TrueValueMetrics ... Impact Accounting for the 21st Century

Date: 2025-07-04 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028430

COMMENTARY DAVID FRUM ... MARCH 12TH 2025 The Hub Canada: In Conversation with David Frum: Trump's escalating threats & Carney's leadership victory PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXzQ6CLuCS0 Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
In Conversation with David Frum: Trump's escalating threats & Carney's leadership victory The Hub Canada Mar 12, 2025 54.6K subscribers ... 699,404 views ... 9.8K likes In Conversation with David Frum Leading author, journalist and thinker David Frum and The Hub's editor-at-large Sean Speer discuss President Trump's escalating threats to Canada and their economic and political implications, as well as Mark Carney's decisive win in last weeked's Liberal Party leadership race and his pending transition into becoming the Canadian prime minister. 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 cing policy in politics in today's conversation we'll cover some of the P the big issues of the past week including Donald Trump's ongoing threats to Canada Mark Carney's liberal leadership Victory and his transition into being prime minister and much much more David thanks as always for joining me well these are tough times we have to stick together indeed before we get started David if you'll permit me I'm excited to make an announcement given the unsettled times that we're living in and how much we've come to draw on your insights and wisdom to make sense of things I'm pleased to report that for the next few months in conversation with David from will be released on a weekly rather than bi-weekly basis I know our audience will be as pleased as I am about the news uh so thank you so much David for for agreeing to to to increase 1:00 the number of times I get to talk to you each month I hope not to wear out my welcome but thank you I I want to start David with the extraordinary Market reaction that we've seen to the Trump administration's policy chaos over the past week or so in given that you're in DC why don't you just talk about the extent to which uh what's happening in the White House is starting to spill out into the broader economy well the the Donald Trump in Donald Trump's mind it's forever 1977 um and that's communicated to a lot of the people around him they just don't understand how modern economies work and let me give you an example this when JD Vance Trump's running mate was campaigning in favor of tariffs um in during the campaign he talked about how um uh we don't care not we don't care how many cheap toasters we get yes we'll accept a million I think he said a million cheap toasters are not worth one American job yes now as a matter of fact I did the arithmetic on this um when 2:02 American toas when toasters were americanmade back in the early 70s uh a toaster cost about $ 16972 today Walmart a toaster costs about $16 $225 so that's about a 90% reduction in the value of the toaster so um you get like $90 off per toaster times a million that's 90 million you're saying $90 million in improved welfare is not worth what if you said to the guy who's in the toaster Factory tell you what let's split this you get half for the elimination of your toaster manufacturing job but the real point of that story is they never mastered the idea that every product is a component inside another product so when you build uh um I was talking to someone who was doing some work in the Auto industry that the components you buy a a GM Chrysler Ford car there are pieces in that car that have crossed the Mexican and Canadian border maybe five or even six times over the course of their life you put a tariff on every one of those Journeys the whole project 3:03 becomes impossible and it isn't just that the car becomes expensive it's that the the Justin Time deliveries don't work you have to have in the whole thing just collapses and that's true of not just automobiles but so many other components Trump's also been talking about giving away American export markers for agricultural Goods um be before Trump's first term the United States was the largest exporter of soybeans on the planet that's now Brazil because China pivoted and Trump explicitly said that other agricultural exporters had better get used to selling to the Home Market well how much corn how much feed corn uh can the American Home Market sustain how much wheat can Americans eat themselves U these are all export markets um and so and I think the financial markets had this idea that Trump was just gassing that he was just blathering he just said stupid things and that there would be some Jerry cone figure like in the first term to reel him back and and realize no no he's surrounded by enablers this time it's 4:01 really happening um and there are two other problems that he's got one is in 2017 Trump was able to compensate from some of his other stupid economic ideas by giving a big tax cut yes but that tax cut expires in 2025 to and to renew it simply to renew the ex the status quo will take almost all the fiscal room that's and more that's available to Trump Administration any further stimulus would require deficits that are not only enormous but that also would bust up