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COMMENTARY DAVID FRUM ... MARCH 4, 2025 The Hub Canada: In Conversation with David Frum: Trump's tariffs against Canada and America's place in the world The Hub’s editor-at-large Sean Speer PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9aDFi536vc Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I have been enjoying the commentary of David Frum via The Hub podcast for several weeks. I like his perspective which has some parallel with my own ... that is both a US view and a Canadian view. One of my current initiatives is to try to understand and document the changes in geopolitics, technology, social behavior and nature that have been ongoing during my lifetime. I consider this something of a priority because I sense that rather few current leaders know much about anything prior to around 1980. Of course this does not apply to serious historians, but most successful people in every other domain seem blissfully ignorant that there was a world before around 1980. I find this very disconcerting since I have argued decades ago that the biggest economic event in all of history took place in 1973! This was the 'Oil Shock' of 1973 when OPEC was formed and oil supplies were disrupted, and world market prices for crude oil increased from $3.50 a barrel to $13,00 a barrel ... and then $30.00 a barrel. During the 1970s the price of crude oil went as high as $100.00 a barrel, Over time there has been some stabilisation of prices ... but the norm is more like $60.00, a huge increase relative to the pre-OPEC times! This oil shock was more damaging to the United States than any other country because of the highly energy intensive industrial infrastrucutre ... way more energy intensive than Europe where energy efficiency was more of a priority and high taxes were imposed on most forms of energy. Europe was way more energy efficient than the United States in the 1970s. The economic disruption in the United States in the 1970s fundamentally changed the US industrial landscape, employment patterns and eventually international trade. By the time Ronald Reagan won the Presidency in 1980, a new economic era was taking hold in the United States. The social disruption was immense and for many, very negative. For some, new opportunities emerged and were exploited no matter how damaging to society as a whole! Since 1980, the United States has become more unequal in economic terms that at any time in history ... an issue that has not been addressed with any seriousness in more than forty years. Over decades, more and more Americans have become very unhappy about their lives ... and politicians like Trump have taken advantage of this. It should not have been possible for this to happen ... but most of the modern American institutions have been corrupted in a lot of dangerous ways. Maybe there is some 'waking up' now going on in the USA ... but it likely is too late! Peter Burgess
In Conversation with David Frum: Trump's tariffs against Canada and America's place in the world The Hub Canada Mar 4, 2025 48.6K subscribers ... 1,098,728 views ... 11K likes In Conversation with David Frum Leading author, journalist and thinker David Frum and The Hub’s editor-at-large Sean Speer discuss Trump’s tariffs against Canada, the President’s antagonism towards Ukraine and Zelensky, and what they tell us about his administration’s underlying view about America’s place in the world. If you liked what you watched, please consider becoming a Hub Hero (https://thehub.ca/join/hero/). Hub Heroes also gets our premium paid newsletters featuring our best insight and analysis along with all our paid content on The Hub.ca. All these benefits are conferred for one year. Sign up now! In Conversation with David Frum The Hub Canada Transcript 0:00 welcome to in conversation with David from I'm your host Sean spear editor at large at the Hub I'm glad to be back in conversation with David for another installment of our bi-weekly video and podcast series on the key issues concerning Canadian policy in politics in today's episode we have a lot to discuss uh we're speaking the morning of the the imposition of Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada of course last week we had the episode in the Oval Office between President Trump vice president Vance and Ukrainian President Vladimir seninsky uh and a whole host of other issues for which I'm Keen to get uh David's insights and Analysis David thanks as always for joining me thank you you know I as I think about the events of recent days I remember back in the 80s um going to a film it had been much praised called the decline of the American Empire okay and I expected a profound meditation on National greatness and its causes of ruin it turned out to be just a dumb sex comedy about middleaged French 1:02 Canadians and I was very disappointed as I came out of the movie but now I think I wish the decline of the EMP American Empire were just a dump sex comedy about French Canadians instead of being the literal thing that we are watching unfold in front of us yeah we'll get into some of those big macro uh uh conditions behind a lot of what we've seen over the past week or so but uh for our Canadian audience I have to start with tariffs uh we've been anticipating these tariffs for some time they're finally here uh