What a Trump return could mean for Canada

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/12/2023 (673 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Now that we know that he offered public support for the 2022 “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa, it would obviously be deeply concerning for Canada if U.S. presidential candidate, and Florida governor, Ron DeSantis were to win the November 2024 general election.

But the nightmare scenario for official Ottawa is clearly a return to power of former U.S. president Donald J. Trump — who is facing a rap sheet a mile long.

How should Canada prepare for such a god-awful possibility? Do we have a plan in place to deal with such an outcome? If so, is it likely to work?

Recently, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly tried to reassure Canadians that the federal government is indeed working hard on the case. It has apparently drawn up a series of possible scenarios should the U.S. lurch to the far-right or toward populist authoritarianism.

In a summer interview with a Montreal radio station, Joly explained carefully: “In general, there is our game plan, precisely to be able to manage what could be a rather difficult situation.” That “difficult situation,” of course, is an erratic and impulsive Trump once again taking up residence in the White House.

She went on to add: “I will work with my colleagues and with the mayors, the provincial premiers, with the unions, with everyone in the country, so that we are ready regardless of the election outcome.” But if it is true that a second Trump presidency would be primarily underpinned by an unrelenting “revenge” theme, then Canada had better be ready for another turbulent period.

Canadians would do well to remember that Trump’s 2017-2021 years in Washington arguably marked the worst period in Canada-U.S. relations in the post-1945 era. This was a U.S. president, it is worth recalling, who threatened loudly — if Ottawa did not comply with his wishes — to literally destroy the entire Canadian economy.

Much to Ottawa’s chagrin, he imposed punishing trade penalties on imports of Canadian steel and aluminum. And to add insult to injury, he seriously considered going after Canada’s critical automotive sector (which would have devastated Ontario’s economy) if the Trudeau Liberals did not make major concessions during the NAFTA 2.0 trade negotiations.

His public tweet storms and name-calling of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were unparalleled in the modern history of the bilateral relationship. He even mused out loud about terminating the hard-fought continental trade pact, sending the U.S. military to patrol a porous Canada-U.S. border and blocking personal protective equipment from leaving the U.S. for Canada during the deadly COVID pandemic.

Wait, there’s more. Just prior to leaving office, Trump inspired a January 2021 coup to decimate the rule of the law and U.S. democratic values. He has since pledged to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, to turn the U.S. Justice Department into some sort of personal score-settling agency and to, brace yourself, recklessly “terminate” the U.S. Constitution.

So, I’m not exactly sure what kind of “game plan” can minimize or insulate us from the actions of a President Trump with no guardrails and no institutional constraints. Is Canada going to vigorously take on a dictatorial Trump? Is Ottawa prepared to sever diplomatic relations with a Trump autocracy?

Moreover, I’m hard-pressed to come up with any viable weapons at Canada’s disposal to dissuade an authoritarian Trump. What leverage could Ottawa actually exercise? And are we willing to pay the price for such defiance?

It’s possible that Canada is going to unleash a minimization strategy by working with like-minded individuals within the U.S. Congress, state governors and legislators and American business leaders. Good luck! And I have news for Minister Joly: Trump doesn’t care what provincial premiers, mayors, union leaders or Canadians have to say about his “America First” nostrum.

Perhaps the plan is to work with our friends and allies in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America to construct an anti-Trump bloc of states. The only problem with that option is that many of the countries from those regions are loathe to face the wrath of Trump and his penchant for imposing economic punishment.

There is always the strategy of seeking shelter in numbers within multilateral fora like the United Nations, NATO and the World Trade Organization (WTO). But, again, Trump has shown in the past a willingness to go to war with the UN and the WTO and, in a fit of anger, to take his war machine out of NATO altogether. Then what?

In addition, the one proactive idea to get out ahead of a Trump election victory by launching a pre-emptive PR campaign to undermine his candidacy is highly risky — and could easily back-fire. More to the point: Does Canada want to establish an election interference precedent that a future U.S. president might choose to emulate here?

Unfortunately, there really are very few good options here for Canada. And I’m not comfortable with simply relying on the hope that the U.S. legal system will take care of things for us. But what else is there?

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.