LILLEY: Trump’s threats on Canada’s economy simply won’t stop

Does Donald Trump want Canadian oil or does he want to block us? It really depends when you ask him it seems, or what mood he is in.

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On Monday afternoon, Trump was holding a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron when he said tariffs on Mexico and Canada would be coming despite movement on the border.

“We’re on time with the tariffs, and it seems like that’s moving along very rapidly,” Trump said.

A few hours later, Trump was on his personally owned social media platform, Truth Social, when he began musing about bringing back the Keystone XL pipeline.

“Our country’s doing really well, and today, I was just thinking, that the company building the Keystone XL Pipeline that was viciously jettisoned by the incompetent Biden Administration should come back to America, and get it built — NOW!” Trump posted.

Now, Trump’s harshest critics would say he’s too stupid to know that Keystone XL comes from Canada. I’m sure many Canadians reading this are screaming that out loud but it’s not true or fair. Trump is not the idiot his critics in the Canadian media make him out to be; still, it’s not clear what he is getting at based on what he said Tuesday afternoon while signing executive orders in the White House.

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“We don’t need their oil. We don’t need their lumber,” Trump said of Canada.

So what is the truth?

Let’s be frank, it’s exhausting trying to figure out what Trump is saying on tariffs, on Canada.

He threatened tariffs on Canada unless we acted on the border to deal with fentanyl and illegal migrants. The Trudeau government is reluctantly acting, but they are acting and so are provinces across the country.

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Alberta has sent sheriffs to patrol areas that are not official border crossings. Manitoba has sent conservation officers to their border with the United States and Quebec has sent their provincial police service, the SQ, to stop illegal crossings.

In Ontario, more than 45 pounds of fentanyl has been seized at or near the border by the OPP and local police in the last two months. They have also seized stolen vehicles, guns coming into Canada and more than 3,000 pounds of cocaine.

These are the types of measures that should have seen Trump say measures are being taken and that there is success and that the tariffs will be held off as long as efforts from Canada continue. That didn’t happen; instead, he’s threatening tariffs, calling for a renewed Keystone XL pipeline and also saying America doesn’t need any Canadian oil.

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All the while, Trump continues to talk about Canada as a 51st state, an offer that the overwhelming majority of Canadians reject.

Are these just negotiation tactics or is this something different?

Trump clearly doesn’t like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the feeling is mutual. The hatred between these two men is partly why Canada is in the crosshairs of the American president. This wouldn’t be happening with almost anyone else in power in Canada, there could be a discussion or negotiation, but not between Trump and Trudeau.

Two recent polls, from Leger and Ipsos, two of Canada’s most respected polling firms, show that if an election were held now, a Mark Carney-led Liberal Party would squeak past Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives to hold onto power. Based on Carney’s policies, this is exactly the wrong move for voters to be making.

While voters might look at Carney’s resume as a central banker and economist, he has no ability or experience to deal with a political animal like Donald Trump. Nor do his policies, all rooted in green net-zero ideology, light the path forward that Canada needs.

To respond to Trump, we need thinking that is racially different from the last decade, we need Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. Without that, Canada will wither on the vine.

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