Canada hosts unprecedented inauguration party in Washington

Prices as a backdrop to a speech

Trump’s team briefed his Republican allies on Capitol Hill on Sunday about a slew of executive orders coming the next day, with the trade issue unclear.

A number of US press reports on Monday’s preparations did not mention the tariffs. Trump only mentioned the tariffs in passing during a speech Sunday.

At a rally the day before the inauguration, he spoke at length about other plans for the first day. He addressed mass deportations as well as historic border measures and devoted more time to gender ideology than trade.

He alluded to the issue at the end, just before the Village People closed his rally with a celebratory rendition of YMCA. “In conclusion,” Trump said, while promising to cut taxes, end inflation, raise wages and restore thousands of U.S. factories through tariffs and other policies.

It is on this note that everyone is waiting now. Trump’s return marks a truly historic time for Canada-U.S. relations, according to Asa McKercher, an expert at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia who studies the cross-border relationship.

The newly elected president is threatening the most hostile trade measures our continent has seen in more than 90 years, reminiscent of the famous Smoot-Hawley tariff law of the Great Depression, he says.

These 1930 tariffs strongly affected Canadian exports. They hit various commodities at different rates, but averaged about 20 percentage points, wiping out most Canadian exports of wool, livestock and linen to the United States.

Trump is also the first major American politician to make semi-serious jokes about the annexation of Canada for almost 115 years, according to McKercher, who holds the Steven K. Hudson Research Chair in Canada-US Relations at the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at StFX.

“Donald Trump represents, in some ways, a step back from a century ago,” he said. “It’s, in a way, like a return to the future.” On the other hand, Trump marks an even sharper break with history, he added, by enthusiastically expressing his inclination to provoke friendly nations. “It’s rather unprecedented to have a president who gives his allies the arm of honor with impunity,” he commented.

A call for caution from an entrepreneurial leader

A Canadian business executive says he’s trying to focus on what he can control, rather than what he can’t.

“I don’t spend time worrying about what, where, when or why [les tarifs de Trump vont frapper],” said Goldy Hyder, President and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. “It’s just a better way to fall asleep every night.”

What Canada can really control, he says, is to improve its own economic policies to create influence over Trump, such as by better developing its mining and energy resources.

Hyder also warns Ottawa to be particularly careful before launching retaliatory actions that could worsen internal damage, such as Canadian threats to impose an export tax on energy products that Canada also re-imports from the states. -United.

“The last thing you want is for our actions to backfire on Canada,” he said in an interview Sunday, while in Washington for the inauguration. We might find out as soon as Monday if there is anything to retaliate on.

In the meantime, guests will gather for a party at the Canadian Embassy, ​​as they have for every inauguration since 1989. Guests include provincial leaders, federal cabinet members and several U.S. politicians and business groups, all invited to enjoy snacks, including beaver tails.

The embassy did not reveal the cost of the event, but said it would be offset by several corporate sponsors. Continuing the event is in the national interest and the right decision to make, regardless of the unusual threats facing the continent, McKercher said. “It’s a little strange,” he commented of the circumstances surrounding the party. “But diplomats live in a bit of a strange world.”