At Issue - Trump’s threats and Carney’s pushback | Analysis from Washington

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

CBC’s new weekly podcast, Two Blocks from the White House, takes a clear-eyed look at what’s happening in the U.S. right now and what it means for Canadians. This week Washington correspondents Paul Hunter, Katie Simpson and Willy Lowry digest Prime Minister Mark Carney’s striking remarks at the World Economic Forum, talk about the President’s latest moves on Greenland, and  explore what this moment could reveal about where Canada-U.S. relations are headed. Find and follow Two Blocks from the White House wherever you get your podcasts, or here: https://link.mgln.ai/2BFTWHxAtIssue

Okay, I don't know if you've been noticing this or not, but one of the more surprising trends in pop culture right now is betting. Like if you were watching the Golden Gloves, for example, betting company Polymarket, they ran this ticker of popular bets on who would win the award, like it was like right there on the screen. I'm Alameh Abdul Mahmoud, and this week on commotion, I talked to some culture critics about why betting feels like it's everywhere, why everyone wants to take a gamble on who's going to win an Oscar, on who's going to be the most Google celebrity of the year. You can find and follow commotion on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. This is a CBC podcast. Hey there, we're back with another episode for you today from a brand new weekly podcast from our reporters in Washington. It's called two blocks from the White House because our office, the CBC office, is about two blocks from the White House. American politics with Canadian contexts. Every Wednesday, Paul Hunter and Katie Simpson, my friends, will sit down with their colleagues to talk through some of the big stories in the U.S. Capitol.

ask the big question, what does it mean for Canada? You'll get smart, unscripted conversations from reporters with a foot in both countries and a press pass to the White House. Now, here's this week's episode of two blocks from the White House. Have a listen. We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. Mark Carney, Canada's Prime Minister with some strong words about the world as it is in his speech and doubt, on Tuesday. And while he didn't explicitly mention Donald Trump, he was clearly talking about the ways the U.S. is changing the world order under his leadership. The middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu. We're on the menu. Katie, Willie, we are

recording this podcast just a few hours after Carney's speech, but I think it's safe to say this is a pretty big departure from the kind of language we're used to hearing at the World Economic Forum. Yeah, this is the first time, at least that I've heard. A world leader really boil it down in such simple terms to say, yes. In this moment, it is as alarming as you think it is. Yes, it is as alarming as you feel it is. It is sort of the reality check that perhaps no one really wanted to hear, but it is resonating, at least in this moment, is the reality check perhaps that the world needed to hear. To say it out loud. Yeah, what a stark and sobering assessment of where the world currently is. And quite frankly, a little chilling. I think he said what a lot of people are saying and are thinking, but hearing it out loud at Davos, a little unnerving. Today, on two blocks from the White House, which is where we're all sitting right now, we're going to dive into all of this talk in Washington.

and what it all means for Greenland, Europe, and Canada. I'm Paul Hunter. I'm Katie Simpson. And I'm Willie Lowry. Over the weekend, not only did Donald Trump threaten to use tariffs to punish countries opposed to his plans for Greenland, but he also suggested to Norway's president that he, Donald Trump, didn't need to, quote, think purely of peace after not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Willie, on Greenland, what's the latest out of the White House? House on Trump's threat to making air quotes here, acquire it.

Well, just a few minutes before we sat down here to record, Trump said himself when asked. How far are you willing to go to acquire green? You'll find out. The White House is messaging around Trump, but essentially a lot of administration officials are saying, take Trump at his work. Just watch me almost. I was going to have that vibe when he said it. it had it invoked that moment, a very Canadian moment. What do you make, Katie, of this tariff threat against EU countries?

It's a powerful hammer. I mean, is it effective? Here's the thing. You know who it gives a political advantage to in this moment? It's Russian President Vladimir Putin. You have NATO allies fighting over something that isn't necessarily a pressing security concern despite what Donald Trump says and how he frames it. And it's at this moment where,

