Canada, prepare for the big squeeze. A new Trump administration is likely to press this country on multiple fronts: trade, migration and military spending.
The reverberations of Donald Trump’s election win will ripple internationally with his plan for sweeping tariffs, mass deportation of migrants and intense pressure on countries to spend more on their own defence.
The animating principle of Trump’s political career is that the U.S. must get tough with allies who have grown too reliant on it, economically and militarily.
And few are as reliant as Canada, as illustrated in a Washington think-tank report that said the northern neighbour risks being among the countries hardest hit by Trump’s plan for a minimum 10 per cent global tariff.
The still-undefined details of his plan have provoked a gamut of estimates about the potential damage to Canada’s economy, ranging from less than a half per cent of GDP to an eye-watering five per cent.
Trump has made clear his intention to impose a minimum 10 per cent fee on all imported products, memorably calling “tariff” the “most beautiful word in the dictionary.”
Canadian officials have spent months seeking clarity from Trump associates on whether the country might be exempted; they received no assurances.
One scenario some trade-watchers envisioned is that Trump will swiftly announce tariffs on everything early next year, then use them as leverage to force other countries to reorient certain policies.
In other words, Canada faces an intense year ahead in bilateral relations.
A sense of déja vu
In an effort to set a positive tone on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau congratulated Trump on his victory and called the friendship between Canada the U.S. the envy of the world.
“I know President Trump and I will work together to create more opportunity, prosperity and security for both of our nations,” Trudeau said.
But for Canadian veterans of the trade battles with the first Trump administration, there is a sense of déja vu.
“Welcome back to an administration that put national security tariffs on the Canadian aluminum that its own military buys to make a point no one understood,” said Flavio Volpe, head of Canada’s auto-parts lobby association, referring to Trump’s past tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.
Volpe held out hope that Canada’s co-operation with the U.S. to keep out Chinese imports might create common ground between the two countries.
But the big change from Trump’s first term is that he’s now talking about placing tariffs on everything, from everywhere, describing the move as a strategy to force manufacturers to build in the U.S.
Republican Donald Trump claims a ‘magnificent victory’ after winning several key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, and tells supporters they are a part of the ‘greatest political movement of all time.’
It’s believed Ottawa will try negotiating exemptions to the tariff, and failing that, will threaten retaliation. Canada’s ambassador to Washington has already mused publicly about the possibility of a response.
This in turn risks plunging Canada into a painful trade war with its powerful neighbour.
A recent report from TD Economics was more optimistic, saying Trump’s best and most likely use of tariffs would be as a bargaining chip to force Canada into concessions when it comes time to renegotiate CUSMA — the trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico — in 2026.
The question of military spending
It’s not just Canadian trade that could be impacted by Trump. Military spending is another possible flashpoint.
A potentially important player in the next Trump administration, Elbridge Colby, told CBC News this year that he would urge using unprecedented means like economic penalties as a stick to prod Ottawa to scale up its contribution.
There will be pressure to spend more, faster, especially in the Arctic.
Washington has not been mollified by the Trudeau government’s recent promise to reach the historic military spending target of two per cent of GDP. This was illustrated by a recent op-ed from a powerful Republican congressman ridiculing Canada as the greatest threat to NATO.
At a rally in South Carolina earlier this year, Trump said the U.S. would not protect allies who fail to meet the two per cent target.
David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic and a speech writer for former president George W. Bush, believes Donald Trump could ‘mess up’ the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement and hold those countries ‘to ransom’ in order to get what he wants. He also suggests Trump could cut of weapons to Ukraine and cost it the war against Russia.
Immigration is another question mark for Canada.
Trump has promised the mass deportation of millions who entered the U.S. illegally. The fear of deportation could produce a surge of asylum claimants seeking refuge at the Canadian border, one analyst said.
“Individuals [may] try to run to Canada to avoid that [deportation],” Christopher Sands, head of the Canada Institute at Washington’s Wilson Center, told CBC News last week. “So we could fight over that.”
