The real problem is not just that, but that these changes were going to happen regardless, he’s an accelerant

Yeah, as a Canadian I was willing to accept that 2016 was some sort of screw-up, but 2024 really sealed the deal. It told me that many Americans desired the constant chaos and classless antagonism.

> If actual issues experienced by Americans were getting addressed in a satisfactory way, none of this would have happened.

That might be america's problem but its not my problem. It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump. It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.

> The real problem is that the political establishment let things get so out of whack that someone like Trump could enjoy a large amount of support and get elected.

I agree with you and I wish more people would understand that Trump is only a symptom of the issue.

Its the same in Europe where everyone is somehow discovering in 2026 that the far-right and far-left parties actually want to do what they say they will do if they get in power.

Instead of addressing the concerns of the population, all they do is talk about how bad these parties would be and try every which way to contain them except never trying to even understand or fix the issues these people are complaining about.

It was the same strategy used by Macron in France in 2017 and 2022.

Step 1: Pretend you care and tinker on the margins but fundamentally don't change anything. Step 2: Paint the opposition on the left and right as monsters that will bring chaos and disorder to the country. Step 3: Present yourself as the only one capable of containing said chaos.

In one word: TINA

Except TINA is no longer working and the mainstream parties are being challenged a lot more because people have trusted them for so long and they are no longer interested in waiting for them to actually deliver on what they promised to do years ago.

So you get Reform in the UK, One Nation in Australia, National Rally in France, the AFD in Germany, Swedish democrats in Sweden and much more....

The parties in charge could have tried to address the issues that are fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe, they could have listened to the concerns of their citizens even if they did not agree with their ideas.

Instead, they have let the situation deteriorate and portrayed themselves as the only solution to the problems they never addressed and it backfired spectacularly.

As Jack Kerouac said: After Me, the Deluge.

No, most Americans would be surprised to learn that Canadians consider the US an enemy.

US foreign policy has been pretty consistent since the end of world war 2. Whatever you may think of what is going on, it is a significant departure from traditional us policy.

The only country in the entire world that has a name that contains the word ‘America’, the United States of America.

I don’t know why people think they’re clever when they pose this rhetorical question, particularly when someone is stating their nationality. The demonym ‘American’ refers to a citizen of the United States of America.

Canada's effective tariff on dairy products is 0%. If your strongest complaint about the agreement is a tariff that has never been collected and has no prospects of ever being collected for the life of the agreement...

USMCA/CUSMA has an exit clause. Trump has not exercised that. The treaty is expected to be honoured by both sides during the reevaluation phase. Trump did not do that either. He simply violated the treaty.

As Carney has said, this President's signature is apparently in pencil. If you violate agreements you yourself signed, don't be surprised if people stop trusting you.

Finally, if the current trade deal was so awful... Trump negotiated that. One has to ask, what would it take for you to hold your glorious leader accountable for something he did?

Come on this is not just about trade disputes, though that side of things is also deeply screwed up.

Maybe some Americans don't take all the "51st State" and annexation talk that's become a full-on party line seriously, but Canadians are perfectly in their rights and sense to take it seriously and literally.

Sure - some of what you have said has merit, however Trump has also initiated trade wars with pretty much every other country at the same time. He took advantage of the allowance to renegotiate and then instead of just keeping it within NAFTA, has expanded to a global scale.

The whole idea behind tariffs was to replace income taxes with them. The bonus was realizing that he could weaponize it.

Tariffs today have one real value only: protecting domestic industry. And to do that correctly, it needs to be thoughtful, consistent (legislated rather than by executive order), and coordinated with the industries they are designed to protect.

This comment is full of misinformation.

The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.

It was also the US, not Canada, that declined to renew. Canada and Mexico both pushed for extension with the same administration that renegotiated NAFTA into CUSMA only a few years ago. So what changed exactly?

Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice. As I understand it the treaty doesn't set up "if negotiations fail, then withdraw" mechanism but IANAL.

The 400% dairy figure is incredbily inflated. The steep tariffs, roughly 200-300% depending on the product, apply only above quota, and in quota imports come into the states without duty. The US also runs its own dairy quotas, and it's incredibly disingenuous to portray Canada as the overbearing protectionist entity in a scenario where Americans twice elected a leader running on an overtly and relatively unprecedented (in modern times anyways) protectionist policy.

