patrick.net

Here's a great NY Post Article on the background running up to the current situation.

It backs my theory that arrogant Ottawa Establishment Elites, like all snobby elites, underestimated their opponent, assumed Trump would fail with Mexico, and thus got shock Trumped. As usual, Trump went from being a "Dumbass" we can beat in our sleep, to be "Big Mean Bully". A now very familiar storyline.

Given Trudeau’s attempt to reinvent the country as the smarmy Eddie Haskell of nations, it’s been fun to watch — but let’s make sure it doesn’t end up costing both Canada and the United States.

Trudeau’s first rude awakening, by the way, didn’t come at the hands of Team Trump. Justin had become a laughingstock when visiting India last February, where he dressed the family Bollywood-style. Even the Indians thought he was a joke.

More serious was his next reality check, via the Saudis. The Canadian foreign ministry had tweeted that Saudi Arabia should release women’s-rights activists, and the Saudis responded by closing their embassy, ordering Saudi students to return home and freezing all trade ties. Diplomatically, that’s going rogue.

Remarkably, the US refused to take sides. Our State Department simply asked both parties to work it out.

Then came Trump’s rebuff of Trudeau over the NAFTA talks. The Canadians had assumed they were in the driver’s seat, and presented a set of initial demands that were guaranteed to infuriate Trump. They wanted gender equality and native rights to be on the table, and suggested that right-to-work laws were an unfair trade practice.

They took their time bargaining, and let the Mexicans know that they’d look after them. They knew Trump had problems with Mexico and told Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto they’d stick up for him.

Except that Justin had gone out of his way to annoy Trump. When the G-7 assembled in Quebec last June, Trudeau prepared the wokiest of politically correct topics to discuss, and showed he was peeved when Trump turned up late at a session.

It all came undone over the last two weeks. First, the Mexicans, to whom the Canadians had condescended, showed that they didn’t need Trudeau’s help and cut a deal with Trump that excluded Canada. Of course we want Canada to be included in NAFTA, they said. But you have to understand that, for us, Mexico comes first and we need a trade deal with the US.

So much for the three amigos.

After the deal with Mexico was announced, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland cut short a European visit to come to Washington and negotiate with the US trade representative. While the talks were ongoing, the Toronto Star revealed that Trump had said off the record that the United States wasn’t going to bend on any item. If they had problems with that, he said he had an easy answer. He’d show them a picture of the Chevy Impala, which is made in Oshawa, Ontario, and shipped to the US duty-free under NAFTA.

https://nypost.com/2018/09/04/justin-trudeau-finally-gets-the-trade-trouble-he-deserves/

The author is a Law Professor at George Mason.

A lot at Stake, Canada. Everything that happens is Trudeau's responsibility. October 21st, 2019 is only about a year away.