No. of Recommendations: 5
Paul Krugman thinks not...
So, does Trump have any chance of winning his trade war with Canada?
The truth is that it’s hard even to figure out what a Trump win would mean in this context. Would it mean Canada agreeing to become the 51st state? That’s not going to happen.
Would it mean, as Carney suggested in his remarks after the talks broke down, Canada giving up on its promotion of French as a co-equal language with English? That also won’t happen.
Or would it mean Canada making enough concessions that Trump can at least claim victory? That’s also tricky, because until Trump went on the attack Canada wasn’t doing anything wrong. So it can’t promise to end its unfair policies when there basically weren’t any such policies.
The bottom line is that Trump is going to lose his trade war with Canada as thoroughly as he has lost his shooting war with Iran. But because he won’t face reality, trade with our northern neighbor will probably be disrupted until the narcissistic bully in the White House no longer controls trade policy.
