from Sky news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour will be made in just about a month, April 28th, when Canada will hold its national elections.

Just weeks ago, the next Canadian prime minister.

Well, that was going to be a blowout.

It was a done deal.

A waltz for the conservatives led by Pierre Poilievre.

But Canada is feeling the Trump effect, and suddenly the Canadian liberals are ascendant again, leading in the polls a more than 30 point turnaround.

New Prime Minister Mark Carney could secure a full term.

His campaign is centered on protecting Canada from Trump.

This is not a laughing matter in Canada.

Carney's newest ad includes Canadian comedian Mike Myers wearing a hockey jersey.

The number on the jersey is 51.

The name on the jersey is never as in never.

The 51st state of the United States.

But President Trump talks about making Canada the 51st state, and he promises he's serious about that.

Here he is in the white House just four days ago saying that Canada has become very nasty to the United States.

And remember, with Canada, we don't need their cars, we don't need their lumber.

We don't need their energy.

We don't need anything from Canada.

And yet it cost us $200 billion a year in subsidy to keep Canada afloat.

So when I say they should be a state, I mean that.

I really mean that because we can't be expected to carry a a country that, is right next to us on our border.

It would be a great state.

It would be a cherished state.

the taxes for Canadian citizens would go down in less than half.

they don't spend money on military because they think we're going to protect them.

There are many things that they do.

Like, icebreakers.

They want us to provide icebreakers for them.

Oh.

That's wonderful.

So clearly Trump is serious.

And the outgoing prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, said last month that he believes Trump is trying to crash the Canadian economy by making it easier for the United States to annex Canada.

The New York Times recently reported on a private series of phone calls between the Trump team and the Canadian leadership, according to The New York Times.

Quote, President Trump told Mr. Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary.

He offered no further explanation.

Mr. Trump also mentioned revisiting the share of sharing of lakes and rivers between the two nations, which is regulated by a number of treaties, a topic he's expressed interest about in the past.

Canadian officials took Mr. Trump's comments seriously, not least because he had already publicly said he wanted to bring Canada to its knees in a news conference on January 7th before being inaugurated.

Mr. Trump, responding to a question by New York Times reporter about whether he was planning to use military force to annex Canada, said no.

He planned to use economic force, end quote.

But that wasn't all.

The times reports that Trump's secretary of Commerce, Howard Nick, had his own call with his Canadian counterpart.

The times reports that let Nick, quote issued a devastating message, according to several people familiar with the call.

Mr. Trump, he said, had come to realize that the relationship between the United States and Canada was governed by a slew of agreements and treaties that were easy to abandon.

Mr. Trump was interested in doing just that, Mr. Nick said, end quote.

So where does this leave this alliance?

Canadians have taken to using the phrase elbows up to describe their posture toward the United States.

It's a hockey phrase.

And in this case, it means to hit back, to be willing to fight.

My guest this hour is a Canadian with all kinds of relevant experience.

Canadian born doctor Rob Shum was a participant in international trade negotiations with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

He worked as a specialist in international trade and finance policy at Harvard.

Now he teaches at Suny Brockport on international law, environmental policy, international relations, and more.

And I thought Doctor Shum is the perfect person to bring in to help us understand what's going on here.

So, Rob, it's been a little while.

Welcome back to the program here.

Thank you Evan, I'm happy to be here.

I do have to issue the caveat that I'm not here representing any institution or collectivity or government or country, just in my personal capacity.

Just your personal capacity.

in all of your years of studying international relations, did you ever think that we'd be having a mostly serious conversation about the idea of American annexation of either all of Canada, maybe Ontario?

Did that ever occur to you?

No, I think it's as telling is the response in general.

As much as, you know, again, we expect the cfib sort of foreign policy from Trump, this sort of wrestling sort of spectacle that's, you know, can always be dismissed at any point as just a joke.

But what's more surprising is that, of course, everybody in America seems to be numb to it.

Again, we've talked about ourselves being in a new Cold War, but if anything like this had happened during the first Cold War, there would be calls for impeachment.

You can't threaten your allies.

We're in the struggle against communism.

We need all of our allies, and we stand up for something.

We don't behave like Stalin.

We don't threaten to take over the territory of other countries.

And there would have been bipartisan condemnation instantly.

But we obviously don't really take seriously the threat, and we're allowed to engage in this kind of behavior.

And it's, I think, very telling.

I'm going to try to do a better job as a host of this program in the days and weeks to come and do more steel manning.

And by that, I mean I want to take the best possible arguments, even when I feel sort of flawed to be talking about it.

So my instinct is to look at this and say, I don't think most Americans want to annex Canada.

I don't think even Trump supporters thought they were signing up for this.

But let's take the president what he says.

He says, first of all, we don't need Canadian cars, lumber or energy.

We don't need it.

We don't need anything from Canada.

Is that a fair statement?