what's your immediate reaction to what's played out in the past 24 hours or so um I think a lot of intellectual energy has been spent by what I call soft trumpers trying to explain maybe it's not as bad maybe it won't really happen maybe that it's in service of some larger goal yes and we have talked about this a lot um you just have to Donald Trump is a thinks like a 2:00 you A Primitive tribesman um that his idea of how you get rich is you um go to the next Village you burn down all the huts and you take their stuff yes um and that's why he's done these tariffs he thinks countries get rich by taking things from others by not trading um and uh he's engaged in this predatory action he doesn't have a strategic plan the tariffs are an end in themselves uh and it's going to and they're going to start a cycle of retaliation from which it will be quite difficult for cooler to escape well in that vein uh what do what is the reaction more broadly in Washington and elsewhere in the United States David how are Business Leaders policy makers and others responding not just to the immediacy of these terrorists but as you say uh The Fallout that's likely to come well let me tell you let me tell you about one Republican senator um uh so uh Janie Ernst is a senator from Iowa um she's been a outspoken um Advocate on defense and veterans issue she's a very capable 3:01 person um and a more or less normal Republican with more or less normal views on trade and National Security um the Trump people are preparing to mount a primary campaign against her and uh with funded by Elon Musk and today they just dropped a lot of embarrassing information about her post- divorce personal life uh to shame her out of the race so um look I think privately many of the leading figures in the Republican Party are horrified um but publicly they say nothing um and the Democrats are paralyzing this way look Trump doesn't have a functional majority in the House of Representatives um he's the Republicans have depending on how many absences there are that that day some somewhere between one two three seat majority in the house but half a dozen of their members are open lunatics um and so they don't have a functioning majority so the we're heading toward a government shutdown even as Donald Trump uh in which the Republicans are begging for Democratic votes to save them from their own caucus even as Republicans are 4:00 making no concessions on any issues even such basic things as please don't violate the constitution by impounding funds illegally that Congress has authorized to spend please don't betray Ukraine uh please don't blow up the World Trade system and the Trump attitude has been we are driving this car straight at the wall and we want your credit card to pay for the gasoline that allows us to do it and um Democrats are seriously debating whether to do that or not so um it's a system in which the a lot of the restraints would expect are not present are not operating um they may operate later but how long can Ukraine resist and how rapidly does the trade dispute turn into a global depression yeah it's not reassuring for our Canadian listeners and viewers David um one thing I know that's on top of their minds it's something we've talked about a bit in the past uh is the perception that we are being disproportionately targeted that Trump of course has talked about tariffs in the past in fact we are have discussed 5:00 uh the extent to which this is one of the few issues where he's been uh consistent uh but what what are we to understand about the disproportionate uh 25% Targets on on Canada's economy uh While most of the rest of the world remains at least for now uh free from the opposition of tariffs well there are big tariffs on Mexico and um there are big tariffs of course on China I think you should see this as simply Trump reneging on his signature on the Canada US Mexico agreement of his first term um he criticized NAFTA he didn't believe in Continental free trade uh he uh was persuaded by the first-term people to renegotiate parts of NAFTA to make it somewhat more protectionist against China and and other third countries um and he held that as a great achievement but he clearly regrets it and his jot is Canada is being targeted because the relationship is unusually intimate and if your goal is to sever the United States from trade connections with other 6:00 countries um you know Canada's not in the trumpian collection of offenses it's not the worst offender but this is the most dramatic way of saying that the United States is going to be an economic Island it's going to buy Itself by itself um one of the things that Trump uh said just uh on Monday was he issued one of his true social posts about how Americans are going to have to get ready to stop exporting so much food because he he does understand one of the things that is happening here is the um collapse of American Agricultural life exports in his first term he wrecked us soybean exports the United States had been the world's largest soybean exporter now that title belongs to Brazil mostly because Trump pushed China to reorient it soybean U purchases from the United States to Brazil other exported goods are now about to take the hit too uh David I want to ask you about Canada's response um as you know I spend part of my time in the United States