the process in Congress for approving the deficits so uh the financial markets are looking at some pretty Grim realities one more thing they're looking at is um reductions in the labor force and uh the Trump good news the Trump crack down an immigration is looking to be quite effective uh bad news the Trump Crackdown an immigration is looking to be quite the I want to take up your your observations about competence uh David because whatever one thinks about the Trump Administration there was a sense 5:04 in the early days after the inauguration as it moved forward on a series of of executive orders that it had learned some of the lessons of the the failures of the first Administration it seemed more capable at public administration if nothing else and it seems to me the experience of tariffs over the past couple of weeks have laid bare the underlying public administration and competency at the heart of the Trump ad Administration what explains the difference uh between some of the actions we saw early on from the administration in different policy areas and the um complete disaster um that we've seen play out over the past couple of weeks on tariffs well I I think they are more confident I think that that that early perception was true so in Trump won Trump arrived and he was surprised that he won he didn't have much of agenda um he was surrounded by people who to the extent he had an agenda didn't agree with it and tried to stop it and and and Trump himself got drawn into these absurd quarrels about the crowd size at his inauguration yes this time around Trump has had a clear 6:04 agenda he wants to sell out Ukraine and he wants to start trade Wars with the entire planet and he has been quite effective at doing both now the problem the reason it seems incompetent which is not really the right word is those policies are bad policies when you are effective at imposing tariffs you get a financial market crash um in Trump one Trump would have talked a lot about tariffs but nothing would have happened and the financial markets would have gone up um so had more Su less confidence but more success it this time Trump's really done it there are massive new tariffs being applied to all kinds of Partners um and he succeeded he did it in an administratively competent way he was not thwarted by remember the story about Gary con this may or may not be a true story but um snatching off Trump's desk the executive order to cancel the US South Korea Free Trade Agreement whether that happened or not that the South Korea agreement was not canceled this time there's no Gary con this time Trump is executive orders and with some delays and pauses some hiccups 7:04 he is doing what he said he would do he was doing what his vice president said he would do um and uh the incompetence here is on the part of Trump's backers who were foolish enough to believe he didn't mean it and wouldn't do it he's meant it he's doing it and the results are as as we see um disaster but disaster is not quite the same thing is chaos this is Trump's getting the outcome he wanted not the results he wanted but that's because the ideas are stupid not because the execution is imperfect well said that that's interesting Insight if I if you permit me I'd like to ask a bit of an Insider question um most of Trump's uh appointments have gone through the Senate process pretty smoothly even in instances where it seems self-evident um the individuals seemed were were unqualified uh elridge Colby uh who was to be second or third in command and Department of Defense his his nomination by contrast has experienced some resistance in including from Republicans what are we to to make of of that David 8:05 what does it tell us about the Trump administration's agenda and support for it or lack of support for it in in parts of of the Republican Senate caucus you know that is such an interesting question I've pondered it I don't know that I have a ready answer for you but um let me for those who are have never heard of him let me just put in some background so Elbert Colby is the son of William Colby son or grandson uh who is director of the C in the 1960s and he's a Harvard graduate he's a very very establishment person um and he he's been hanging around the Washington policy world for a long time where he's been positioning himself as a China Hawk and um that is very suspicious of Chinese intentions calling for a big increase in American confrontation to China um but in order to ingratiate himself with the Trump team he's um also become a big Ukraine Dove and he's so because he's quite intelligent he's able to write articles that are completely grammatical and full of English words um that that 9:03 say by selling at Ukraine you will make the United States in a stronger position against China now as I say it's grammatical it's full of English words it's nonsense but it's not grammatical nonsense the way you get from some of the other less presentable Trump people um and he's in line for a second or tertiary level appointment to the Department of Defense and yeah and there's been opposition and I find it baffling I mean if you've accepted putting antia crackpot Robert Kennedy in charge of the anti- measel strategy and we having's death if you put Russia apologist Tulsi gabard at