> The Canadian government made the soup themselves.

On this we are in full agreement. The integration of the Canadian economy into the American one has placed Canada in a precarious place and only further decoupling from America and seeking trading partners abroad will change that.

https://cassels.com/insights/cusmsa-still-in-force-notwithst...

Why is every anti-Carney post on here from an account created an hour ago with a keyboard-mashed username?

Whose plan is it to reach 100 million? By what date? This is the first time i've heard of any plan to double our population.

Last year our population only grew by 0.5%. We have a long time before it doubles.

There are proposals out there to increase the American population to 1 billion people. Doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Over the next 50 years, Canada is set to benefit immensely from climate change. Trade routes will open up, huge amounts of land will become arable, and resource extraction will become easier.

Whatever it is, it wont be under the thumb of the US. That is all anyone cares about now. Canadians want off the sinking ship.

>For that matter, what sort of livelihood could there be? Are you planning on some resurgence of Canadian manufacturing? Steel maybe? Textiles? Maybe a film industry? Will you all be lawyers?

That's right only America is capable of providing a livelihood and productive economy for its citizens. Silly Canada, just become a client state and let America make all those hard decisions for you.

I’ve read this comment four times over and I have no idea what your point is.

Canada has a massive amount of untapped potential, and it’s time we tap it.

The Canadian oil is always 10-20% cheaper right now because it only has one buyer, if anything the price will just track the global market more

It isn't an anomaly. He was elected twice. He has done real damage. Hell, 1/3 of Americans don't even vote. Whether or not most Americans feel bad about it doesn't matter. Actual damage is being done.

They're unpopular, but we're apparently a fickle and short-memoried people with few real legal safeguards or principles.

Trump was deeply unpopular at the end of his first term too, and Americans still went back for a second bite.

We gotta look inward and, metaphorically speaking, go to rehab.

Gavin Newsom has promised to retain some of the tariffs if he's elected president in 2028.

Pollsters estimate that Republicans still have >30% chance of retaining the Senate majority. (Better than what pollsters gave Trump before he won in 2016.)

This isn't a deeply unpopular anomaly. This is a significant chunk of America, and they may easily regain the majority if the economy improves in a few years (or if it worsens further under a Democratic president).

"America isn’t the way it is because Trump’s president. Trump’s president because America is the way it is." - David Cochrane

The democrats have shown little desire or ability to reverse GOP foreign policy once they get into power. They normalize those policies and keep the seat warm for the next mad man.

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".

American re-elected him, despite the cronyism, jan 6, mental decline, etc. Combined with the democrats are so self defeating and they also repeatedly poked at trade issues (the loooooong running softwood lumber disputes, Keystone XL, "buy American" provisions that ignored NAFTA/USMCA for projects that were going ahead w/o the provisions, etc).

We know what populism is (we've experienced and are experiencing it ourselves) and know that it is usually fleeting, but we don't trust another "smarter" nativist president to come along and screw us again.

Also, there's an internal game going on here. Canada has (institutionally) took the "easy" way out of controversial projects, often due to our proximity to the US. This has meant that when some projects run into a greater than normal amount of political resistance (eg environmental fights against pipelines or LNG terminals), the default has usually been to back off. But Trump has in a way given cover to actually move forward.

I don't expect the next president to "cave" so easily. Even before he was sworn in, republicans had their messaging in full swing against Obama about the deficit. I fully expect the same thing to hammer the next president on trade if they're a democrat.

"most Canadians" as a demographic is unable to grasp complexity. They are being rallied to the flag and they rally. Like everyone else these days they all have their echo chambers. It's an easy sell. This is just human nature.

Current day politics are about polarization. More so than ever. There is no room for nuance. This is what worked for Trump and this is what worked for Carney and the Liberals in Canada. The Liberals didn't win on some brilliant policies they simply won on anti-American feelings.

This is not a statement on who is right or wrong. There are certainly many aspects of Trump's behaviour here that most would say are wrong. The problem is when we lose nuance and debate we can't make progress. But a leader in today's world that introduces nuance loses to the leader that polarizes. Dragging us all down.