Well, you played that clip, and I think it just shows, again, there is this tendency that you see, I think from commentators to saying, wash the Trump administration's policies to suggest that there are some kind of long term plan or gain, that's being pursued, that, tariffs are a matter of, of short term pain, that there was some kind of logic behind it.

But as Paul Krugman has been pointing out in his newsletters, there's just no evidence of that.

There is no way for tariffs to finance to pay for tax cuts.

they talk about McKinley's tariffs, but that's in an era when the United States didn't have Social Security or Medicare or anything, and tariffs just can't raise that kind of revenue.

And when he talks about making cars in America, well, the first thing he's already done is raise the tariffs on steel and aluminum.

So why would anybody try to make cars in a country where steel and aluminum costs more than in other countries?

Protectionist will say, well, let's raise the tariffs on cars to let's level the playing field.

That's always the argument.

Fine.

That will give the incentive for producers to make cars here.

But those cars will cost more for consumers.

Those cars aren't competitive, can't be exported anywhere else.

And you get an inefficient, unproductive industry that we've seen in other countries that have tried to attempt protectionism.

And I'm trying to understand some of the president's objection.

Well, let me let me step back and just respond to part of Rob's point.

I'm trying to walk the fine line of not saying washing, but trying to steel man and understand the best possible arguments for positions that I find bizarre or objectionable or kind of off the map here.

But I take your point.

I mean, sometimes you have to be blunt about what is clearly the baddie.

So that's kind of what I'm trying to do.

And I'm not always going to hit the mark here, and I'm trying to respect all listener's opinions.

I mean, this is this show is meant to be the public square.

We're going to welcome feedback this hour.

And again, it is the public square for everybody.

I don't care how you voted, I don't care where your politics are today, where they were ten years ago.

Where do you think they're going?

We should be able to talk about this together about anything.

And we're committed to that.

844295 talk.

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If you're if it is between the hour of noon and one and you're watching on YouTube, I'm a good host.

hello.

And there's a YouTube chat.

You can join us there.

So the president is really upset about dairy as an example.

So, Rob, what I tried to do was I tried to learn as much as I could about the actual tariff and how it works, and why the president is upset.

And there's something else that comes up to me that I don't understand, but maybe you can help with.

So the president has said that we're getting raked over the coals by Canada on dairy, because Canada has this 250 to 300% tariff on dairy.

And I'm going like, wow, that's a lot.

I'm and that's that does sound like a lot.

But what I'm reading in the fine print is that in the last agreement, which was, I think signed when Trump was president, the first time, that tariff only takes effect if certain production thresholds are exceeded, and we've yet to exceed that in a calendar year.

So the tariff is more theoretical.

He doesn't like it, but it's not actually being employed right now.

He doesn't say that part of it.

So how do we sift through where the actual grievances are, what the reality is of trade and tariffs, and how do we understand this argument better?

Well, every country has politically powerful interest groups that are able to lobby for protectionism.

In the case of Canada, frankly, dairy farmers have been very successful.

It's the one glaring sort of, discrepancy when you look.

It's because they have they send calendars, every year in the newspapers, the milk producers that everybody loves, free calendars.

There's a it's a monopoly.

There's free calendars for everyone popping up.

Everybody loves the milk producers.

They sponsor sports events and all of these kinds of things.

And that's absolutely part of the climate.

Right.

And, you know, again, a lot of a lot of a lot of, you know, there's there's there's, there's, there's that in in every country, that steel industry in the U.S. again, gets this high level of protection that no other industry does gets.

And it's to the disadvantage of users of steel in the US like the auto industry.

And to same thing in Canada, when you're talking about the dairy industry, that's not good for, you know, artisan cheese makers and things like that.

To have very expensive milk and things like, so should we pick a fight over dairy?

Well, everybody, you know, the point is, is that it's it's interesting to have people talk about these sorts of things, right?

Because even within the dairy industry in the U.S., for example, there's high tariffs on sour cream, just as a sort of a token sort of counter veil against that.

So you have, you know, again, this that's part of the sausage making of trade policy, is that people have to listen to these lobbies that are able to insert their inefficiencies.

And, and of course, the most disastrous example of that is during the Great Depression.

What really made the Great Depression beyond just a market crash were the Smoot-Hawley tariffs when it was a free for all, and Congress just tried to placate every single industry that asked for higher tariffs.

Okay.

let's expand a little bit on the question of this escalating trade war.

I want to listen to what the new Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who is hoping to become, to his party, will win in April, he hopes.

But Justin Trudeau's resignation, triggered a vote in their party for leadership.

Mark Carney wins that vote.

he is the prime minister for now.

He hopes he's prime minister after April.

And I want to listen to some of what he said about why his administration has not yet sat down in person, has not welcomed a delegation from the Trump administration to talk about tariffs and trade here from my perspective, they're not going to come until we get the respect we deserve is a sovereign nation.

By the way, this is not a high bar.

This is not a high bar.