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to engage in this illegal, unprompted war on Ukraine. And in this moment when all of these NATO allies are supposed to be rallying beside Ukraine, which is a NATO ally, we're seeing them fighting, distracted, putting their sort of energy into sort of dealing with something else rather than dealing with the conflict that continues to rip Europe to shreds. It's hard not to imagine Vladimir Putin watching Trump the way we all watch Trump and trying to assess for himself what's going on. on, isn't it? Willie, tariffs aside, the U.S. threats against Greenland are being greeted with opposition

by many NATO member countries. What does this mean for the future of NATO? Well, I think the future of NATO is very much at stake. If you look and see how the European countries are reacting, their messaging is essentially that this is an existential crisis. Canada, too. And Trump's point in a lot of this is that the U.S. in many ways is NATO. the success of NATO is built upon the U.S.'s military might. They need us. We don't need them. And I think there is an element, of course, of truth to that. And I think European leaders and NATO members realize that. And they're looking, searching for ways to appease Trump without acquiescing and giving him Greenland. Because, of course, that would be a violation of Article 5 of NATO, which is the very foundational.

element of it, which is if the sovereignty of another country within NATO is attacked, we will all rally to the defense of that country. But NATO obviously didn't envision that that attack would come from within. Yeah. And the thing is that it really seems that, you know, NATO members are putting down a hard line against Trump in ways we haven't seen them, put a hard line down against Trump. We're seeing it in the text messages that Trump is publishing on social media. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, saying, you know, I don't understand. what you're doing on Greenland, that kind of thing. The elevated language from Prime Minister Mark Carney.

We're in a situation where so many of these leaders take a do not harm, do not make things worse approach to Trump. But they're at this point where these threats against Greenland are serious enough that they are putting down that red line in ways we haven't seen them put down the red line in any sort of similar situation. But at the same time, they're saying come for dinner. Yeah. Let's be friends. Let's try and deal with it because Trump is malleable though, right? Right? That's the lesson they think. And how relieved do we think Carney is that his text messages weren't.

Oh. And I bet he's going to be, you know, thinking twice the next time he shoots. He's going to get in there and try and delete. Can I delete? Does it delete on my phone or does it only delete on his phone? Or how do I get it deleted just in case? Exactly. On Monday night, Danish MP Rasmus Yarlow was very explicit about the response America should expect if things continue to. to escalate vis-a-vis Greenland? We will, of course, defend Greenland. If there is an evasion by American troops, it would be a war, and we would be fighting against each other. We know that Americans are stronger than us,

and you have a much stronger military than ours, but it is our duty to defend our land and our people. You know, I think I used the word sobering at the end of our chat last week, and I'm going to use it again after hearing that clip. Like, it makes, like, where is all this going? Absolutely. Sobering, but also what a stark analysis of where we currently are and the implications of what that means. If the Danes go to war, what does that mean for Canada? Article 5. Exactly. It's scary, isn't it? And the fact that this is actually like a conversation that's happening in reality is that, again, it is so deeply alarming that, you know, people on American news outlets think that this is a legitimate enough concern that they're having lawmakers come on and talk about. this as a possibility. And when you hear Mark Carney and the reality check, I think was the term

you used, Katie, this is a reality check as well. This could be war. Yeah, we are in choppy waters. Speaking of Carney, our CBC colleagues have reported that the prime minister is weighing the possibility of sending Canadian troops to join in military exercises alongside NATO allies. I'll note as well that as part of NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command, And historic allies, Canada and the U.S. are this week jointly sending together military aircraft to Greenland for long ago approved drills. Funny world, this funny time we're in. We are recording this podcast on Tuesday afternoon just after Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos about the importance of sovereignty and Canada's commitment to NATO's Article 5. Have he talked about the need for middle powers like Canada to face reality?

Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised. Call it what it is. A system of intensifying great power rivalry where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as coercion. Katie, Willie, he didn't invite Trump to dinner to pick up on that. He was forceful in that speech. It's a remarkable thing to hear this kind of language out loud at this time, directly or indirectly, by name or not by name, but pointed at Donald Trump. And it sort of speaks to the seriousness, the grave nature of this moment, at least from the perspective of these world leaders who are stepping out and standing out and saying this.

And sort of my assessment of what Carney has said has nothing to do with the fact that he's a Canadian prime minister. If any other world leader stood up and said this, I would have the same sort of response and the same sort of analysis. And I think that it again illustrates that Mark Carney and others are signaling that the world needs to get used to the fact that the securities we've had and the alliances we've had in the past are very dramatically shifting. He calls it a rupture. It's not a transition. It's a rupture. And everyone sort of needs to get on board and try to determine what it is they can. can do to survive this rupture and make sure that their countries, their people, their economies

are able to make it through this and still adapt to how things are going to change. The last 75 years, the rules-based order that we've all sort of been living in since the end of World War 2, that is collapsing and it's going away in front of our eyes. You keep sort of jump in, you keep saying collapsing present tense. I think what he's saying is it has collapsed. It's collapse. Yeah. This is not what you can do. I can't say that.