and part in Canada and I've just been struck by the rawness uh within the Canadian population both to the threat and now 7:02 imposition of tariffs but also the broader provocations about Canadian independence uh it's in my mind created a a set of political conditions here um which uh tend in the direction towards a maximalist response today for instance Ontario Premier Doug Ford is is threatening to turn off electricity exports to various US states how should Canadian policy makers be thinking about what's happening and and the best way for Canada to protect itself in the short term but but also to minimize the harm to our economy over over the medium and long term um look I understand why there's such outrage in Canada uh other trade disputes with the United States and they are many have some kind of predicate so the long running softwood Lumber dispute what that's ultimately about is in the United States forests tend to be privately owned and the Canada Force are mostly publicly owned um and the Canadian Force are much larger more scientifically managed um 8:01 and therefore the lumber is sold at a lower price than from the American forests even though the environmental conditions in Canada are often less benign um and so the Americans say that looks like to us like a subsidy you're using public money to keep your Forest costs down and Canadians say know it's not but everyone understands what this fight is about and the American position even if Canadians reject it is not completely made up fanable demented yes um and other dispute there are other disputes too that uh where U you know is uh if the government if healthc care is the largest cost an automaker pays um and in Canada healthcare costs are absorbed by the government is that a subsidy to Canadian Auto Factories at the expense of American Auto factories again there's a predicate yes um in this case there's no predicate it's just Trump is doing this as a pure Act of whim and will yes um and joining it not any rational set of economic concerns but to an outspoken attack on Canadian sovereignty what my goal here actually is to force you to surrender your National existence that's my goal I'm 9:01 not trying to make you charge the charge a higher stumpage fee per log like some Ral predecessor um you know I'm not trying to get some offset for the value of the government picking up the healthcare costs I want you to die Mr Bond um so Canadians understanda resent that um and they feel betrayed uh because this relationship has been so positive so benign for so long um it's out of the blue it's got It's it's like watching um you know it's like watching some crazy person on the street walk walking around slapping old ladies and why doesn't somebody stop them let me ask you point blank David if you were advising Canadian policy makers would would you recommend retaliating with our own tariffs or do you think that does more harm than good I I I would be for the maximalist response for this reason you um the only way we get out of this like the problem is Trump is surrounded by a structure of enablement 10:01 and and the key ingredient of the enablement is the rationalization he's got something in mind this won't be so expensive it won't be so bad he's not actually going to do the whole thing um the the the there needs to be a rapid shock if the stock market had gone down 5% today rather than 1% we'd be in a better place not a worse place um I actually yesterday the stock market went down 1% we don't know what it will do today probably not so much um because again there are people saying it's not so bad it's not so real so when you see the demented person walking down the street slapping old ladies somebody's got to put handcuffs on them um and the first step is you know giving him a shock back so he's stunned in days and stops his Rampage so um uh the there are parts of American society that are treating this as kind of a joke um you know uh I remember when Trump T began talking about a Nexon candidate I was invited to join a magazine Symposium uh by American Magazine where a witty editor said why we talk about Canada 11:00 aning the United States I said we shouldn't treat this as a joke this isn't I mean obviously can Canada's not going to be an nexted but he not funny uh this is a declaration of malice and hostility that's going to have large reverberations and we see as we see at the same time as these tariffs are happening to make it less Canada specific the vice president of the United States gave an TV interview in which he denigrated the contributions of Britain and France uh to American Security which he denied the British contribution to Afghanistan just said you know these are joke countries that haven't fought a war in 30 or 40 years um Estonia took casualty it's a small country but it took heavy casualties in Afghanistan because the United States asked it to so there's there's an antis social destroy the apparatus of the alliance and and it needs an alarm and so the retaliation um and obviously it will hurt Canada too Canada is at a disadvantage here I mean this is a kind of dumping the bucket of cold water over your head contest he dumps a B bucket of 12:00 cold water over his head you B dunk one over yours and you know he's got a thicker head with more hair um so he he will win if the contest goes on long enough