To say we will sit down as a sovereign nation, and have this negotiation, but also that we will have a comprehensive discussion, not a discussion about one off tariffs.

The latest, initiative, but a comprehensive discussion of the economic relationship and the security relationship, which is also in the interests of the United States.

Now, of course, in the end, America is going to lose from America trade actions.

and that's one of the reasons why I'm confident that there will be that discussion with the appropriate amount of respect and the breadth, and I'm ready for it any time they're ready.

That sounds like a rational response to the situation to you.

Well, it is interesting to again assess the Canadian response.

I mean, the thing about the elbows up thing, as you mentioned in the intro, it's I actually find it to be a surprisingly defensive slogan.

Right?

It's actually about when you're expecting to be hit, you know, getting a body check against the boards or something, like you raise your elbows to protect the head and neck.

It's actually not an aggressive stance.

It's a very defensive, bracing yourself kind of sure thing.

And, I, you know, it's there's this is the consistent position of American, sort of Canadian, representatives and, it's just, I'm surprised again, you know, it's following the stereotype of being very calm and polite.

and then just trying to let the facts speak for themselves.

There's this clip when the foreign minister, Mélanie Jolie, appeared with, Christiane Amanpour on, on CNN and just basically laid out the fact of what's been happening.

And then Christiane Amanpour, who you'd think would be a well informed person, is like literally said, my jaw has dropped.

You know, I, you know, I've never heard it presented as a list in terms of everything that has happened, in terms of the threats, not only of the terrorists, but also of cutting the Canada out of the intelligence sharing Five Eyes agreement, which is very ironic now, given the revelations yesterday of the group chat and the circulation, the the Keystone cops.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

you know, the other I think, you know, rather than the US cutting Canada out, I think it's Canada, Australia and New Zealand and Britain that I think, has to be aware that, that the US is not, trustworthy.

But this is the sort of situation where, there are all these things, right, that, again, Americans haven't heard of.

There's a high profile case in Canada of, of Jasmine Mooney, this woman who was on business in the United States had the proper visas, and was simply because there's no due process in immigration enforcement, was detained for two weeks, even though she said, look, if you're going to revoke my visa, I'll pay for my plane trip back.

And they said, no, you know, expect to be for months.

It was only because of the media outcry.

in Canada, that finally she was released.

And then, they published, her account in, in The Guardian, where she also describes the experience of all these other detainees.

Right.

Who don't have legal representation and come from farther away.

We're talking to doctor Rob Shum, who is a professor at Suny Brockport.

Yeah, he himself a native Canadian.

He's worked on international trade policy, taught on international policy for years.

And I thought really just the ideal guest to help us understand what's going on between the United States and Canada with this new Trump administration in place here.

before I listen to one more clip here, I just want to ask you about what President Trump said about defense and his view.

This kind of lines up with how he sees NATO partners not carrying their weight in defense spending via visa GDP.

He says Canada just doesn't have a very large army.

It doesn't have very large military.

And, Canada just expects the United States to protect it if it's ever threatened.

And if that's the case, they should stop freeloading and we should be one nation.

So what do you make of that argument?

Well, this is again, a complete misrepresentation.

Another example of the ignorance that's been driving these kinds of comments, because Canada, for example, the sense of betrayal in Canada is because the relationship is paid in blood after 911, NATO declared that it was an attack on the United States, and the NATO allies joined in the effort in Afghanistan.

As Elliot Cohen pointed out, in the Atlantic, 158 Canadian service members died in Afghanistan as part of that Allied effort and to be attacked in these terms of not pulling our weight when 158.

That's completely disproportionate, right?

To, to what you would expect in terms of the contribution of the Canadian military to these allied kind of efforts.

It's just that's the kind of thing that really does make Canadians blood boil.

By the way, Elliot Cohen's piece had some history that, some of it which was new to me, some of it was a long refresher.

but the piece he wrote is titled Invading Canada is not advisable.

We've tried it before.

It didn't work out.

He notes that in 1775, the United States tried to make Canada our 14th colony.

No dice there.

In 1812, Thomas Jefferson apparently said that taking Canada was, quote, only a matter of marching.

But the United States made multiple efforts to do that, marching during the War of 1812, and were repeatedly repelled, and Cohen notes that since the War of 1812, Americans have not tried any formal invasions of Canada, but there was tacit and sometimes overt support for the 1837 1838 revolt of the Canadian Patriots.

How do I how did I treat patriot happy know, I know it's yeah, I know it's not my best language.

and he says, so he's pointing throughout history saying every time we've sniffed around here saying, you know, let's, let's go ahead and let's grab Canada.

It has not worked out, even though we had this idea that, well, they don't have as large of an army, they're not as well trained, they're not as well organized.

It has not worked out historically.

It is actually a very interesting again, you know, again, history rhyming.

And it's one of the, I think, sort of stories that are, isn't told.

