For the first time, Trump is negotiating the internationalization of Canada as a country
Donald Trump used the international venue for the first time on Thursday, taking a look at the suggestion that the US has acquired an additional state. Canada.
In his first global event since becoming US president earlier this week, Trump spoke via video link from the Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland.
His speech and the question-and-answer session that followed offered an early example of the pressing of various allies predicted for him Presidency.
What was less predictable, until recently, was the intensity of that push, the frequency of its focus on Canada and its rhetorical struggles.
Trump sent a broad message to the international business community. Build in the US or face punitive tariffs.
“Come make your products in America and we'll give you one of the lowest taxes of any nation on earth,” Trump said. exaggerating US corporate tax advantage.
“But if you don't make your product in America, which is your pre-election, then, quite simply, you have to pay the tariff.”
And while he has flown planes to several US allies, including the European Union, he has continued to Canada at some length.
Trump has threatened to impose serious tariffs on America's North American neighbors as early as next week, although he has also signed Executive order That implies a longer time horizon, requiring a study of North American borders by April 1.
The same order suggests that Trump wants to put pressure on additional fronts, including a planned review of the North American trade agreement, as well as ordering his officials to report on trade deficits and External taxes It hit us in the business.
In his speech at Davos, he again complained about the US trade deficit with Canada – which is real. But a part 200-250 billion dollars worth of US dollars, the victory of the US claimed in his speech and seeks to rise and fall through the price of oil Americans.
“We're not going to have it anymore. We can't do it,” Trump said during an extended cliffhanger in Canada.
US President Donald Trump, speaking to the people gathered at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, claims that other countries, including Canada, are taking advantage of the US, he also reiterates that the US does not need anything from Canada.
“As you probably know, I say: 'You can always become a state, and if you are a state, we will not have a deficit.'”
He complained that Canada was difficult to deal with and repeated his past complaints about not needing his products. “We don't need their cars to have our forests. We don't need their oil and gas.”
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The facts are not so clear.For example, it is true that the US is on oil Approaching for self-confidence than in decades, but it is Still a net importerExcellent From Canadaand its processing machines are designed to take heavy Canadian raw materials.
What is indisputably real is the economic pressure it exerts.
It's not just the threat of a 25 percent tariff, although that's bad enough expressed Nervous about its production plans in Canada.
And it's not just another trade threat from Trump massively durable The work he launched critical minerals, oil and gas, which exposes the risk of investments from other countries to the United States.
There is also military pressure. Trump had previously threatened that he would not listen to NATO countries if they did not regulate defense spending. And he was going up in Davos.
On Thursday, Trump said he would require NATO countries to increase military spending to five percent of GDP, a level no other NATO country has reached not even close. Few are even half there, with the US at 3.4 percent.
In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted that Canada has almost tripled its defense budget, and recently promised to reach NATO's current target of two percent won't happen For years, according to a parliamentary observer.
Canada will have a great opportunity to discuss these issues with the cannon this year.
There is G7: in Alberta in June, then NATO summit in Europe later that month, although both events may occur after the federal election.
At the same time, Trump is shattering generations' worth of norms in Canada-US relations, publicly questioning Canada's sovereignty in a way no US politician has done in a century.
But all this talk of statehood will remain entirely hypothetical if American public opinion has anything to do with it. conducted by Reuters-Ygov suggests that the idea of an outbreak in Canada is largely indefensible.