but the hope is just that you can jolt people in understanding the seriousness of the situation and it must stop because it's going to do permanent permanent harm um everyone is coming away from this thinking this is not just the whimsicality of Donald Trump The Madness of King George we saw in term one surrounded by reasonably responsible people this is now the the Trump is himself with other people who share his hostility to the whole alliance system and want to make the United States a predatory Imperial power as much like Russia and China as they can do yeah well that's a great transition um to the subject of last week's spectacle in the Oval Office uh which you wrote so um intelligently about in an essay for the Atlantic where among other things you make the point you just made which is um part of what's Happening Here uh is that the the Trump cabinet and the broader penopoly people around him um are either 13:01 enabling him or actually support uh the things that he's doing uh I have to just ask directly what's your reaction to the treatment of sininsky in in Ukraine and and and as importantly David um what explains uh the Animus uh towards zalinsky himself one one gets the sense that this is um in a way bigger and smaller than some of these broader issues that it really is a a personal disdain uh for for for zalinski well um let's start with the second part the the personal reaction to zalin um so I think a lot of that traces back to that moment in 2019 where um new zinski was newly elected and Trump tried to blackmail him extort from him the fabrication of electioneering dirt against Joe Biden and zilinski whose courage was not yet as famous as it is now 14:00 um balked he wouldn't do it and he he he first he just tried to meet Trump by delay and evasion and you can't mean it um and we'll think about it we'll investigate uh but he didn't give Trump what he wanted um and then the horror of what Trump was doing extorting an embattled foreign leader to say fabricate dirt on my political opponent or else I cut off us Aid to your country which was already the the The Invasion Ukraine begins in 2014 it was already fighting a war against the Russians in the dabas lower lower intensity War than now but still a war I'll cut off Aid unless you give me what I want and this eventually did leak and it led to the first of the Trump imp impeachments rightly so um and ever since then Trump has blamed zalinski and the people around him I think have have fed on Trump's hostility and his family's hostility but I I think there's there's something more that is going on um like Maga is the celebration of male grievance um is this Cult of manhood but in fact 15:03 the people around Trump are cowardly contemptible people um and they're soft and then and you know they uh they steal they get rich in corrupt ways um and then they're confronted with what with the zalinsky we saw in February of 2022 with this extraordinary Act of personal courage the Russians coming to his Capital he's offered exit yes by um an evacuation by and he refuses and he he says I'm going to basically I I will we will win this war or I will die in the ruins of my Capital City yes um uh you will see my face not my back and I think he just shames them he just shames them every time JD Vance looks at zilinski he sees a better man um and he hates it because at some level if you're a JD Vance you have to know what you are um and you know you have systems of justification but you have to know you're a troll you're a bully um you're 16:00 you're just a lesser person and here is the bravest leader in the world and he makes you feel so you have to create these fantastic stories about he's stealing billions to buy Yachts um even you know that describes the people in the Trump Circle uh but so they have this animous against them because they have to because otherwise if he's not what they say he is what are they yeah wow I I have to ask another question that's been on my mind uh for the past few days in which I haven't seen a lot of analysis or commentary there's been a tendency to uh report and comment on this story through the lens of of the personal relationship and Trump and and politics and so on but why don't you comment on the the ba the basic assumptions underlying the the minerals agreement itself what does it say about American policy that after uh supporting Ukraine in a conflict with Russia after Russian's unlawful Invasion America is now after the fact essentially saying uh 17:01 you need to enter into a financial agreement with us to for all intents and purposes pay us back how does that how does that compare to American policy in the past and what what do you think of it more generally well this is something of a personal Bugaboo of Trumps he signed a similar agreement with Afghanistan in 2017 which didn't stop him from negotiating with the Taliban um so this is the um pretext for the threats against the sovereignty of Greenland which seem to have stopped at least for now that he wanted um some mineral agreement with with Greenland um look we live in a world Bound by trade agreements um if you want to mine in Greenland you can mine in Greenland I mean you have to pay for the contracts because it's it's not there this is not a fascist or a Communist economy the the minds are owned by somebody sure um and of