Well, I think in history is of course, the whole experience of the War of 1812, on either side of the border.

and how trade is also an inherent part of that conflict.

Douglas Irwin, who teaches at Dartmouth and is the premier economic historian of trade in his most recent book, Clashing Over Commerce, goes into great detail in terms of how disastrous Jefferson and Madison's policy was.

They tried to shut off basically all trade and how damaging that was in the economy, that sort of insane washed out of history, partly because of, you know, the whole sort of reconciliation after the Civil War and making the Virginians feel good about themselves.

But it was disastrous.

That kind of logic of self-reliance.

Let's do everything ourselves.

We don't need other countries.

It's really, really damaging.

And and that's the last time, of course, that the U.S. tried this and had this kind of extreme sort of almost North Korean style trade policy, along with this campaign for territorial expansion.

And it didn't work out, obviously, for the U.S. in 1812. very well.

So apparently elbows have been up for a while.

Rob.

Well, I mean, despite your distaste for metaphor since 1812, I mean, that's the thing is that we learned our lessons.

This is what made America great, is having two friendly neighbors that don't view you as a threat.

This is the advantage that America has over a great power.

But this is the fundamental fallacy.

Is this idea that somehow America is everything that makes America great, its institutions, its allies, built up by the efforts of generations of statesmen and, and people who do make sense should be thrown away because somehow it's not great.

And we have to make America great again by behaving like territorial, expansionist, and all the failed strongmen that we've observed in history, and that in the past, Americans have fought.

I was reading a story in the Windsor Star, and they quoted Jack Cunningham, who's an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Toronto's Trinity College.

Cunningham said he believes that Trump, quote, wants Canada under his thumb as an economic satellite of the United States.

He says for Trump, all treaties and agreements are up for debate.

America had its proponents of a similar commercial union in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Basically, what they wanted was a set of economic arrangements where Canada would be reduced to a storehouse of raw materials for what was then the emerging American industrial economy.

I think Trump would like something along those lines, though, since he's an utter ignoramus.

He doesn't really understand the economics or the history.

And quote, that's Jack Cunningham, professor of international relations in Toronto.

What do you agree with Cunningham?

There?

I, I, I don't, I don't know, I mean we can't get into the head of again what actually all and maybe this is what is motivating everyone.

What's motivating everyone I think it is this, you know, again you having a certain extent this sort of this unsophisticated sort of, you know, teenage boy mentality of many of the decision makers, which, you know, thinks that foreign policy is like a game of risk or something like that, or are thinking, you know, in these terms, we haven't had serious trade policies in that extractive sense since he almost shocked, the finance minister of the Third Reich, you know, trying to think of other territories in those kinds of terms.

I think maybe that's not fully in people's heads in the current American administration, but it is unsophisticated in the sense that it doesn't recognize the mutual gain.

We live here in a border region where we know how much our lives are enriched by easy access and the exchange of ideas and people and goods.

And I'm interested in hearing, you know, about the experiences that small businesses may be having in terms of feeling the impacts already, because this is something that, you know, it's something that we know by the data that New York State's largest customer is Canadians and that, you know, tourism is dependent on Canadian tourism.

But, these are all things that we know about in border regions.

And we've heard, you know, state governors like the governor of Illinois or the governor of Minnesota State, very clearly, how damaging this kind of rhetoric and the tariffs have been for their states and how much they share their interests with the neighboring Canadian provinces.

But there's been dead silence of course, from Albany, let alone our, you know, federal representatives who should be, you know, Congress has the legislative authority under article one of the Constitution to set tariffs.

They've delegated that and if anything, have broaden the delegation, allowing all kinds of emergencies powers to be exerted by the executive branch.

But if people are being damaged, if people are getting their businesses hurt, they should be letting that known to all of our local and state representatives.

Six weeks ago, we talked to the brand ambassador for Lakewood Vineyards on Seneca Lake.

And this is just kind of an example of what Rob is talking about.

They had worked for a long time to get their wines into Ontario, into Canadian markets, and they were weeks away from that first shipment.

And then the tariffs happened and they got a phone call and they basically said, don't bother, leave the wine in the warehouse.

Don't bring it across the border here.

I have a friend who lives in Newfoundland who sent me, sent a picture of an empty American section shelves in her liquor store.

So, those are small examples.

We'll see over time if more of this builds and if there is more pain, as Doctor Shim says, I want to listen to just to kind of give you a sense of what this what sort of in the culture in Canada.

So you've got this national election, the snap election that's now been called by Prime Minister Carney.

it's it's essentially it's liberal liberals and conservatives.

There's the New Democratic Party, which is polling around 8 to 12%, but you have Pierre Poilievre leading the conservatives.

You have Mark Carney leading the Liberal Party in Canada.

And in this ad that Carney and his team put out, Carney is wearing a Canadian hockey jersey.

He's on the bench kind of coaching up the Canadian team and up walks up and walking up.