It's what you must do. You can wish and you can dream that things were different, but it is not. Yeah. And I think as journalists, certainly, you know, we try not to be alarmists. But it's clear that we are in a moment. And as he said, essentially, the world as we knew it, know it is over in that alliances are shifting. And we have to rethink our relationships. And in many ways, I think this speech, as stark and somber as it was, it was also an appeal and appeal to these middle powers like Canada that if they are going to succeed, if they are going to flourish, they need to rally together.

I think mixed into all of that is this notion again that like what? That's why it's so hard, I think, for people and for countries to wrap their collective heads around this, it's like, this is our friend, the United States that is doing this. And it's sort of in some ways it feels so strange going about your daily life and going about your normal routines in this moment where things feel so strange. I don't know how to describe it other than it feels like we were living sort of in this surreal moment. Things are so normal in one sense of the word. And at the same time, everything sort of is changing and sort of just collapsing or has collapsed. We were talking even before Carney's speech in Davos, right? For some reason this morning, there was a weight, an energy to the events of the past call it 72 hours.

Something about Trump's, you know, social media spree over the last few days that it felt like something was kind of happening. And in many ways, the prime minister kind of articulated it for us. Not long after Trump reposted that AI image of North America with the start. and stripes all over Canada and Greenland. And I think if you look carefully, Cuba and Venezuela. How do you think Carney's message will be received here in Washington? Well, I was actually surprised it did not come up at that news conference at the White House today. Not once. No, I know that the White House does pay attention to what comes out of Canada and what Canadian leaders are saying. I know that through sources that they do pay, particularly the U.S.

Embassy in Ottawa, pays very close attention to the Canadian media and pays very close attention to the messaging from Carney. I'm actually surprised that the messaging from Trump directly about the Canadian deal with China that Mark Carney announced on his visit to Beijing, that Trump had the reaction that he sort of did because traditionally the United States is trying to sort of prevent its allies from, you know, sort of getting closer to China in certain ways, particularly when it comes to trade and when it comes to, you know, auto trade and specifically with these Chinese eVs, that kind of thing. But I think it will be interesting. to follow Donald Trump's social media over the next 24 hours.

And, you know, if there is any sort of crossing of the path of Canadian and American officials at Davos. But less we forget, Trump has often reacted at first positively. For instance, to Ontario's ad with Reagan's voices, he was asked about it. And he said, it's a good ad. If I were in their shoes, I would have done the same thing. And then, of course, he turned. He turned, right? So just because his reaction thus far to Canada's deal with China has been positive,

essentially saying, again, if I were in his shoes, I would do the same thing. Canada should be making deals. It doesn't mean that's the way he's going to think tomorrow. And I'll just add that China EV's deal kind of was a preview almost of the messaging today, wasn't it? It's beyond time. Now is the time to look elsewhere to make new plans. Look, a lot more to talk about, including how the idea of emergency has been. used to justify all kinds of U.S. actions and how it could be used in the future.

But first, for anyone listening on Spotify, please leave us a note in the comment section. Tell us what you think of the podcast and tell us what you want to hear about in 2026. Or you can also send an email to WashingtonPod, all one word, at cbc.ca. That's Washingtonpod at cbc.ca. And don't forget to hit follow so you never miss an episode. Choose clicks. Choose the algorithm. Choose doom scrolling at 3am, eyes tired, brain rewired.

Choose headlines that scream. Choose fake friends, deepfakes, bots, and comment wars that never end. Choose truth bent and broken until you can't tell up from down or write from wrong. Choose the chaos. Choose the noise. Or don't. Choose news, not noise. CBC News.