course you have to comply with the relevant environmental legislation and the relevant labor legislation but you want to open a mind in Greenland it can be done subject to the laws of Economics um say uh in in Ukraine once 18:00 the war is over Ukraine will of course be looking for sources of revenue yes um and uh and if they have the mineral wealth they will of course be looking to license that but they will want to sell it to the highest bidder in a free market yes not to enter into a colonial relationship which is what what Trump is actually asking for is exactly the kind of thing that Putin asks for which is I want to use my military power to seize without properly paying for it an asset um and colonially exploit it that's his idea the thing this is the thing he said about Iraq that the way American foreign policy since the war has been run by people with an understanding of free market economics which is what you do when you have a war ravaged country you get it you Pro you get it up on its feet you provide a structure of security and then the best thing you can do is make property rights secure and open markets yes and whoever owns that the the mineral should license them to the highest bidder and that's good for everybody including the highest bidder by the way who uh um because if if you give it to a lower bidder the minerals will not be put to their best 19:00 and highest use the highest bidder knows best how to use the minerals I'm gonna we're not Communists and Trump thinks like he thinks like a predator and he thinks like a a a colonialist yes I'm I'm going to say something I warn you ahead of I'm going to say something flattering and you're just going to have to sit through it for a minute uh one thing that has struck me over the past several weeks David is um this shift in Republican politics from a conception of American power around the world that one might describe as uh an understanding of America American premacy uh to now one of essential essentially unilateral withdrawal from being a a global superpower from being a unipolar power that there are few people with the exception of of you still communicating and advancing the notion that America that American Primacy is is good for America and good for the world what do you think has happened where 20:00 have the American Pacs gone why has this view suddenly taken over the Republican party and American conservatism more generally um that the era of American premacy is self-evidently over um and that it's actually in America's interest um to cease being a quote unquote exceptional country uh and start to act as you said earlier um as a a major power but one that um that is far more transactional and far less committed uh to a global cooperation economically and and and and from a security perspective well I don't think any everyone has given it up but many people have stopped saying it partly because you have to say the same thing over and over again and only someone as pedantic me as me will say it over and over again but I think there's something also that drives from having grown up in Canada and still spending a lot of time there are a number of people in who comment on foreign in the United States who uh were 21:00 born outside the United States but they usually have entered the United States life so entirely as to that they at least see or um speak entirely from an American point of view and I have because I spend so much time in Canada this kind of double vision and I think also um maybe it's because I'm haunted by vision of how Empires do end this is where the story began with that silly movie from the 1980s um this the story of the Euro Atlantic world over the past 500 years has been the story of the rise of one hegemonic power after another Hobs Spain um Louis 14's France The Kaisers Germany Soviet Union you could think of in this way um and what happens to all of these Powers is they eventually get pulled down because although they may be the strongest individual power the Coalition of powers oppos they the powers opposing them are greater in potential power and they for and their obnoxious behavior forces all the other powers to combine against the the biggest power and tear it down and 22:01 that's what happens to the Hobbs that's what happens to the bourbons and there other examples um in a way it's what happened to even the British Empire um because uh in 1870 it was alone and it became and the Germans built um first they created the German Empire and then they pulled together other countries and they created this kind of Continental superpower that in the end destroyed the British Empire over two World Wars the United States has been different because first it's been bigger and more powerful than anything that went before it but but also because it always it had this intuition I don't know how articulate this ever was the way you prevent people from combining against you is by offering them such a good deal yes that they would be crazy to unite against you yes so when the deal was well what if we provide you what if we use our great power to provide not only our security but your security too uh what if we build trading Arrangements in which we don't just take everything for ourselves but have offer a fair field to all Commerce where you can get much richer than you could if you're own ships