Next to him is Mike Myers, a long time actor.

Americans know him as Austin Powers.

Of course, he was on SNL, Wayne's World, well, he's Canadian born, and in this ad, it's pretty clever, I think, because Carney has been dealing with some taking some hits for living abroad a bit.

And Mike Myers, you know, moved to the United States and you hear them talk about what it means to be a true Canadian, kind of cheekily, but then they get to the core of the issue at the end.

Mister Prime Minister Mike Myers, what are you doing here?

I just thought I'd come up and check on things.

You live in the States?

Yeah, but I'll always be Canadian.

But you live in the States?

Yeah.

So do you remember Mr.

Dress Up, the children's show on CBC?

What were the names?

And Mr.

Dress, that's two puppet friends, Casey and Finnegan.

But the spud.

Howie.

Mika.

Capital, Saskatchewan.

Regina.

Tragically hip.

You're a defenseman defending a two on one.

What do you do?

Take away the pass.

Obviously.

What are the two seasons in Toronto?

Winter and.

That's oh we didn't get to the end of the clip.

oh I'm sorry.

Oh yeah.

Well at the end of the clip there, which we don't hear is then Mike Myers, Carney essentially says to Mike Myers, you know, you really are Canadian.

And Mike Myers says, yes, but will there always be a Canada?

And Mark Carney says there will always be a Canada.

No one will ever take that away.

And that's where you see, Mike Myers is wearing a jersey with the number 51 and the name never on it.

And that's the ad.

And so they're trying to kind of send a message that that they're taking it seriously.

Rob, from your perspective, do you think Canadians are past the point of laughing about this?

Is there anger about this issue?

I think it varies, obviously, but, there's a wide range of opinion.

There's no monolithic opinion in any particular country.

I think it is interesting as you've mentioned in the intro, it's the dramatic turn into fortunes, where it looked like the liberals were going to head for total defeat, complete defeat, because they've been in power now for such a long time, and there's just fatigue and a sense of needing a change.

But it's actually the sort of amazing thing where this the the U.S. intervention basically has changed the politics all around and the sort of populist kind of politics that Pierre Poilievre practices, has just been discredited.

Right?

I mean, he was running on the slogan of Canada first.

He was kind of like this sort of mini me make Canada great again.

Now he says he's distanced.

He is not Trump.

He is not aligned with Trump.

He's not a Trump supporter.

Paul ever said that.

Yes, yes.

I mean, but you're saying much of his campaign looked like.

Right, if you're appealing for that same base because there is that same sort of less educated male kind of segment of the population that, isn't interested in policy and is interested in sort of being entertained by politicians and thinking it more like wrestling, like pro wrestling.

And that's that's been a recipe for success in many country.

But that's, that's where they're going to say you're being elitist, that to say that less educated voters don't really understand policy, they just want to see politics be entertaining.

That's why Trump won.

That's why Paul was on the rise.

They're saying that's that's an elitist view and that's why the well-educated candidates are losing.

What do you think?

I can say that, that's fine if I don't.

You know, I facts aren't feelings as they say.

You know, I don't really care if people's feelings are hurt.

This kind of policy, again, foreign policy of the United States right now is something that's ruining people's lives.

Again, it's part of this larger attack on the rule of law and on the Constitution and on America's strengths as a center of higher education and of biomedical research.

There are all these things where people's lives are being ruined.

A whole generation of the most talented, best in the brightest who are looking to cure cancer.

They've had their PhDs now rejected.

The universities are being gutted.

People's lives are being ruined.

Americans are going to be poorer and richer and less rich.

Right.

And and and less healthy and sicker.

and in, you know, again, in very short time and, you know, if people don't want to recognize that, that reality that's heading right towards us, and want to insist that, you know, somehow that, that their feelings matter and that their opinions are just as good if they don't want to confront the consequences of their poor choices, then they're going to have to learn the lesson the hard way.

You know, I'm just trying to see the world and present the data as I see it.

You know, the opinion polls are clear that, again, the base of support, for, for the MAGA movement is among non-college-educated and it tilts towards males over females.

A little bit of a fact check there.

That is correct.

the racial and ethnicity polarization actually got more narrow in the last election.

We became less polarized by race, which is kind of not the intuitive thing that a lot of people assume.

But we became more polarized by education attainment precisely, and especially in voters under the age of 40 and especially under the age of 30.

There's a bigger gender gap than there is.

Yes.

So that's absolutely correct.

And that's something we've seen everywhere in Germany in the last German elections.

That's even more extreme pattern of that kind of dynamic.

So after we take our only break, we'll come back with Doctor Rob sham.

Rob is a professor at Suny Brockport, Canadian born.

He's worked on international trade policy, been teaching on international policy for years.

And, we're going to take some of your feedback on these issues as we talk about this dynamic between the United States and Canada.

Obviously, it's a trade war, but it has bubbled into this situation where President Trump himself said four days ago, no, I mean, his administration is serious.