the head of the National Intelligence um agency the um director as Director of National Intelligence if you have Donald Trump friend of Russia and JD Vance even bigger friend of Russia as president vice president why strained Elbridge Colby in this tertiary position why is this an isue so part of it I'm guessing maybe a personality issue he has given offense to Senator Tom Cotton who seems to be the senator who's put a hold on this yes part it seems like a safer way to register an 10:02 objection to the pro Russia tilt of trump strategy than opposing it but it it doesn't seem a very purposeful activity um because uh look it's not the fox is inside the the chicken house the fox is inside the chicken house and the chickens are all dead already there are a couple cowering in the corner hoping to live a little bit longer but most of the chickens are dead um and so now you know the fox's assistant is here like I I don't get it I don't get it yeah perplex it must be about personal ities another thing that's uh perplexing for a lot of our Canadian listeners and viewers uh David is the the preoccupation with Canada I was speaking to a well-placed American conservative political and policy Observer yesterday who said to me that in most circumstances one can discern the causal source of Donald Trump's preoccupation someone says something on Fox and Friends or Tucker Carlson says something on his YouTube show um but this case of Canada it's harder to discern why the 11:02 president has spent so much of his time focused not just on tariffs but these escalating threats of annexation and and and absorbing Canada as the 51st state are you able to shed any light on where you think that's coming from and why the president has dedicated such disproportionate time to these questions so early in his presidency well let me give you some guesses so first um I have an article in the Atlantic on Wednesday um that are it was an answer to those who tried to look for large strategic Visions in foreign policy I um it's malice it's animous it's ignorance um the Trump people will say well we're trying to put together a big Coalition against China they've slapped Australia with all kinds of tariffs you know and Australia is along with Japan maybe your most important partner in the Indo Pacific for confronting China the idea you would antagonize Australia um so they they the the things that that um 12:00 Trump apologists in Academia and public life say are not really explanations because they don't line up with the behavior I think uh and in the in Canada they don't even tribe is it seems so crazy uh a couple of things may be going on first remember that scene at one of the G7 meetings I think in England in 2018 where Justin Trudeau was caught on a mic making jokes about Trump to Johnson and mcon Johnson and mcon were laughing but it was Trudeau who was making the jokes not impossible that that has been rankling with Trump ever since it's also true that on certain parts of the American hard right annexation of Canada has been a dream for a long time Tucker Carlson has often talked about in in Canada um Pat B Canon back in the 90s talked about NEX in Canada because to put this bluntly um they haven't been keeping up with Canadian demographics and they see Canada as a strategic reserve of white people um and a way to balance the Browning of America from Southern immigration is to an ex Canada and you you bring in more white people now the idea that Canada is no more white than 13:01 the United States is they haven't quite kept up with that news but that's a big part I think of what is of what is going on is it's about racial rebalancing um and and that and there's a complete lack of interest in Canada Canadians because if you say um I mean the whole thing is so demented it's it's it feels again quote something the whole thing it's um it's too um too ugly to make a joke about but it's too stupid to talk seriously about it but you they have to understand if if you did somehow pull Canada or parts of Canada in the United States you um unless you're going to rule them as subjugated territories uh which doesn't seem very plausible they have to have Senators they have to have members of the house and they will all be Democrats and they'll all vote to convict Donald Trump at his next impeachment trial so how does this make any sense but if you understand it as an expression not of a plan but of deep animists and of this racial fantasy I think you're on your way to understanding something well you 14:00 mentioned Australia in in your answer David I I want to take up what we've seen under the administration towards Australia in in recent days and why you think it's important to understanding the inherent uh limits of the the Trump administration's foreign policy when it comes to uh building a broader Coalition uh to to ultimately uh confront China well compare Canada and Australia this way Canada is bound the United States no matter what um nobody's away Australia is very far away from the United States Australia now does almost four times as much trade with China as it does with the United States um and China is really no kind of important is too is very far away from Australia too so it's no kind of direct strategic threat so one of the things you would