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COMMENTARY DAVID FRUM ... MARCH 19TH 2025 The Hub Canada: In Conversation with David Frum: Carney's first trip abroad and why he should have gone to Mexico PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Urs2BPwxc Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I can relate quite well to the international perspective articulated by David Frum. I think David Frum is a Canadian who lives in the United States, and has working relationships with both US organizations and Canadian organizations. In my own case, I was an immigrant from the UK to Canada and then an immgrant into the United States. I only lived in Canada for a quite short period of time, before getting assignment by a Canadia company to work for them in the United States ... in Texas, no less! Over time, I have worked in around 50 different countries around the world ... mostly for quite short periods of time, but long enough to learn something about each of these places. While many people who travel, do so as tourists who get to see the outside of buildings from the street, my travel was 'work related' and I got to go inside the buildings to work with local people on the assignment I had. Most of my international assignments has some 'official' foundation. In many cases I was part of a World Bank team or a UN team. In a few cases I was doing assignments for corporate organizations of various types. Unlike someone like David Frum my work was essentially 'private' with little or no 'public' communication or connection. In my 'old age', this has changed somewhat as I really 'unemployable' though not lacking in 'opinion', much of which is more critically negative now than at any prior period in my life! David Frum is good for me. I share many of his views and have some of his background ... but I am not in his league when it comes to communication! Peter Burgess
In Conversation with David Frum: Carney's first trip abroad and why he should have gone to Mexico The Hub Canada Mar 19, 2025 48.6K subscribers ... 224,070 views ... 3.7K likes In Conversation with David Frum Leading author, journalist and thinker David Frum and The Hub's editor-at-large Sean Speer discuss Prime Minister Mark Carney's first trip abroad to the United Kingdom and France instead of the United States, why he should have actually gone to Mexico first, and what to make of Canada's ongoing response to the Trump administration's provocations. 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 and politics in today's conversation we'll discuss Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's first trip abroad and what to make of uh Canada's ongoing response to the Trump administration's provocations david thanks as always for joining me oh great to be with you again uh David as I alluded uh Prime Minister Carney traveled to the UK and and France uh for his first official international trip there was some surprise in Canada that that he he didn't first go to Washington you think all of those choices are are wrong where do you think he ought to have gone yeah I look this what I'm about to say is a little challenging and I understand the practical impediments but I think the first trip should have been to Mexico City um the United States has always treated the North American trading relationship as two bilateral 1:01 relationships a bilateral relationship with Canada and a bilateral relationship with Mexico and Canada has been willing to go along because Canadian governments have never been entirely sure they wanted Mexico in North America in the first place they also want a bilateral relationship with the United States but that was for the sunny days now these are stormy days there is a three-way trading relationship nafta before are now called USMCA or KUSMA where however you want to call the revision of NAFTA yes Canada and Mexico are trading partners the United States is musling each of them in different ways and both governments are looking for advantage against the other mexico is is saying 'Look throw Canada to the wolves uh we want to preserve our deal.' The Canadians are saying the same thing about Mexico if you're going to constrain the Trump administration at all it's going to be very effective or more effective or less ineffective if Canada and Mexico work out some joint positions this is a conversation David that you and I have had uh for the past 2:00 several weeks ever since President-elect Trump first raised the prospect of tariffs on Canada and Mexico and I I promise we'll come to what is at to some degree a contrarian argument uh from you about the the upside of leaning into our bilateral relationship with Mexico uh visav the United States but before we get there um I I just ask if you'd help bring our uh listeners and viewers up to speed a bit on how the Mexican government has been responding uh to its own threats of of uh from the Trump administration of tariffs and and and other uh bilateral issues well Mexico like Canada is having a change of government there's a relatively new president Claudia Shinbomb the first female president in Mexican history she was elected last summer she took office on the 1st of October um and was instantly confronted with the Trump challenge yes um uh President Shinbomb's approach has been to talk very nationalistically in public 3:00 very tough in public but in private to yield to the Americans just about every demand they have especially on the border especially on immigration enforcement uh to take a much more military approach to the drug problem um the Mexican left of which Shine Bomb is a part has always opposed a military approach to the Mexican drug problem she's said to the Americans 'Okay I'm with you i will support your military approach.' Um what she's trying to do is preserve