And just as they said about Greenland, where they said, one way or another, we're going to get it, they view Canada the same way, and the Canadian government is also taking that seriously.

We want to join the conversation.

It's eight, four, 4295 talk.

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If you call from Rochester 2639994, email the program connections at six.

I talk.

Coming up in our second hour, it's our first chance to sit down with the new dean of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

Kate Sheeran is just the eighth dean in 100 years of the school, and she is the first woman to hold that position.

We'll talk to her about her time as a student at Eastman and now as Dean, what she wants to do next.

That's next hour on connections.

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All right.

Let's welcome some of your feedback here.

Kathy and Kylie says, Dear Evan and Megan, I saw a post about six months ago that pointed out Trump's fixation on Canada and on Greenland and on the Panama Canal, and the post said that his fixation can best be understood by looking at Putin.

More ports on the Arctic Canada would give Russia more access and control of that area.

Russia would love to have a port in the middle of the Atlantic, Greenland, Russia wants to use the Panama Canal, which it cannot currently do.

It all goes back to Putin, Kathy says.

What do you think, Graham?

Well, again, it's hard to see how America's interests are being served by, again, threatening Canada and calling it the 51st state.

Who does clearly benefit from that?

XI Jinping and Vladimir Putin, this is clearly that.

This is the kind of rhetoric that they've always said that, you know, the democracies are hypocrites, that everybody wants to think of territorial grind, aggrandizement, that that's normal, that the kind of attitude that Putin had towards Ukraine, is not aberrational is not a threat to security.

It's the same way as the American attitude towards Canada.

and again, this is just part of the whole undermining of, of of what we expect from American foreign policy of standing up for your friends and allies.

And instead, as again, French Senator Chloe Mallory made this amazing speech where he says that, quote, Trump's message is that there is no point in being his ally, since he will not defend you, that he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies, and he will threaten you to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.

European conservative politicians like Senator Mallory or incoming Chancellor Mertz in Germany, they're the ones who are most crystal clear about how this kind of rhetoric only makes sense as part of this joint effort by Putin and Trump to, to advance their agenda and not the agenda of the democracies, Patrick says.

Small businesses, medium businesses, even corporate leaders should be outraged about all the extra amount of work they have to do just to deal with what we can describe as a teenage boy mentality of international relations.

And it's astonishing.

Patrick goes on to say, Crown Royal, what's going to happen to the price of my Canadian whiskey?

I'm I'm going to edit him.

Not happy about it.

Well, again, I think the, the business aspect is again, it just seems so clear right there.

There's so many things happening at the same time.

Right?

In the foreign policy area, the most obvious situation is that as David Brooks, the conservative columnist for The New York Times, wrote last week, America's reputation is shot, right?

Because this is just so unpleasant.

Even America's most severe critics would have to concede in the past that while America did stand up for its friends and allies, maybe some of those friends and allies were unsavory.

But at least, you know, you conceded that America stood up for its friends and allies, and the fact that the reputation is shot on a foreign policy area that parallels the damage, obviously economically, that, that that, again, I think is particularly clear when you live in a border region.

All right.

I want to ask you about revising international boundaries.

the New York Times reports that Trump's team has said in calls to Canadian leaders that Trump wants to tear up the Great Lakes agreements and the conventions between the two nations that lay out how they share and manage Lake Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario.

How important are the boundaries with rivers and lakes with Canada?

What are you watching there?

I think what's interesting, perhaps there in terms of what's damaging, literally the, the Great Lakes is actually being in the other part.

It's something that that you maybe haven't thought about is the extreme cutbacks, of EPA offices in the region.

as part of DOJ's efforts to, to basically, got all federal state capacity, federal government capacity.

They've been closing offices.

the water quality in the Great Lakes are going to be impacted.

The efforts to control zebra mussels and exotic species, is being destroyed.

I think that's actually going to have much more of an immediate impact than, again, this kayfabe about changing lines on a map or renaming potential, the, bodies of water or anything like that.

but in the in the event that Trump backs off full annexation and set and seeks to have full control over the Great Lakes, I mean, that's a serious issue there too, right?

I mean, sometimes you ask your parents for 20 bucks when you really need ten, and I wonder if he's got some resource goals in the same way that he did in Ukraine with precious minerals.

Does he want I don't I don't I mean what's he what's he going to what resources in the Great Lakes are we talking about?

I mean the fisheries are there, but I don't think there's an urge to change the distribution or anything.

I think it's it's this is symbolic.

I think when you're talking about, again, this teenage boy mentality, as the listener said of let's look at the map, let's draw the lines differently.

That'll make us feel better.

That that'll make up for the fact that some girl rejected me ten years ago.

maybe some Canadian girl, good looking girl.

That'll show up.

You're going.

You're getting far afield here.

This is not what I expected, but it's hard to understand.

Right.

Again, it is.