worry about if you a big strategic thinker is will there be drift will Australia be pulled gradually into the Chinese orbit uh as their most important customer and as a supplier of capital and away from the United States and it gain that you would say okay well maybe 15:00 they're bound to China by TR ties of trade but with the United States they're ties of History they're ties of values and so your message would be well let's accentuate the tires of history and values let's um let's emphasize these shared um the things that we share to um compensate for the increasing gravity of the economic poll to China what Trump is done to say no no we're not going to do that instead what we're going to do is Sever even more the economic links between the United States and Australia they do nearly four times as much business as China is with us let's make it five times and see what happens then and it just seems Reckless at the same time as they aliena in Japan um the Japanese prime minister came to the United States during the Biden Administration gave to a speech to a joint session of Congress in which he talked about how the defense of Ukraine is important to Japanese security um the Japanese do not agree with the theory that by Jing Ukraine you somehow make the United States more credible Vis of V China he expressly said the opposite and Japan been a generous supporter of Aid to Ukraine because they see security is 16:03 indivisible um but the Japanese are going to be put off too the South Koreans are worried by Trump's enthusiasm for North Korea so in every area of the globe What Trump is doing is dissolving historic bonds and it looks often like the only allies he wants are Russia Saudi Arabia and El Salvador yeah if I could just say in parenthesis David one thing that has struck me is the inherent dissonance between the Trump Administration self-image as a populist nationalist movement and it's in atttention to uh nationalist sentiments within the countries that it's antagonizing um you know it seems to me that there's a sense that that countries like Canada will go through some type of rigid cost benefit analysis and come out the other side uh with the decision that not withstanding these provocation it's still in Canada's interest to be part of the American orbit and that strikes me as a pretty big risk given the rise of nationalism in Canada and and in many of the other countries that you've 17:00 mentioned um and that's that's not their worst miscalculation their worst miscalculation is the one they're making in Mexico and that is one that could be really costly where there are people in the Trump World who are thinking we are going to fly drones equipped with missiles over Mexican territory and we were going to hunt and kill fentanyl uh merchants in Mexico with or without the uh consent of the Mexican government and the Mexican cartels are not going to retaliate in any way at all inside American cities that um one of the big Trump talking points is they want to declare uh the cartel's uh International organizations yes and uh and in some ways they qualify understand that uh that once that that doing this mean is a step toward the militarization of the campaign against the cartels and not only militarization but the Americanization of the militarization of the campaign against the cartels yes the cartel gone very far out of the way to avoid direct confrontation with the United States because they're afraid of what the Americans would respond but if the Americans lead with a militarized 18:05 campaign inside Mexico against the cartels the cartels have considerable retaliatory capacity you could find yourself with a a criminal terrorist Insurgency inside the Southern United States um B now bombs going off in shopping malls uh and uh I don't think the Trump people think about this at all yeah the designation of cartels has been one of the as a terrorist organizations has been one of the demands that the Administration has made of Canada which is a good segue to a question I wanted to put to you uh about Canada's response in recent days no doubt David you saw the threat by Ontario's Ford government of um shutting down or reducing electricity exports to the United States um that decision has been paused in recent days um in exchange for a meeting next week I guess between our federal Finance Minister Dominic Leblon and Ontario um Premier 19:00 Doug Ford what are you to make of that episode and more broadly David um as a Canadian someone who's followed Canadian policy and politics mostly for a long time what do you make of the increasing role that provincial Premier and provincial governments are playing um in these interactions with the Trump Administration is that a good thing or a bad thing in your mind well I I think it the provincial presence is a little bit of an inevitable reaction to the Canadian electoral cycle yes which is there there isn't really a fedal govern right now there hasn't been since the of the year and there won't be for another six or eight weeks so in the absence of um an a functioning federal government that's not in electioneering mode the provinces step up I think there's also something quite elegant about the Ford move because um it's kind of a onetwo punch I what I I looked it up the other