In an April 22nd congressional hearing Jameson Greer addressed the Ways & Means Committee and declared that America “is kind of at the end of its rope when it comes to Canada“.
He then followed up his threat “enforcement action“! He went on to compare Canada to China and accused Canadian officials of “passing the buck on a dispute that has been sitting like a lit fuse under the trade relationship between the two countries that until recently most people assumed would never actually go to war with each other economically“!
People had laughed at me before America’s most recent election when I declared that America was planning to physically take over Canada, militarily if its strategy (I hesitate to use this word as I don’t think America has one) to destroy us economically through tariff doesn’t pan out the way they are anticipating. Canada has natural resources (oil, rare minerals, uranium, aluminum, fertilizer, electricity etc). Numerous America industries are depended on all of these otherwise totally unaccessible vital goods, Not the best thinking invested in the plan (there really is no strategy on the American end).
All aircraft production, weapons production, automobile production, tin cans (and a whole lot more) require aluminium of which, America produces very little. America imports over 50% of its aluminium from Canada and there are very few other alternatives. Their navy comprises nuclear power and they have no uranium and Canada is the #1 and almost only country capable of filling America dependency on this product.
Donald Trump as President, has been posturing America to justify an invasion against us since he return to the Presidency (it is hard for me to even write this) and grasped the power that no idiot should ever be able to amass as we see in America these days, and power is the key motivator to the man in everything he does. If you are interested in knowing my feeling on this man you can search his name here on simplycharles.com and you find my blog posts dating back to 2015 or so.
This entire mess was started off with a lie to use public laws to attack us and the dialogue shifted to what people mistakenly or misleadingly rationalized/masqueraded as humour starting with his constant flurry of comments about making Canada America’s “51st State” and there has been an ongoing and recurring focus/fixation with increasing assertiveness ever since.
Canadians should be thankful for and can sleep much better these days knowing that Mark Carney stepped up to face the massive intellectual challenge of confronting and/or standing up to Donald Trump’s thirst for “power” while heading up what was the most powerful nation in the world in military terms. The catastrophe ongoing in the Straight of Hormouz should be considered when assessing his true grasp on power and possibly mores reality.
And now, some 18 months later we see America’s lead trade negotiator arrogantly threat “enforcement action“. If you have been following the trade negotiations as opposed to listening to our conventional media, you will know that they mean what they are saying and it’s all about leading them somewhere. What else is there?
But, this blog is about how our Canadian Prime Minister is playing Canada’s hand in this very serious game. Fortunately Prime Minster Carney has already proven himself more than qualified to navigate these choppy Watters and I’m confident in the end that it will be much more smooth sailing for this great nation of our.
So, back to that meeting in the Chateau Laurier. Prime Minister Carney was, as usual, polite and respectful and listened to the pleasantries used to break the ice.
When the Mr. Greer the head negotiator on the American side handed out a 47 Page printed framework demanding capitulation was presented to Prime Minister Carney he spent approximately fourteen minutes reading it thoroughly it for 14 minutes. When he finished reading he closed to framework document thought for about four more seconds and then stood up and walked out of the meeting without comment.
The framework was not a framework for restoring a relationship between them. It was a demand for the dismantlement of everything Canada has just built over 18 months formatted in the language of parnership and offered Canada in exchange for almost nothing.
It demanded that Canada suspend its bilateral trade framework with the European Union for 24 months pending a joint review process. I plain English . . . stop trading with Europe on your terms until we (America) whether we approve of those terms.
It demanded that Canada restore pre-2024 energy export pricing protocols for American buyers. America has historically paid Canada much less than the spot price on international markets (as historically Canada had only this one buyer). We were at that point selling our oil and gas to European and Asian buyers at a 23% premium over what America was paying.
It demanded the dismantlement of Canada’s new commodity settlement infrastructure (the parallel financial architecture that Prime Minister Carney had just built to process trade outside dollar dominated frameworks. By that morning of the summit, that infrastructure had already processed $340 Billion in non-dollar trade. The proposal was demanding Canada to dismantle it, not pause it, not review it, dismantle it!