And it's.

And we give too much credit.

I think it's the scene washing.

Right.

Because there is no logical again part of the same washing is to say oh okay.

There are minerals.

There are.

He's playing 40 chess here.

Right.

Exactly 40 chess.

And it's not, it's just it's two guys, you know, shooting the s on the radio.

You know, it's it's like these people are just hanging out.

It's just like the podcasting that except for they got all the power.

They have all the power, right?

They and they have the attention of the young men, listeners that are key, that demographic.

Okay.

let's get some other feedback here.

Alan says wants to know what the heck happened to Wayne Gretzky.

I don't know if Rob can solve that question.

when I think Alan is saying, is he surprised that Wayne Gretzky is a from what I think, what I can tell a pretty, loudly throated Trump supporter and has moved pretty far to the right politically.

Is that correct?

I don't really know.

He's largely apolitical, but he did wear one of the MAGA hats, I think, publicly at one point.

So so, you know, whatever Rob is not Wayne Gretzky's keeper.

Alan.

Yes.

He can't speak for that.

He can't speak for that.

but Patrick wanted to follow up and say, don't touch my Great Lakes.

He says, Evan, this is the the very reason that Patrick started reaching out to the program as a listener.

He said it was when the waterway was being managed in a manner that was beneficial to shipping, but costly to the southern shore owners.

He said.

this is an issue that is very deep to property owners, the management of the resources, management of the water.

so Patrick says, don't touch my Great Lakes.

You know, he's making that point.

And, another listener saying that, it could be in response to some of the water crises out West and that the Great Lakes will become even more valuable.

Rob, there are, again, the water issues.

Also, I think it's the Columbia River, treaty that there are were ongoing negotiations.

So that's part of, I think, where the sort of that idea due to these again, these sorts of technical negotiations that normally people just don't pay any attention to.

You know, there are, again, stakeholders living on the water's edge.

And, you know, again, having some sort of, you know, input into the sort of what the management issues are.

and those are ongoing processes.

but again, the point is, is that that can be harnessed also for populist politics.

Gary writes to the program to say, regarding Canada, the challenges that your guest thinks like a diplomat and Trump negotiates like a businessman.

And a fake businessman on TV, you know, somebody who bankrupted himself six times running casinos?

that's that's what we're seeing, right?

Again, it's this showmanship, this this complete non this complete lack of business sense.

There's a non understanding of that.

A deficit in trade in goods means that, you know Canadians are making up for it by buying oddly enough real estate.

There are snowbirds buying condos in Florida.

That's the assets that balance out the different train goods.

That's in no way a subsidy.

It's, it's free trade.

It's not goods being stuffed.

Anybody down anybody's throats, you know, it's mutual exchange.

It's one of the things it's incoming investment from Canada to the U.S..

It's it's a fear of anything that's a subsidy going the other way.

You could argue, and it's just complete economic illiteracy.

Nothing business like about it, believe me.

I'm just going to keep cycling through the feedback.

David, who lives in Vancouver now listening on the same mobile app, says the response to Trump's threats in Canada is really obvious in the stores here.

He says, I was grocery shopping just this morning.

All of the products made in Canada are now prominently displayed.

American imports are mostly staying on the shelves.

California produce is now mostly replaced with Mexican oranges.

Are now from Morocco.

Even?

Very surprising, but it makes sense given Canadians high animosity toward the United States.

Now, I've been feeling very lucky to have moved to Canada nearly 30 years ago simply to take a job at Queen's.

You at the time, no better reason.

since 2016, though, I felt like it was one of the best decisions of my life, being insulated from the political turmoil south of the border.

And, so, Rob, I mean, I guess that again, these are anecdotes, what we're seeing in the stores, we're going to have to see data.

What's the data you're going to be looking for that will say the tariff escalation, the trade war is now having a truly painful effect.

What are you looking at?

Well, as we always, you know, say again, what we learned from economic history is that nobody wins from a trade war.

We will all become poorer.

and, and again, I think some of the most severe effects are going to be first, felt in the US in terms of, again, already, the first round of tariffs, included increased tariffs on lumber.

that's directly going to affect the costs of new housing.

and and again, we are looking out for on April 2nd, there's supposed to be a new round of reciprocal tariffs.

And again, we'll see how much more inflation and, inflationary impact is going to, to, to to be coming in online and in quite a short time span.

prio right to say, referencing Doctor Sharma's invocation of that blockbuster story yesterday, Atlantic, in which the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed that he was accidentally included on a signal chat signal.

Is the technology the platform, the app that the Trump team is using to communicate, apparently with each other?

And, also seems to be conducting serious high level meetings that will then delete from the record as opposed to staying on the record.

But the bigger story here is that after years of saying that, you know, Hillary Clinton's emails, we have to protect sensitive information data, they accidentally included somebody who's not in the government as they planned out the attack in Yemen on the Houthis.