day Ontario's electricity exports to the United States are dwarfed by Quebec's Quebec is the big exporter not Ontario um when you hear Rob Ford say or when you hear people say that Ontario exports 20:04 could affect as many as one and a half million households in Wisconsin and New York and Michigan you know what that sounds like a big number it's not so the Ontario threat is a demonstration of that then the um the role of nickels in the glove is the unstated threat you know Quebec could do the same thing could apply the export tax and that would really hurt that would really hurt and that hurts not a ring of states around not one million households in three or four states around the Great Lakes but that would affect Millions upon millions of households in New York and New England where they are a giant exporter yes um and that's by the way what is so demented about this whole aluminum threat aluminum is just congealed electricity um and the reason Canada has an advantage in aluminum is because of the abundance of Hydro power in the province of Quebec um that's not something that is going to change with tariffs all that's going to happen um is you tariff Canadian aluminum you raise 21:00 the price of American aircraft you raise the price of American aircraft you raise the price of American Airline fairs you raised the price of American Airline pH fairs you raised the cost of doing business in every I mean it's there's this whole house that Jack built problem with protectionism you can't just raise One Price you raise every other price through the whole economy well um one of the things that is so weird about the Trump Administration is it's dominated by all these Tech Bros who grew up reading IR Rand and then they get to power and they act like the villains not the heroes in a nine Rand novel that I think David is our uh title for today's episode you mentioned Canada's political Dynamic and I have to ask you since we last spoke Mark Carney wanted a decisive victory in the Liberal Party leadership race and all things being equal will be sworn in as prime minister before we speak next week uh what do you make of carne's uh Victory and ascendancy to the the Prime Minister prime minister 22:00 role even if it's uh temporary before we have a forthcoming election and what what should we expect in your mind uh from a prime minister Mark Carney I'm going to do um a little bit than I Told You So lap on this one so one back before Trump was elected and we're talking more about strictly domestic Canadian politics one of the warnings I sounded again and again was that it was very dangerous an opposition party to do too much to Define itself in a Westminster system very much dangerous to Define itself too much too far in advance of the election because you don't know what the El what the issues are going to be so all all the definition will be is a liability to or a potential liability and very unlikely to be an asset because uh the success of an opposition party really is contingent on the failure of a government um and so we've seen in Canada where the conservative party um became convinced that populist politics was the wave of the future um took on a series of stances that seemed to play well in the context of the aftermath of covid supported the trucker boycott or the trucker seizure of Ottawa 23:06 and and built a brand identity and then Trump wins and Trump starts threatening Canada and that brand identity is now nothing but a liability um and it was completely unnecessary because you just had they just not done no not committed themselves in this way today they would be ready with the issues that are going to be the voting issues of 2025 to take stances how to defend Canada against the economic and other threats from the United States um and the huge move in the polls the uh is a product of the strange thing the Liberals the people whove been in power since 2015 got to present themselves as something new yes whereas the out party the opposition party that should be the something new is stuck with a brand identity forged under completely different circumstances in 2021 there's now a big liability in 2025 yeah well said the the the ballot question has fundamentally shifted as you say and the conservatives are 24:02 struggling to find their voice uh on the the singular issue that will ultimately um decide the the forthcoming election which is really about which party is best position to protect Canadian interest V to be the Trump Administration um I Canada first is a bad answer to the slogan America first because it's not a count it says we're the same people just across the line um and and that the point of the what is wrong with America First is not that every uh it that every other country should also seek to be first what's wrong with that slogan is that what we've all learned since the depression of the second world war and through the the Reconstruction afterwards is the way you protect Democratic Values is by collaborating with your fellow democracies America First is a bad slogan because it means America alone and Canada first is an even worse slogan because it means Canada alone and Canada can afford to be that even less that the the answer to what Donald Trump is doing is to reaffirm the importance of free 