Bitter, “Hurt Feelings” Trump, Meet the Carney-Ford Team!

U.S. President Donald Trump made one of the most serious errors of his presidency in picking a fight with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford over an ad highlighting former President Ronald Reagan’s opposition to the use of tariffs.

As Trump always does when confronted by views in the free press which he opposes, he dismissed the ad as “fake.”

As a result of the ad, Trump suspended trade talks with Canada and imposed an across-the-board additional tariff of ten per cent on this country.

There is far too much on the historical record for Trump to get off without being challenged on this. On April 6, 1987, Reagan was introduced by Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a passionate free trader in his own right, for Reagan’s address to the Canadian Parliament. What follows is a direct quote from Reagan’s speech text:

​"To those who would hunker down behind barriers to fight a destructive and self-defeating round of trade battles, Canada and the United States will show the positive way. We will overcome the impulse of economic isolationism with a brotherly embrace, an embrace, it is not too much to hope, that may someday extend throughout the Americas and ultimately encompass all free nations.

We can look forward to the day when the free flow of trade, from the southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego to the northern outposts of the Arctic Circle, unites the people of the Western Hemisphere in a bond of mutually beneficial exchange, when all borders become what the U.S.-Canadian border so long has been: a meeting place, rather than a dividing line.”

The Reagan opposition to tariffs poses a problem for the American republican party because it contradicts the aggressive Make America Great Again (MAGA) republicanism of Donald Trump. Whatever the appeal of Trump, he will never be the folksy, former movie actor that was Reagan.

Seemingly fearing the wrath of Trump, a spokesperson for the Reagan Foundation indicated that the quotes of Reagan in the ad may have been taken out of context.

But when a national leader speaks to the people’s democratic assembly, as noted above, there is no question of remarks being taken out of context.

Reagan biographer Marcus Witchner, a professor at West Virginia University comes to the same conclusion. He also noted that immigration, the bug bear of Trumpian dogma, was the “basis of America” one symbolized by the Statue of Liberty, standing for the abolition of slavery and a strong welcome for immigrants.

This is a far cry from Trump’s ICE marauders rounding up immigrants on American streets.

David Frum, thoughtful contributor to The Atlantic magazine, attributes the response of Trump, the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, as based purely on his “hurt feelings” at his negative comparison to Ronald Reagan.

Frum has strong roots in Canada, the son of the beloved Barbara Frum, host of the CBC radio program As It Happens, built on reaching people all over the world by telephone.

Frum Sr. is famous for placing a call into a bank robber holding hostages and calmly persuading him to give up his fight. Also dealing with police, Frum saw to it that the situation was resolved with no injuries, to the hostages, the police, or the robber.

Frum Jr. describes what he calls Trump’s “politicized stupidity” an simple example being his ordering of the demolition of the entire east wing of the White House, a project not paid for from public funds authorized by Congress but by funds solicited from friends of the Trump administration, who are doing business with the U.S.  Government.

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Adding flavour to the spat over the Ontario ad using Reagan’s words, Trump’s ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, had a tantrum at a public meeting in Ottawa, hurling F-bombs at an Ontario government representative over the Reagan ad. In turn, Ontario Premier Doug Ford demanded an apology from Hoekstra.

Throughout this dispute, Canadian Prime Minister Carney has reacted soberly, saying that Canada will resume trade talks with the Trump administration when Trump is ready. 
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During Southeast Asian (ASEAN) meetings, Carney continued to build trade ties with those countries. He sat across from Trump at a dinner table in South Korea, but the two did not speak.

And so, it goes….