Mexico's the access to the American market for the Mexican automobile industry um and she has in mind and Mexican governments have in mind taking more of the automobile industry from Canada the parts the Americans don't want to keep for themselves taking them from Canada and protecting Mexico share at Canadian expense and Canadian governments have played the same game protecting Canadian industry at Mexican expense um and both of them looking at the other as uh the who's going to be the least favored partner but if we're going to keep the North American relationship working Canada and Mexico are going to have to understand they're in a trilateral not a 4:01 pair of bilateral relationships they're going to have to work out some common approaches and rules because the essence of the Trump approach to trade is no rules just what President Trump says goes that's the law and the only law we're speaking David the the morning after an interview between President Trump and and Fox News personality Laura Ingram in which Trump once again doubled down on his provocations towards Canada including talk of the country being the 51st state in the in the interview he attributes um his hostility to some degree to the personality of Justin Trudeau um help us understand his his evolving relationship with the Mexican president what is the the state of it how should we understand their personal rapport well um the previous president was a man named Andre the president previous Mexican president was a man named Andre Manuel Lopez Oberdor and although he and Trump got off to a bumpy start because Lopez Oberdor is again very much from the nationalist leftist tradition in 5:00 Mexico they rapidly got along because they were both kind of bullies uh they were both non-respectors of democratic norms they both thought the president shouldn't have to be bothered by pesky things like the law and the judiciary judges should just do what he says and they were both kind of reactionary um in their social opinions um uh both male chauvinists uh both distrustful of modern medicine uh Lopez Obedor famously was uh very hesitant about getting vaccinated he in the end took the Chinese vax that doesn't work all that well but mostly he relied on magic amulets to protect him from from CO um which is a step below hydroxychloroquin and the other magic remedies that Trump was recommending yes um so they actually ended up getting along quite well and um on a personal level bomb is a more intellectual person than uh Lopez Ober she's a woman which is always a problem in Trump's world he never quite respects women the way he respects fellow cranky reactionary men yes um but she has been 6:00 giving him what he wants um while talking at tough so and so can I think people on social media see her speeches she she appears in the zoko the big square in the center of Mexico City with giant Mexican flags and huge crowds and she um breathes defiance against Trump but actually she's doing what he wants um the Canadian position has been to take a softer line in public and a harder line in private and that's got a lot to recommend it um and Canada has somewhat more bargaining power than Mexico does um but uh but in the end the two would be stronger together as difficult as it is as unnatural in many ways as it is for Canada and Mexico to work together um if the North American relationship is to be preserved as a trilateral relationship then the other two legs of the stool have to find a way to cooperate one one more question before we do come to what that type of cooperation might look like you you mentioned the subject of nationalism that of course is a big part of what's 7:02 occurring here in Canada we're seeing a a rise in a sense of nationalism um what one might even characterize as an anti-Americanism uh which for better or for worse is ostensibly putting some constraints on um on the ability of of different political lever leaders to maneuver visav the Trump administration can you talk a bit about the political context in Mexico yeah well in in the same way Mexico look Mexico has a very unhappy history with the United States yes um obviously be um going back for a long time and continuing until very recently there's much less goodwill in Mexico toward the United States than there is inside Canada um so nationalism is very real mexico is a very nationalistic society uh but we all need to keep in mind look when pushed it's very natural to respond when when Trump says 'America first we want to enex you.' Um obviously Canadians bristle and and that's that's just human dignity at work yes but it's 8:00 important to keep in mind what the destination you're trying to get to that the goal is not to meet uh American chauvinism with Canadian chauvinism american protectionism with Canadian protectionism american state-led industrial policy with Canadian state-led industrial policy the goal is to find some way to get back to the vision of a world that trades in peace and cooperation to get back to alliances now the Americans may be withdrawing from that world and then there's nothing anybody can do but um you don't want to let your reaction to American provocations drive you into an unstrategic approach where you forget what your national interests are canada needs to be part of trading systems it's just you know Canada makes a lot of stuff that no one else has no one else has the aluminum no one else has the nickel but Canadians also appreciate fresh fruits and vegetables yes and uh Canadians need to drink orange juice to get their vitamin C those things are not going to be grown indigenously in Canada and Canada even more seriously can never provide the 9:00 capital that Canada needs to develop this extraordinary natural landscape canada will always be a capital importing country um and uh