. And you sell straight into the tariff-free United States. Americans have trouble competing.

So when Toyota decides between locating in Woodstock or Tennessee, health care and the dollar play a huge role. Toyota chose Woodstock and Cambridge in Ontario.

Trump’s tariffs are a crude, ill-considered attempt to fight those two factors. They won’t work. The dollar will drop negating the effect of tariffs. And tariffs will make for a smaller, inefficient economy in the U.S. that can’t compete on a world scale … much like the Canadian economy pre-free-trade deal.

Tariffs kill domestic efficiency and cause economies to rot. Canada has free-trade deals all over the world including an extremely valuable one in the EU. Canada will prosper past this current crisis due to increased efficiencies and the United States will decline. Furthermore, no one will sign a deal with Americans because if you can cheat on your Canadian partner, you’ll cheat on anyone. At least you can trust Canada.

Great empires die from within and that is what is happening in the U.S. Nero fiddled as Rome burned and so too Donald Trump. He is presiding over the decline of the American experiment.

The U.S. can’t compete and thus cedes the world to China and other efficient nations. It hides behind its Great Tariff Wall while it rots from within as entrepreneurs have no need to innovate in a protected economy. Eventually, it can’t compete anywhere.

Mark on your calendar March 4, 2025 as the formal beginning of the end of the American empire. After this follows a new world of chaos and abyss until a new order can be found. Until then, Canada must find a way to survive and prosper.

It won’t be easy.

Bulldog editor Ken Gray has been a journalist at five major Canadian newspapers over a career that has spanned four decades.

For You:

Things Could Get Slow At The Border: BLUESKY

The World Will Never Trust The U.S. Again: COYNE

Canadians Back Tough Response To Trump Tariffs: POLL

Use Bilingualism To Fight Trump: CRERAR

How To Beat Trump At His Own Game: GRAY

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