February 3rd, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Times change. Living next to Donald Trump is a crisis. It was always clear his people would try to disassemble the American federal government in his second term, and that he intended to seek revenge. And it was clear he was coming after his allies, Canada included.
We have gone through the first crisis – and we made it. For the next 30 days Ottawa and the Premiers will work to figure out just how much more they have to give. Whatever they decide – it won’t be enough. David Frum, one of the better analysts on Canadian/American affairs described Trump as a predator.
Frum worked in the White House as a speechwriter for the second Bush. He is a man worth listening to.
Arlene Dickinson, part of the TV Dragon’s Den crew had this to say:
Everyone is trying to figure out the endgame. What does Trump really want? What’s his strategy? What’s his angle? How do we work with him to give him what he really wants? People keep asking how to make him stop coming at trade with tariffs.
Here’s what he wants: He wants money. He wants power. He wants control. It’s that devious, and it’s that obvious.
This isn’t about trade imbalances. It’s not about fairness. It’s not about drugs, immigration, or national security. Those are just the stories he tells to justify what he’s really after—leveraging fear and economic pressure to serve his own interests.
If it really were about those things, then negotiating honestly and fairly with a friend, ally and neighbor would be the obvious and most productive way to accomplish those goals. But that’s not what’s happening. Because this isn’t about solving problems—it’s about creating leverage.
And who pays the price? Not him. Not the politicians who stand beside him. Its workers, families, and businesses on both sides of the border. It’s people on both sides watching their costs go up, their jobs disappear, and their futures get thrown into uncertainty—all while the ones in power play the long game for themselves.
We can spend time debating the strategy. Or we can focus on the truth. This isn’t about protecting America. It’s about protecting Trump. And the sooner we see that clearly, the sooner we can stop letting him dictate our future.
He may control his tariffs, but we control our wallets. Buy Canadian. Support Canadian. Invest in Canadian. Celebrate Canadian.
Trump truly, wrongly believes tariffs will enrich the United States. He is an incompetent blusterer, and even though Canada got Trump to back off his tariff threats, the idea of annexation is planted. That threat won’t vanish.
We will come back to that annexation issue in a different article.
At this point, the individual Canadian can do one thing: Buy Canadian wherever you can.
Dominic LeBlanc, the current Minister of Finance told an interesting story on CBC radio this morning. He said that New Brunswick has some toll crossings at the New Brunswick-American border. They decided that vehicles with American license plates would pay a higher toll.
Small matter but very satisfying.
We made it through the day – tomorrow is another day – the focus will be on preparing for that phone call in 30 days.
Between now and then LeBlanc will be meeting with the Secretary responsible for imposing tariffs – some sense may get determined during that meeting.

There are three aspects of this “criss” and the way it is being handled, that I find perplexing.
First, Trump keeps fixating about the amount of fentanyl that crosses the border from Canada, even though successive commentators have pointed out that it is less than 1% of the total. Funny though that none of our Canadian politicians have pointed out the alarming number of weapons and ghost guns that have been apprehended during crimes in this country that make their way into Canada from places like Texas.
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/i-team-hundreds-of-guns-used-in-crimes-in-canada-smuggled-from-texas/
Second, if China is the major producer of fentanyl, why do they only get slapped with a 10% tariff while we are hammered with 25%? I’m guessing Trump doesn’t want to upset the PRC too much in case they take it out on Elon Musk’s Tesla manufacturing facilities.
Third, great that we have all these federal politicians making the trip to Washington to “kiss the ring” of Emperor Trump. However, why isn’t the business community stepping up? Liberal Party bagmen who aren’t appointed to the Senate usually end up on the boards of major corporations and banks. So, why isn’t Trudeau leveraging all his cronies like Gerry Schwartz, Frank McKenna, John Manley, Lloyd Axworthy, etc., and sending them off to Washington to put pressure on their business counterparts to stop the tariffs? The only person I’ve heard making the case about the negative consequences upon businesses is, oddly enough, Andy Beshear, the Governor of Kentucky, concerned about the effect a tariff will have on bourbon manufacturing.
Lots of questions. No good answers.
Trump is a narcissist..chaos and attention getting are the end game…he is a child who never grew up. …self centered, uncontrollable.
What he doesn’t understand is that respect is never based on fear.
We made it through first tariff crisis??? Really??
It looks more like our lame duck PM has taken the bait and made the problem potentially far worse.
His response should have been to throw the unreliability of the president’s word to honor his own agreements…the USMCA, that isn’t due for renegotiation until June 2026…. into his face, and refuse any further discussion on the matter, beyond saying that we will respond with surprises of our own, if and when appropriate.
Instead he’s first to Mara-Logo to kiss Trump’s butt and now has bought Canada a 30 day reprieve for whatever nefarious deed Trump plans next….a master negotiator indeed!!!