Donald Trump used an international venue for the first time on Thursday for his tongue-in-cheek proposal to add another country to the United States: Canada.
At his first global event since taking office as US president earlier this week, Trump spoke via video link to the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland.
His speech and the question-and-answer session that followed were an early example of the oppression of various allies predicted for him Presidency.
What was less predictable until recently was the intensity of that pressure, the frequency with which it focused on Canada and its rhetorical swipes at its sovereignty.
Trump came with a broad message to the international business world: Build in the USA or face punitive tariffs.
“Come make your product in America and we will pay you one of the lowest taxes of any nation on earth,” Trump said something exaggerate the US corporate tax benefit.
“But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then you simply have to pay a tariff.”
And while he sharply criticized several U.S. allies, including the European Union, he continued with a lengthy denigration of Canada.
Trump has threatened to impose tough tariffs on the US’s North American neighbors as early as next week, although he has also signed one Implementing regulation This suggests a longer time horizon and requires a study of North America’s borders by April 1st.
The same order suggests Trump is trying to apply pressure on additional fronts. It refers to the planned review of the North American trade agreement and also instructs its officials to report on trade deficits, etc foreign taxes that affected US companies.
In his speech in Davos, he again complained about the US trade deficit with Canada – which is real, but a fraction Of the $200 billion to $250 billion that Trump claimed in his speech, it tends to rise and fall with the price of oil that Americans import.
“We won’t have that anymore. We can’t do it,” Trump said during a lengthy exchange with Canada.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Donald Trump repeated his “taunts of the 51st nation,” saying the U.S. does not need Canada’s oil, gas, auto or lumber imports and calling on all NATO member countries to increase their defense spending increase.
“As you probably know, I say, ‘You can always become a state, and when you are a state, we won’t have a deficit. We don’t have to impose tariffs on you.’”
He complained that Canada was difficult to deal with, repeating his previous complaints that its products were not needed: “We don’t need them to make our cars, and they make a lot of them. We don’t need their wood because we have our own forests. We don’t need their oil and gas.
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The facts are not that simple. With oil, for example, it is true that the USA does this get closer more independence than we have had in decades, but it is what it is still a net importermostly from Canadaand its refineries are designed to accommodate heavy Canadian crude oil.
What is undoubtedly real is the economic pressure it is exerting on multiple fronts.
It’s not just about the threat of a 25 percent tariff, although that’s bad enough. Companies are preparing for the damage, and some, like Honda, have done so expressed Nervous about their production plans in Canada.
And it’s not just Trump’s other trade threats. It’s that too massive deregulation The efforts he has initiated in critical minerals, oil and gas pose the risk of diverting investment from other countries to the United States.
There is also military pressure. Trump had previously threatened to leave NATO countries without defense if they did not increase their defense spending; and in Davos he went one better.
Trump said Thursday he would require NATO countries to increase their military spending to a staggering five percent of GDP. No NATO country has reached this level and most of them are not even close. Only a few have even made it. The USA is at 3.4 percent.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted that Canada had recently nearly tripled its defense budget promised to achieve the current NATO target of two percent. It won’t happen However, it has been for years, according to a parliamentary watchdog.
Canada will have ample opportunity to discuss these issues with Trump at various international forums this year.
There is that G7 in Alberta in June, then the NATO A summit will take place in Europe later this month, although both events could take place after the federal election.
Meanwhile, Trump is breaking generational norms in Canada-U.S. relations and publicly challenging Canada’s sovereignty in a way no U.S. politician has done in over a century.
But all this talk of statehood will remain entirely hypothetical if American public opinion has anything to do with it. Several polls conducted in recent days – by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters-Ipsos and Economist-YouGov – suggest that the idea of annexing Canada is extremely unpopular.