the United States is the obvious place to get the capital that Canada needs to develop its resources yeah brilliantly said thanks for helping to lay the the context um as we pivot into the um the inevitable question uh if policymakers were were listening to your advice and indeed uh sought uh to strengthen the Canada Mexico relationship in in the leadup to what seems like uh an inevitable renegotiation of the US MCA uh what might that type of bilateral partnership look like David it it begins we're we're not quite ready yet it begins by building inst institutions yes there needs there needs to be a thicker Canadian presence in Mexico a bigger embassy um ambassadors who there have been some very good ambassadors i've had the privilege to meet some of them but consistently ambassadors with deep knowledge of Mexico who aren't pulled off their first 10:01 choice of working on the China desk or the USA desk really this needs to be developed as a career track with language training um the Mexican elite is not uniformly English- speakaking um and the English is often less fluent than you you might think claudia Shinb her president Lopez Oberdor spoke almost no English and Claudia Shinbomb while she speaks some English she's not fluent in the language and wouldn't want to negotiate in English um so you need to develop uh an embassy staff who are very comfortable in Spanish uh you need to leave them there for a long time you need to build cultural institutions you need to welcome the expansion of the Mexican presence in Ottawa um and a lot of you just need to develop greater situational awareness of what it is that Mexico wants and needs from Canada um again the Mexicans want a bilateral relationship with the United States it's often hard for to get them to understand that Canada can be helpful to them yes but it could be u and the and to develop even the awareness of common interests is the first step toward acting on those 11:00 common interests yes i was just going to say David um one potential impediment to what you've just laid out is the memory of Canadians uh who rightly or wrongly believe that Mexico in a way pulled a fast one uh on Canada in the last round of trilateral negotiations and essentially pursued its own bilateral arrangement with the United States that Canada then struggled to find its way into uh talk about the the risk of Mexico playing off Canada in its own efforts to secure some type of bilateral arrangement with the United States and and how Canadian officials can mitigate against such a risk well well both countries did it um so the debate with the last round of Kusma USMCA yes was that both countries wanted to get a bigger share of the automobile industry the Americans say we want to take more of it from ourselves we want to exclude the Chinese and Canada and Mexico said right we'll both cooperate with you but we also want to advantage ourselves at the expense of 12:01 the other yes junior member of the of relationship so the Mexicans proposed various kinds of quantitative barriers um you know x% of every car must be North American content yes and knowing that because Mexico is the lowcost provider the more of the car is made in North America the more will be made in Mexico yes um the Canadian said to the Americans um well wait a moment your goal here is to defeat low-wage labor so we think the deal should be that a certain percentage of the car must be made in factories that pay at least I'm going to forget the dollar amount i think it was $15 an hour but it was set just north of what Mexican factories paid so we we we want the trade deal to um uh uh exclude Mexican products the Canadians won on the on what was in writing that the the deal was written the way the Canadians wanted but for reasons I won't pretend to fully understand it actually worked out much more in the Mexican favor mexicans Mexico share of the automobile industry in North America has grown over the past 13:01 half decade canada's has tended to shrink um I don't so I don't understand exactly how that happened because the deal was was written otherwise but the Mexicans prevailed and so both countries are mad at the other mexicans feel like well you betrayed us but you didn't get away with it and the Canadians feel well you successfully we were scheming to betray you but we it didn't work and you got what we wanted and that's who does that help other than the country at the center which is right now under this incredibly irresponsible leadership that Mexico and Canada if they don't find some way to hang together they will hang separately yeah David one of the reasons why I find your argument here so compelling um is because I find far less compelling uh an argument one finds in Canada these days uh which is that Canada ought to be working to diversify its trade flows to Europe or Asia or there are some who argue in favor of so-called Kzik um you know what amounts to a return to the old commonwealth 14:01 preferential trading system um Mexico by contrast is is already part of our integrated supply chains uh there are transportation links etc why don't you just reflect a bit on the practicalities um behind the the case for strengthening our relationship uh with Mexico as opposed to pursuing some of the other things that that one hears these days from different Canadian policy makers and and analysts well let's talk about each of them separately let's first talk about the Canada New Zealand Australia UK plan defense planning follows values trade flows don't um Canada and Australia are never going to be great trading partners because their their economies are too similar both are natural resource producers both are short of the capital they both are going to be capital importers and they're very very far away yes um and uh it's it's just not it it