It demanded that Canada issue a public joint statement affirming the bilateral relationship as the cornerstone of Canadian international economic engagement, language that would have directly contradicted on the public record every trade diversification announcement Prime Minister Carney had made in the preceding 14 months!
It demanded compliance verification mechanisms with a joint oversight commission, American appointed chair and American veto authority over Canadian implementation timelines, not American input, American veto over Canadian policy on Canadian soil.
And then in an appendix formatted as a footnote, but carrying the width of a precondition, the proposal required Canada to formally retract three specific public statements made by Prime Minister Carney in the preceding 6 months, statements in which he had described the bilateral relationship as, in his own words, a dependency Canada has permanently outgrown. Retract those words. Sign a statement saying the relationship is the cornerstone of Canadian economic life.
Canada would freeze its European trade deals.
Accept below market energy prices.
Dismantle our non-dollar settlement infrastructure
Submit our trade policy to American veto authority and do all of this in exchange the conditional, partial, phased reduction of tariffs that had by every available economic measure damaged the American economy more our own.
What the proposal did not do was was ask Canada to negotiate. It demanded Canada to surrender everything it had built, abandon everyone it had built, abandon everything it had built toward, and publicly declare that the 18 months of economic construction had been a mistake. It demanded everything and offered absolutely nothing except the partial reversal of measures that had already been proven to hurt the United States more than Canada.
Prime Minister Carney did not even look up. He aligned the edges of the document with the table’s edge in an unhurried manner and hesitated for just a brief moment. His movements were intentionally unhurried and deliberate as if returning something with sufficient care that the return could not be interpreted as anger. He said nothing, arouse and walked to the door.
Our Finance Minister stood as he exited and the trade minister stood and in less than 17 seconds the entire Canadian delegation were through the door. The US trade representative said one word . . . “Prime” but he was talking to a closed door.
The American delegation sat at the table for 6 minutes after the door closed. None of them even spoke. Later that day, Prime Minister Carney stood at a lectern in Canada’s Parliament Builing’s Hall of Honour and delivered the shortest formal statement (2 minutes 12 seconds) of his tenure as prime minister, without notes or a teleprompter. He described briefly and without dramatics of any kind (this is his trademark) the contents of the American proposal, and outlined what it had demanded Canada retract, and what it had demanded Canada dismantle and what it offered Canada in return.
And then Canada’s Prime Minister calmly and professionally and totally without dramatics, anger or hostility and then he said 10 words that landed with quiet finality . . . . “Canada does not negotiate the terms of its own existence”. 10 words, no tremor, no pause for affect, no glance away, just a 10 word sentence spoken the way a fact is spoken by a man who definitively knew what he was doing.
The American delegation cancelled their press conference and flew home without holding a single press availability. Three former White House communications directors, each speaking independently to journalists that afternoon offered the same analysis without co-ordination . . . “You cancel a press conference when you have no answer to the question that will be asked first”. And the question that would be asked first by the 140 journalists who had confirmed attendance was, “What is your response to the Canadian prime minister’s statement”?
The other side produced a 47 page framework demanding our country’s capitulation but our distinguished prime minister read their proposal and left. I’m talking about “world-class negotiating skills here” and it is important that all Canadians become familiar with this skilled handling of an intimidating demand proposal.
Our Conservative Party and especially it’s leader (a man who has had absolutely no exposure to or experience in the real world/business world) have the unmitigated gaul to falsely allege that our Prime Minister is blowing it and expressing that “Canada has got to make a deal … any deal but just make a deal” shows us all just how unqualified their party is and specifically that it has nothing to offer we every-day Canadians. They are “Maple MAGA” and working hard to bring that dysfunction up here to our great country.
It’s time Canadians put their popularity contest concept of democracy out to pasture and get on board or at least STOP LYING!
As always . . . . I’m simply Charles