Well, Trump and his inner circle seem to figured out that if there is an emergency, they, i.e. the executive office, aka the president and his inner circle, are awarded more power. In times of emergency, they get to do more. It's the law of the land. A law meant to enable fast action by presidents when fast action is what's needed. So who by law decides when there's an emergency? The president. Tada. And that is how Trump is able to act in this way. He and his team have realized that it's a self-fulfilling profit. You want the power. You need an emergency. Who decides if it's an emergency, you do. So now you have the power. It's that simple, magical in some ways, isn't it? Yeah. And it's, it's sort of, the Trump administration has explored it in so many different avenues. I cover trade a lot. And when we get into, you know, the tariffs and we'll talk about this in a bit, I'm certain, you know, declaring an emergency, you have additional powers. You can shore up the economy in ways that, you know,

You can only do in an emergency. Without needing, you know, the nuisance of Congress to weigh in. No, and there's like, what is the threshold? What, there's no sort of defined threshold for what an emergency is. It's up to the president to define what that emergency is. And so the Trump administration has figured this out, that this is, you know, something that they can keep in their back pocket to push ahead with their agenda with, where the norms, the checks and balances that would normally keep a president more restraint,

those have vanished. Every president gets stymied by Congress, or they say they do, right? And it's almost like he can picture, you know, there's a lot of talk in the run-up to the election a year or so ago. They'd been waiting. Now they knew where the bathroom is in the White House and the levers of power, how to get stuff done. And remember on day one with that stack of DO's executive orders, like they were ready and they knew what to do and they've been doing it ever since. Yeah, they've effectively neutered Congress, right? It's supposed to be these co-equal branches of power, but they're using this really like an avalanche of executive orders and of these, you know, emergency powers in a way that allows them to essentially do what they want.

Legally, because they can, right? That's what they've figured out. You're also hearing the word emergency come up with these ice raids, if that's the right word in Minneapolis. I mean, I don't think you could call them raids at this point. There are something like 3,000 ice officers in Minneapolis, dwarfing the number of actual Minneapolis police officers. And then you're seeing and hearing the president use the threat of the Insurrection Act of 1807 to essentially, again, give cause and justification for the administration

to use military force to subdue these protests. It's a pretty significant move. We haven't seen a president use the act since. 1992 with the LA riots. And I think, again, it shows you the administration has figured out that, you know, this magical word, as you said, emergency allows them to do almost anything they want. Legally. And that's the thing. And I do wonder about people in this country who think, well, wait a don't we created these laws for a reason. But we didn't think that somebody would take advantage of them in the way, I think, and I mean that just in the, I guess, the dictionary sense of the word.

is using the laws as they're written to do the things that he wants to do. And I just think that when their laws were written, I don't think they anticipated a president like Donald Trump. A little bit like NATO. Perhaps. Indeed. And don't forget, it was just over a year ago that Trump said there was an emergency in Canada and Mexico as a way of justifying tariffs, Katie. Yeah. So that was one of the first things that Donald Trump sort of tackled with his trade agenda and his economic agendas, going after two of his closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico. He declared. He declared. that there was a national emergency on the southern border and the northern border, even though the situations at the north and the south are completely different situations.

In the southern U.S. border a year ago, yeah, there were significant challenges. There were people crossing illegally in huge volumes. The drug trade coming in through Mexico, that is a significant challenge. From the Canadian perspective and along the northern border, the numbers are not even in the same ballpark. It's something that less than 1% of all fentanyl detected or stopped in the United States comes across the northern border. The number of people crossing across the northern border illegally, it's minuscule compared to what's going on in the United States. Yet at the same time, Donald Trump had the emergency power to declare that he would use tariffs to try and force Canada and Mexico to act. And in a lot of ways, the Canadian response is very similar to the way that we've seen other worlds.

leaders try to navigate Donald Trump's tariff threats. Canada also tried to address the concerns that Donald Trump had. Canada says, okay, you know what, even if Canada represents less than 1% of the fentanyl coming across the border, any fentanyl coming across the border is a problem. So let's try and work together. Let's spend a billion dollars trying to fortify the northern border. Did it do anything to solve the tariff problem? No.

However, you have to put a big sort of asterisk beside this because Canada and Mexico were able to secure some tariff relief from these border emergency tariffs. Remember, these are the Kuzma exemption tariffs. So, you know, even though this emergency exists, as long as your good is compliant with the trade deal, you're good to go. You're still fine to do, which sort of undermines the emergency argument that the Trump administration has made about this whole thing, right? And I think the thing about emergency, it's there's, of course, degrees to emergency, but it doesn't really matter, right? Once he uses emergency, he can lop Canada in with Mexico.