25:00 trade collective security the alliance of the democracies um and uh you can get off on a really wrong foot by saying we want to be chauvinists for a smaller Nation um I want to ask you the question in the aftermath of of carne's leadership when a puler and candidate tweeted something on like I'm paraphrasing but something like the next election will be decided by which party could present itself as more persuasively anti-trump and anti-American uh what do you think of that characterization and what in your mind are the the risks with an election campaign um that has the different parties trying to outc compete themselves to which who can be more anti-American than the other is is 50% of passing or a failing grade on an answer because that's 50% right um uh and uh if for sure the parties need to be not non-trump you know what it's not even 50% right because there's the point 26:04 is not to be antitrump the point is to be not Trump and the point is also Canadians are not anti-American uh Canadians want to get back to the America they know and admired and respected and did business with uh the America that's a partner um and so uh the the job of the ne of the next prime minister Canada's show I know how to NE navigate past today's crisis in a way that doesn't make this problem worse but makes it better um Trump and I I have a I have I remember what America was I believe in what America could be and will be again I have a plan to get us from here to there I absolutely will defend Canadian interests and Doug Ford has been doing this very effectively when you know if if they tear off uh tear off the steel we put taxes on their electricity we tit fortat but always and this is something that Doug Ford has done so well always with a goal toward the restoration of trade peace that we're not here to win this trade War which of course Canada cannot possibly 27:02 do um uh we're here to mobilize enough awareness in the United States of what a Folly this Trump project is for people on both sides of the border and it will hurt Canada more it always will but it will hurt Americans too and it's unnecessary and stupid and is poisoning America's relationships with other allies like Australia that they also need um so the goal isn't to be anti the goal is to be in favor of the ideals of democratic defense in favor of the ideals of Global cooperation in favor of the ideals of of free trade that's why Ukraine is such an important issue beyond the importance of Ukraine itself is it symbolizes the unity and cooperativeness of the western democracies um and uh that's maybe that's why Trump hates Ukraine so much careful David that's a message I could vote for uh and get excited about I just want to wrap up with one final question um because this will probably be the last time we speak before uh prime minister Justin Trudeau exits the the political stage uh we talked a bit 28:01 about his legacy when he first announced that he would resign in January but why don't I just ask you to reflect a bit on prime minister chau's Legacy and and what the lessons you think are for both the liberal party and and Canadian politicians more generally well bad fiscal management can be corrected by better fiscal management um uh but there are two things that TR trau is leaving for the long term one is um the underperformance of Canadian productivity um they he just never took that on or maybe he didn't have ideas about how to do it and as we've said before his idea was if you admit lots of immigrants that you can make up with by adding more factors of production for the failure to improve the efficiency of the factors of production you have extensive not intensive growth um so that's one of his legacies is um the failure to Grapple with Canada's most important economic problem and the second has been um his validation of can of this attack on the country's identity um and the these these slurs on its 29:04 history these slurs on its character and I think Trump is reminding Canadians of what they're proud of um and it this this contradition should cast an even worse retrospective shadow on the defamation of Canadian history and the Builders of Canada that was such a part of the Justin tro government's ideological message wasn't something they intended I think they just got drawn into it but they never had the character and strength of will to say you know no we're not you know we're certainly going to compensate people who are harmed in the residential schools the mo the mo the Harper government did that and and if more compensation is called for but we're not going to engage in this National self-destruction this National self- liable um and that I think that may not be enduring because I think Trump is fixing that problem very fast but it's a legacy it's not a good one David uh man we covered a lot of uh a lot of issues and topics in this conversation I want to thank you for joining me and as importantly I want to thank you for agreeing to to extend 30:06 these conversations on a on a weekly basis over the next few months which are no doubt going to be U involve a lot of turmoil both domestically and globally uh thanks for for taking the time to speak with me and I look forward to catching up in a couple of weeks see you next week bye bye

SITE COUNT