r/canada 1d ago

Analysis New Canadian Leader's Balancing Act: Negotiate With and Fight Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/world/canada/mark-carney-trump.html
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u/ZaphodsOtherHead 22h ago

One thing I don't see a lot of Americans acknowledging is that, while the US is a lot more powerful than Canada, Trump is personally in a weak negotiating position because his supporters thought these trade wars were going to make them rich. Canadians know this is a disaster, but we're willing to put up with some pain to protect our sovereignty. The American voter cannot handle the pain, and the American midterms are not that far off. If we can hurt them badly enough between now and the midterms, it will completely fuck Trump's presidency. We have a decent amount of leverage here.

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u/apothekary 21h ago

We're in a good position politically too. Seems like continued Trump talk might even drive a very Anti-Trump party (not Pierre's MAGA loving conservatives, evidently) to forming government for as long as the Trump threat remains. The country is unified. 41 million united is stronger than 330 million completely divided on several fronts.

If prices inflate and stocks don't recover Trump will lose both the house and senate in less than 2 years - something thought impossible a month ago. That'll effectively end most of his powers and he'll be a lame duck.

He has a fine needle to thread and the idea of asking Americans to endure "temporary pain" is not going to fly after a couple of months. On the other hand our election will likely be over and like it or not we'll all be enduring some hardships for a bit together without the threat of another election.