I I defense cooperation yes cultural cooperation yes diplomatic cooperation 15:01 yes but um there was a reason why Commonwealth preference fell apart and the most important reason it fell apart is the whole Canada Australia New Zealand UK fantasy depends on the United Kingdom continuing the crazy self harm of staying out of the European Union yes and they will not continue that crazy self harm forever interesting the the reason Commonwealth preference fell apart in the 60s was that Britain said in the end you know we're we're just off the coast of France we're next the nearest big city is Hamburg um of course we're going to be trading most with our continental partners um instead of trying to keep alive a sentimental concept of the empire minus India yes India's was what what made the empire always make economic sense without the India the empire never made economic sense um the European project is um a little bit more sensible um you do have the problem of geographic distance but look the thing that Europe is going to want from Canada above all is energy and that means Canada has to be willing to take its 16:00 energy products not just oil but also natural gas and export them and build the transportation infrastructure to move the thing that Europe needs most is liqufied natural gas so and building that infrastructure is not fast to build um uh to turn a natural gas into a liquid first you have to crush it um under great pressure to shrink uh um compress it into a liquid form and then on the other end you have to uncrush it and turn it back into a gas the uncrushing can be done relatively quickly and only moderately expensively hundreds of millions of dollars uh but the crushing part takes years and and uh and costs billions of dollars and by the way there are huge regulatory concerns because if you get the uncrushing part wrong the gas escapes into the atmosphere and it's just pollution but if you got the crushing part wrong you got a giant explosion yeah David if you'll permit me I want to transition um our conversation in our remaining moments to to focus a bit more on Canada uh and what to make of some of 17:01 the dynamics playing out here uh first of all this is the first week that we saw Prime Minister Carney in action um as I mentioned uh it seemed notable that his first act as Prime Minister was to to travel abroad uh not to announce a domestic spending program which in a way is how we've come to think about Canadian policym and politics over the over the past decade or so uh what what do you make of his first venture abroad and his first week as as prime minister well he's got a a very challenging career problem so Mark Harney spent his career as a chairman of two central banks and the CEO of a major corporation and and one thing that happens when in those roles is you don't have to put up with a lot of stuff you don't like in fact you have to put up with very little that you don't like uh no one is ever mean to a central banker everyone is sort of differential and um agreeing with it laughing at his jokes agreeing with his observation um and it's hard to put pressure on him he can put a lot of 18:01 pressure on you ditto with a CEO being a politician is a very different kind of job you have to put up with all kinds of stuff from people that the politician may or may not respect and so it's a very challenging career pivot he's about to make yes and maybe there's a strategy to going to Paris and London first but maybe it's just those are agreeable places to go and going to Mexico City would be less agreeable and when you spent most of your adult life doing things that are agreeable um it's hard to make the pivot to doing things that are disagreeable but Bill Clinton wonderfully said that the the job of a politician can I say this on our family radio is to eat and pretend to like it um and uh that's the thing that a Canadian prime minister and a president of Mexico are going to be doing a lot that's what they're paid to do that's why they get the big house they get the big plane is they have to go to Washington and they have to eat and they have to pretend to like it um and if you say you know what I don't really like it i want to go somewhere where I'm going to be treated nicely i look I understand i understand that preference that's probably the way I would feel if 19:00 I were in the job but it's not what he's paid to do yes uh David I think we are on something approaching the 80th episode or or more of these bi-weekly conversations now weekly that I've had the privilege to to to do with you here at the hub and one throughine has been um the extent to which our our national politics has shrunk from the responsibilities given to our national government particularly around international relations security and defense and a part of that of course is the preferences of politicians but a big part of it is the preferences of the Canadian public uh we seem poised to have a national election as early as as this weekend where national international issues rather will loom larger than they've had maybe since 1988 what's your sense David do you think Canadians understand the importance of of the Canada US relationship of a a kind of politics 20:00 that subordinates uh transactionalism and actually focuses more on the the proper roles and functions of of a national government well you and I have both jointly been very critical of the lack of these kinds of issues in Canadian politics in the past yet there is a kind of logic to it yes so Canadians in the years since World War II Canada was very active in international affairs in the 50s and 60s yes and Canadians may have felt you know what we got it right uh Canadians built had a huge role in building NATO um CA uh Canada built these global free trade arrangements canada was very