were patrolling the world seaways your your Commerce is just 23:01 as safe if we Patrol the world seaways and you get richer isn't this and and the other countries of the world I've said you know what this American they're flash points and I don't want to Guild the history too much but basically since from 1945 until recently the most countries in the world including some that were not Democratic said the Americans are offering a a pretty attractive and fair deal they get a lot from it but we all get a lot what what Trump is doing is by reconceiving the United States as a predatory power like China like Russia like in its way India the he's he saying there's no unless you unless the person on the other side of the table also gets a transactional Advantage um our power can be dangerous to you that's this that's the thing that um is different about this conflict over Ukraine with Europe and all previous US Europe conflicts of which there have been many the chicken Wars of the 1960s the debate dispute over Iraq in 2003 those are disagreements but there was 24:00 never a sense that the Americans were dangerous to Europe in a way that Europeans not now think they're they're aligned with the Russians against Europe they see Europe as an enemy the way many Canadians see uh and Canadians are talking about things we've I said on the show before that people are talking about things that no one should speak aloud in public but I've begun to hear those things spoken louder and louder there you know the Americans say no more five eyes Canada says no more NORAD um and uh the whole structure of North American Continental Air and Space defense could come under dissolution because people see the Americans not just as asking things they don't want but as actively dangerous and this is how this great source of peace and prosperity for the world comes un stock and because I'm so very attached to it it's like the Central Central intellectual issue of of my writing life yes um I see the danger to it so clearly and worry about this danger so very very much uh let me put a final question to you um what you just set out uh here with me and in your your 25:00 fine essay in the Atlantic reminded me of uh something that Charles Cammer we also spent time in Canada used to say which is um decline is is a choice and one one sentence in your essay really struck me you right quote Trump and Vance don't want the United States to be that kind of country anymore yeah and I guess my question for you David is are there enough Americans who want to continue to be that country uh um to think that uh that the path that the administration is taking the United States on can be halted or reversed or is there or is there insufficient Collective commitment on the parts of the United States to be the country that you've just discussed um uh that um that there that decline is somewhat inevitable well we'll find out um as so often during the Trump years I have this there qu there are always these questions about prediction yes and I 26:00 always beg off um because uh predictions treat prediction they they sort of move the onus from the person who's being asked to some impersonal spectrum of events yes um that the question that we need to ponder is not are there enough people but where are you you in the third row there uh Senator member of the House member of the president academic member of the military are you what where what are you going to do As Trump breaks apart the structure of security and prosperity that's done so much good for the United States and the world since 1945 um because it's not something imper it's not something that you just watch happen it's something you participate in one way or another um so if they can if um so Senator Ernst who right now is having a very bad day because this Oppo dump on her from by her own party um you know what will she do uh she may not have very much time left in in the US Senate how will she use that time and so many others how 27:00 will they use their time uh uh of course uh the outcomes depend on the choices people make and people are free to make those choices I don't know that decline is a choice I don't know the Romans thought it over and said you know you know we just barbarians you take it I think there are some objective there's some objective preconditions for the rise and fall of power but in this case right now what Trump is doing there is no objective reason to do any of this it's all dumbass stasa um it's all just foolishness um it's done by Spite and ignorance and just malignity he do these choices don't have to be made and um and Congress could stop many of them and the Republicans theoretically have a majority in Congress they certainly have a majority in the Senate um it's up to them and uh if they don't then the shame is shared not just by Trump and Vance uh with all of their murky connections to Russia um but by everyone who didn't act to stop them who had the power to stop them a brilliant way to wrap up David let me 28:00 just say how great it is to be back in conversation with you we had a a lot of audience members asking uh to for your your thoughts and your voice given what's playing out uh I'm I'm grateful to have have connected and and look forward to catching up in a couple of weeks byebye

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