Such a phenomenon could exacerbate tensions within Canada. Ottawa has already been under pressure from the provinces to curb immigration levels.
Just last month, the Trudeau government announced cuts to immigration to relieve pressure on the housing market. Trump noticed this, posting on social media: “Even Justin Trudeau wants to close Canada’s borders.”
“We are the only ‘stupid ones’ that allow people, including hundreds of thousands of criminals, to freely come into the United States through our ridiculous ‘open borders’ policy,” Trump said.
There was a swift sign of the potential ripple effects the migration issue could have within Canada.
The Quebec government hinted Wednesday that it will step up policing of its own border, deploying provincial personnel to the international boundary.
Francois Legault’s government faces a difficult re-election fight against the pro-independence Parti Québécois, which has seized on migration as an argument for separation.
Published at Fri, 01 Nov 2024 08:11:21 +0000
Phoney bomb threats reported on Election Day in 5 U.S. battleground states
Hoax bomb threats, many of which appeared to originate from Russian email domains, were directed at polling locations in five U.S. battleground states — Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — as election day voting was underway, the FBI said on Tuesday.
“None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far,” the FBI said in a statement, adding that election integrity was among the bureau’s highest priorities.
At least two polling sites targeted by the fake bomb threats in Georgia were briefly evacuated.
The two locations, in Fulton County, both reopened after about 30 minutes, officials said, and the county was seeking a court order to extend the location’s voting hours past the statewide deadline of 7 p.m. local time.
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, blamed Russian interference for the election day bomb hoaxes.
“They’re up to mischief, it seems. They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election, and if they can get us to fight among ourselves, they can count that as a victory,” Raffensperger told reporters.
The Russian embassy in Washington said insinuations about Russian interference were “malicious slander.”
“We would like to emphasize that Russia has not interfered and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States,” the embassy said in a statement. “As [Russian] President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed, we respect the will of the American people.”
State officials confirm hoax threats
Ann Jacobs, head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said fake bomb threats were sent to two polling locations in the state capital of Madison, but they did not disrupt voting.
A spokesperson for Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic state secretary, told Reuters there had been reports of bomb threats at several polling locations, but none were credible.
Benson’s office had been notified that the threats may be tied to Russia, the spokesperson said.
An FBI official said Georgia alone received more than two dozen, most of which occurred in Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, a Democratic stronghold.
Police in DeKalb County, Ga. — another Democratic stronghold — later responded to bomb threats at eight locations, according to a county press release. Six of the locations were polling places and were evacuated. County officials were seeking an emergency order extending opening times at the voting sites.
DeKalb County police later said no bombs were found at the six voting sites.
A senior official in Raffensperger’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Georgia bomb hoaxes were sent from email addresses that had been used by Russians trying to interfere in previous U.S. elections.
The threats were sent to U.S. media and polling locations, the official said, adding, “It’s a likelihood it’s Russia.”
Adrian Fontes, the Arizona secretary of state, a Democrat who is the chief election official in the swing state, said four fake bomb threats had been delivered to polling sites in Navajo County, located in the northeastern part of the state and which includes three Indigenous tribes.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and Republican candidate Donald Trump, a former U.S. president, are locked in a tight race for the White House. Opinion polls suggest the contest is too close to call.
A judge in Clearfield County, Pa., extended voting hours to 9:00 p.m. local time after a bomb threat at a vote-counting site disrupted the process.
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, said on Tuesday night multiple bomb threats had been investigated and none were found to be credible. He did not mention Russia.
The phoney bomb threats mark the latest in a string of examples of alleged interference by the Russians in the 2024 election.
On Nov. 1, U.S. intelligence officials warned that Russian actors manufactured a video that falsely depicted Haitians illegally casting ballots in Georgia. Intelligence officials also found that the Russians created a separate phoney video that falsely accused someone associated with the Harris presidential ticket of taking a bribe from an entertainer.
U.S. intelligence officials have also accused Russia of interfering in previous presidential elections, especially the 2016 race that Trump won against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Published at Tue, 05 Nov 2024 22:26:13 +0000