Summary
The Wall Street Journal mocked Trump’s tariff policy, calling his pause on Canadian and Mexican import taxes a retreat rather than a “genius power play.”
It criticized Trump for claiming victory despite making only minor trade deals.
Trump agreed to a 30-day delay after Mexico and Canada offered border security concessions.
The Journal previously called his trade war “the dumbest in history.”
Canada didn’t even make any actual concessions. The money we offered to spend on border security had already been committed for that purpose in December. So the only thing we’re actually doing differently is adding the words “Fentanyl Czar” to someone’s portfolio. Presumably, whoever is already in charge of public safety.
Amazing diplomacy there from Trump. 10/10.
Here’s the problem with it that people don’t understand. First, the Trump administration has already declared that this is an intentional game of hardball that he is playing because he feels that Canada needs the US more than the US needs Canada, and intends to use that leverage to extract more concessions.
The original $1.3 billion was negotiated after Trump had already won the election and was basically Canada’s opening bid in order to avoid this exact situation. The entire thing is basically checking off Trump’s talking points and wasting resources on non-existent issues. And now Trump has already all but reneged on this. Twice. Canada was able to appease him by dangling the original deal in front of him like dangling shiny keys in front of a toddler the first time. Then they added more meaningless fluff like “fentanyl czar” and “joint strike force” the second time around.
The fact that it was negotiated in December is little more than semantics. A technicality that likely would never have been put in place at all had Trump not won the election. It was put in place as a way to pre-emptively appease Trump and it’s already backfiring.
But Trump said he’s going to revisit the issue in 30 days. What happens when Trump decides in 30 days that that’s not good enough? What happens when symbolic gestures aren’t enough? That is what happens when you adopt a policy of appeasement. Appeasement will not get Trump to back down. It will embolden him and make him come back and demand more. And eventually, symbolic gestures aren’t going to be good enough.
Will Canada suddenly start being willing to pass Trump-friendly policies like Denmark just did in order to further appease him? Trump already got them to dedicate $1.3 billion to issues that don’t even exist, he’s already stated his plans to extract more concessions out of Canada, and Canada has already blinked twice. Why wouldn’t Trump come back for more?
What happens when Trump decides that he needs part of British Columbia in order to directly connect Alaska with the continental US ‘as a matter of national security’? Remember, that’s exactly what he’s doing with Greenland. What’s Canada’s plan? To appease him more? That’s been working so well for Denmark. Or are you just gonna say “Oh, that section of BC was uninhabited anyway so it’s not like Canada gave up territory it cared about. It was just symbolic.”
This is what people have problems with. Canada did give Trump something. They gave Trump $1.3 billion to shut him up. Then they gave him the opportunity to come back and demand more and more and more instead of giving a forceful response from the get-go and sticking to it. This is Donald fucking Trump. Traditional diplomacy doesn’t fucking work. Give this man a millimeter and it makes him believe he deserves the whole fucking light year. You cannot back down. You cannot blink. He only perceives these as “weaknesses” that he can and will attempt to exploit. Those symbloic, meaningless gestures are only going to keep Trump quiet for so long, and the next time will just cost everybody more and more. Because that’s how Trump works.
Yes, but donvict will get to feel tingly in his mushroom and his idiot base will eat it up. Same with the low-info types that don’t read past headlines.