And Jeffrey Goldberg eventually had to say, hey, guys, I don't think I'm supposed to be in this chat.

And now it has blown into this huge scandal.

But Priya says leaking to Goldberg was actually smart strategy.

It wasn't a mistake that it was probably intentional.

Again, this is, I think, sane washing.

I mean, this is not surprising that you that you appoint a cable news host as secretary of defense, as the leader of one of the largest organizations, just as a complex management channel, the biggest military in the history of the world.

Yes.

Yeah.

And you expect what would you expect for that kind of, again, performative clown, in that position to end up doing, that would be completely predictable.

I think from that point of view, I don't think we need to again, think of this as 4D chess.

It's is, you know, again, a conscious decision.

Again, we see in authoritarian regimes, you pick people who are incompetent but loyal, and then who will again sort of generate fan enthusiasm that you can that, that, that is that, that your base identifies with.

Oh, he's one of us.

He's just like me.

I see him on the television.

but then, you know, you f around and you find out what he does right?

This is a whole new side of Doctor Shim.

You're.

I think you've really been pushed.

and you're.

And you came here ready?

To be blunt, I prefer bluntness, by the way.

I prefer to know what people really think.

Well, I'm just trying to, you know, again, I have, you know, if you disinvite me, that's fine.

It's.

No, no, no, just inviting.

But I think part of what you're asking everyone to do is to stop trying to sein wash in your terms, or to sort of imbue these really intelligent motives behind what most people can see is madness.

It's it's, you know, take these things at face value.

We're talking about, you know, what does it mean to to claim that the United States is the 51st state?

This is basically proposing an Anschluss, right?

I mean, I don't know, I grew up watching The Sound of Music.

I personally didn't identify with Ralf as the key character and the hero of the movie, but this apparently is the mentality of the people in the United States government right now.

And again, I don't think it's productive to try to impute strategy or long term gains or goals or try to understand what's actually happening.

It's to just say that, yeah, you've got Rolf running the government right now.

Maybe you should do something about that before your economy craters.

And again, more people get hurt.

I would say regarding Goldberg and that story, we're going to talk more about that tomorrow on this program.

But if just ask yourself if if you had seen this story and it was if you're a Trump supporter and if you'd seen the story and was the Biden administration, their team would done the exact same thing.

Would you have said, you know, even though this looks like a massive security breach and probably isn't a one off, and maybe we've put national secrets at risk in a way that is unprecedented.

I'm going to assume that Biden is playing 40 chess, and there must be a good motive here.

And it wasn't a mistake.

It was actually intentional.

Despite the white House admitting it was a mistake yesterday.

So if you're bending over backwards to do that now, would you have done that if the president was from a different party?

And if the answer is no, just realize we're all human.

We all have confirmation bias.

and try to check that try to check biases.

I mean, I'm not great at check them out and biases.

We all have to do a better job of that.

But that's what I would ask you.

We're going to talk more about that story tomorrow.

One more question from a listener wants to know are any tariffs a good idea.

What do you think?

Doctor Shim that's a good question.

Right.

Again the point is, is that you know, what Canada is going to be doing is going to impose retaliatory tariffs.

And there are going to be economists who say that they shouldn't do that.

Right.

But there is, again, the hope.

Like I said, nobody wins a tariff or a trade war.

And it's a matter of but it takes a lot of discipline to just stand there and take the punches.

Right?

I mean, sort of it's kind of rational that that guy will get tired and he's going to maybe break his hand.

And if you throw a punch, you might break your hand.

So you just stand there.

But that is not certainly going to be the mentality of a hockey playing country.

maybe some other of America's other trading partners will adopt a more supine approach, but I think you will see in, in Canada that the decision is that you have to launch, countervailing tariffs, maybe even export taxes like the premier of Ontario suggested with electricity.

And as others have suggested that, you know, again, that Canada should impose an export tax on oil or on potash, the fertilizer that American farms, is, are dependent upon, economic force does not just flow in one direction.

and, and again, the idea that you said of, of things being easy to abandon, alliances and arrangements being easy to abandon.

It's it's just a complete fallacy.

Right.

It's part of the larger mentality.

And the assumption and premise is that America is being ripped off by the international economic system, that, again, America itself is built.

and, you know, if people want to change that situation, they're going to have to touch the hot stove and realize that you're just hurting yourself.

Commenter on watching on YouTube says, Canada's doing great by making sure the words of Trump be treated seriously, even if he uses confusion and unserious seriousness as a tactic.

It's immature and dangerous and very unprofessional.

Well, doctor Rob Shrum, professor at Suny Brockport, you will be welcome back here whenever it's convenient for you.

I enjoyed the conversation every time.

Thank you for making time for this program to thanks.

Allowing for allowing me to vent.

It's a public square.

You're only allowed to talk sometimes you people are allowed to do say what they want to say.

That doctor Rob sham from Brockport.

We got more connections coming up in a moment.

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