Donald Trump's high unpopularity is sustaining Canadian Prime Minister Carney's popularity in spite of economic challenges

Toronto Sun Editorial:  

PM Carney’s best weapon is Trump

Popular❗ From Wicked.

"Elbows up" means "to protect yourself or fight back." And it's no shocker Canadians are using it, because the phrase originates from hockey.

Trump made so many threats that many Canadians simply shrug them off. 😒😜😧😵🙄

It is the ultimate irony that Donald Trump helped to elect Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and is his not-so-secret weapon in keeping his approval numbers high.

Every time doubts begin to emerge about Carney’s leadership — from his misleading comments on the financing of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, to condo bailouts in British Columbia, to deficits higher than Justin Trudeau’s — Trump says something outrageous and Carney’s popularity soars.

(Maine Writer- In other words, Prime Minister Carney is the popular "anti-Trump")

Trump’s latest threat to impose a 50% tariff on an estimated $28 billion worth of Canadian goods, intended to put pressure on Carney to make concessions in trade talks with the U.S., along with his renewed comments that Canada can’t survive without the U.S., is likely to do it again.

A recent poll by Abacus Data taken before Trump’s latest tariff announcement on Monday found 69% of Canadians surveyed said, “Canada should hold firm on its positions, even if negotiations (on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement- CUSMA on trade) take longer.”

Only 20% said the government “should make concessions, simply to conclude negotiations more quickly.”

Trump has made so many threats regarding tariffs that many Canadians today simply shrug them off.

While only a minority of Americans approve of Trump’s performance — around 36% to 40% according to the latest polls — a majority of Canadians — in the range of 55% to 66% — approve of Carney’s performance.

It seems clear that while most Americans hold Trump responsible for issues such as their high cost of living, the same is true of most Canadians, who blame Trump as opposed to Carney.

Meanwhile, the open public knife fight among Conservatives over the leadership of Pierre Poilievre has convinced many Canadians that a party that can’t govern itself can’t govern the country.😂

This further bolsters Carney’s popularity, even though most of his major policies came from the Conservative leader.

But Carney has yet to fulfill his claims that with his background in international banking he was best equipped to negotiate with Trump, nor that his deal will be better than the current one under CUSMA.

Indeed, indications are that even if Carney succeeds in reaching a deal, it will be worse than what we have, while the continuing uncertainty in the absence of a deal weakens our economy.

Reader John Day responds, "Hard to make a deal with a man baby. We're just a diversion from the Trump Iran war and the Trump Epstien files."

Republicans must make Donald Trump's wrongminded policies right! "Do your job!

Echo opinion letter published in the Penn Bay Pilot, a newspaper circulated in Midcoast Maine- Rockland, Camden, Thomaston.

MAGA Trump cult Republicans will protect even the most flagrant errors and malign policies by misguided president.

American consumers will pay for it❗

"My country, right or wrong" is a motto often heard from zealous would-be patriots. 

It is derived from a toast offered by Stephen Decatur, a U.S. Naval officer who fought the "Barbary Pirates" off North Africa, in the early 1800s.

A modified version by Carl Schurz in 1872, changed mindless affirmation into a more balanced expression of patriotic support. Schurz was a German immigrant who served as a Union General in the Civil War and later as a U.S. Senator. Shurz said:

My country, right or wrong.
When right, to be kept right;
(But....) When wrong, to be put right.

With every passing day under the Republican Trump Administration there are more things "to be put right." A major example is Trump's sweeping and delusional TARIFF SCHEME❗

At the heart of the damage done by Trump's tariffs is the truth that he still does not know how a tariff works.

Trump believes that the sending country pays the fees rather than domestic importers and consumers in the U.S. Thus his proud but mistaken claims that he will make China and other nations pay so many billions that he will be able to do away with the income tax.

Even his former Vice President Mike Pence knows the truth that "The Trump Tariff Tax is the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history."

The burden of tariff payments falls most heavily on lower income consumers.

The Income Tax was introduced in 1912, precisely to compell wealthy citizens to share in paying for government services.

Trump now wants to reverse this corrective innovation. He also falsely assumes that import levels will remain the same after imposition of U.S. tariffs.

Further, Trump seems to ignore the likelihood of punishing counter-tariffs imposed by our trading partners in response to U.S. levies. When the U.S. imposed tariffs in Trump's first term, return tariffs did such damage to our agricultural exports that we had to spend $27 billion in payouts to save farmers from bankruptcy.

The path to "put right" the crisis in U.S. and world trade caused by Trump's tariffs lies in re-assertion of Congressional authority over tariff policy.

Trump is enabled to manipulate tariffs because he declared a dubious "emergency" after which he could take tariff policy decisions away from Congress.

Fearing the mounting damage and with the votes of four Republican Senators, a recent vote in the Senate partially nullified Trump's "emergency" declaration.

Alas, Speaker Mike Johnson will not allow a vote on this issue in the House. In a further contortion to prevent a vote, Johnson passed a bill that defines the whole rest of this Congressional session to be considered as a single extended legislative day. 

MAGA Republicans will protect even the most flagrant errors and malign policies by their misguided president.

From Jim Matlack,  lives in Camden, Maine