And by the way, do you think if every NATO country spent billions more as Trump wants, his desires for Greenland would go away? Nope. Nope. I think we're agreed on that. So now there's a Supreme Court challenge underway that could, emphasis could, pour some cold water on these emergencies. What's this challenge all about? So a number of American businesses who import goods from areas hit by Donald Trump's tariffs.

Remember Liberation Day and the reciprocal tariffs, they were originally called reciprocal. He just put blanket tariffs on trading partners. They challenged him in the court, and lower courts ruled that Donald Trump had exceeded his authority, that the president doesn't actually have the power to do this, that this is actually up to Congress, because Congress is in control of taxation and tariffs are taxes. And so it went before the Supreme Court, and we're waiting for when the Supreme Court will issue its opinion. on this. And so if the Supreme Court rules against Trump and they say, you know what, the president

did exceed his authority, he does not have the power to do this. There could be sort of a huge sort of spectrum of sort of consequences or changes that happen. Could mean the tariffs are no longer allowed to be imposed. It could force the Trump administration to possibly give out refunds. But I want to flag something particularly for Canada. So Canada does have some tariffs that would be affected by the Supreme Court case, depending on which way it goes. And it is those tariffs based on the border emergency and the fentanyl emergency. But these are the tariffs that have the huge exemption. So if you're shipping a good into the United States and it's compliant with Kuzma, you know, you don't have to worry about tariffs. It's all good. It can still trade for free.

The thing is, if those tariffs go away, while Canada will obviously welcome the end of a tariff, the question is what comes next? Trump and his team have said they have a strategy ready to go. They will introduce different tariffs, different measures, licensing fees, and will Canada get hit by different tariffs where they don't have an exemption? That's the big question, because they're not going to put this away. Donald Trump has said this is sort of the path that he is on and he's not going to back down from it. So is Canada going to get hit harder possibly, or maybe.

Maybe not. Maybe there is some miracle and exemptions will continue. But again, that is only if the court rules against the Trump administration. Gosh, it's complicated. What a time to be a small business owner. Oh, my goodness. It would be so hard. Or not even small business order. Even on the refunds, you mentioned the refund. There's a complication thing. But I think this notion that try and try again, right? And if this doesn't work, they will try something again. If that doesn't work, they'll try something else and something else and something else and something else, will you? Oh, I have very little. Why go to me when we had Katie Simpson over here? You know what? I had to cover the renegotiation of NAFTA, and it taught me a lot about trade. But I'll never forget. One last thing about the tariffs.

So Donald Trump, when he announced the reciprocal tariffs, it was in the Rose Garden. And Trump has got his big board up, and we're trying to, we're sort of far back. and my vision is horrible I can't really see. And we're trying to figure out, okay, where's Canada? Where's Canada on this list? And someone from the White House staff starts handing out the list, basically, of all the countries that are going to be hit. And me and my colleague from the Canadian press are standing there going through like eight pages,

just flipping, flipping, flipping, flipping, flipping, and then we realized, oh, my God, Canada's not in here. Canada's not in here. What is going on? And so we had to try and track down someone from the White House. Is there a reason why Canada is in here? Has Canada been spared from this? What's going on here?

and it was that Canada wasn't going to be included in this batch of sort of tariffs. And it just sort of spoke to the fact that Canada had been anticipating that it would be hit in these reciprocal tariffs. And no one knew until the Trump administration was handing out the paper that that was going to be the case. But Greenland was, I believe. I don't remember. You know what? I don't remember that. As was the beautiful island of that reunion.

I think, speaking of Rose Garden, I was there when the, as Trump would call it, the U.S. MCA, as we call Kuzma was signed off on. And on that day, I recollect he said it was a great deal. The greatest deal. The gold standard. Of course, he negotiated it. Yes. But now it's a terrible deal and needs to be renegotiated. You know, as in the year ahead. Look, that's a great place to leave this conversation for now, I would say. But clearly a lot more to talk about. And that's what we'll be doing here every week on two blocks from the White House. Hit follow in the podcast player you're using right now so you never miss an episode. Willie, sobering or not, this was good.

I hope that we can talk about something positive one day. I don't see that happening. Not in here. Not for a little while. Jafers, thanks. Thanks. On that note, thanks to both of you. We'll see you again next week. Thanks, Paul. Thank you.

Sorry. I don't know. You didn't want me to say thank you. I don't want to be the only thank you. That was an episode from two blocks from the White House. To keep up with the latest news coming out of Washington, find and follow our new podcast wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.