important in the old general agreement on tariffs and trade that defined trade rules before the year 2000 um Canada's been player less one in the World Trade Organization that succeeded um can of course there's the US Canada trade agreement which was so controversial and now so accepted there was the entry into NAFTA and Canadians may have felt look our parents and our grandparents got 21:00 these structures of international security and international trade right um as with in a world that's dominated by the United States and China and India how much difference can Canada make really uh basically we're satisfied with the deals we've got so let's just now focus on maximizing our well-being under those deals uh and so long as the deals look solid that that was maybe not a crazy way to think and um you know Cassandra like you and me might say well you know you this may not continue forever you need to keep up you need to continue to maintain what was built before you need to invest in the maintenance you need to have a military so that your voice carries but in the context of 2015 that seemed like um uh yeah that yes of course I should um floss every day but sometimes I'm busy yes and there's no immediate harm from the not flossing it won't catch up with me for some time yes uh and and now 22:00 it's all been brought back all of those arrangements that were built in which Canada played such a big part in the 50s 60s and later um they're coming unstuck uh there's a as you and I speak there's a story that the Americans are considering no longer nominating a supreme allied commander of the Europe of the forces in NATO um the NATO has always had an American supreme commander and now and the Trump people are saying ah maybe not um so as NATO dissolves as World Trade Organizations dissolve Canada needs security it can't cannot provide as much security as it needs it cannot provide its own trading networks by itself it has to be part of bigger networks and Canadians are discovering that the international really does matter in a way the Canadians of the 1940s '50s60s and later understood it um I wish there was some way to learn these things except through pain uh but it seems that pain is the way we learn them uh I think this will be my my final question to you David um against the the dismal backdrop that you just painted Canada is actually the president of the G7 this year which itself is celebrating 23:01 its 50th anniversary we had foreign ministers here in the country in the last week or 10 days g7 leaders are scheduled to come to Canada in June is there I I don't want to sound naive but is there an opportunity for Canada to use the G7 presidency uh to to shape a conversation around the lines that you just set out well one thing that that I understand is underway is Canada has um vetoed uh as host vetoed President Trump's wish to return Vladimir Putin to bringing to joining the G7 and I understand that I may be wrong about this my understanding is there is an invitation to President Zalinski uh to join the G7 that will create the thing that Donald Trump cares about most photographs he is so image conscious and the sight of Vladimir Zilinsky being treated by all his allies as the hero Zalinsky is um and Putin not being there and being treated as the pariah and villain that Putin is um that won't change Trump's admiration and 24:01 affection for Putin and his hatred and um contempt and resentment of Zalinski but it may make him more aware of the costs of indulging his Putin mania and his Zilinsky phobia uh I I said that was the final question if I can just slide uh one one more in um is there anything in the intervening time that Canada should be doing in your judgment David to try to build momentum for a conversation at that G7 focused on precisely what you talked about earlier um either the uh reaffirmation of those existing pieces of the international architecture which have been so core to Canada's interests or possibly the creation of of new ones in a world where the US can't be relied upon either to sustain or or even or even uh acknowledge um its commitments under these these different international arrangements well along with reaffirming the Mexico relationship or developing the Mexico relationship Canada does need to make an effort to reaffirm the Japan relationship the Japanese have been very 25:02 clear that Ukraine is important to them too um they are just off the coast of China just off the coast of Russia um they have a more considerable defense capability than it's considered polite to mention but they probably are not capable of defending themselves alone against China um they need the American security guarantee that has kept the peace in the Pacific and Japan has been such a beneficiary of since since 1945 um Canada's again treated the Japan relationship as very much a matter of business um uh Japanese uh material uh manufactured exports to Canada Canadian natural resource exports to Japan uh business is business there's no not much of a strategic framework to it but again the Japanese are willing to speak out about the importance of the American role in the Pacific canada's a Pacific power too um and that's something that even if you've been governor of Bank of England you have to remember uh Canada's interests are not only eastward looking across the Atlantic but westward looking 26:00 across the Pacific yeah masterclass David uh all the way all the way around the globe in less than 30 minutes uh I want to thank you for joining me we'll be back in conversation next week in which we we we will find ourselves most likely in a in a federal election campaign uh uh I'm grateful for the time to to speak and and look forward to catching up next week thank you bye-bye

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