The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Canada Missed Out on a Huge Opportunity 

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Canadian nationalism might have won the battle, but Trump will win the war.    Earlier this week, newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, a liberal, voted the White House.     Mark Carney ran a campaign emphasizing Canadian nationalism, which successfully won him the election.    However, nothing will negate the undue stresses Canada’s NATO spending shortfalls and trade surplus have on its relationship with the U.S. Now, President Trump is taking him to task, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words:”  👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: https://youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1…     👉If you can’t get enough of Victor Davis Hanson from The Daily Signal, subscribe to his official YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/victordavishanson7273…     👉He’s also the host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” available wherever you prefer to watch or listen. Links to the show and exclusive content are available on his website: ≈    The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: https://secured.dailysignal.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk. Business. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was newly elected, is visiting Washington. He's been polling sessions with Donald Trump about the so-called trade war and about being a 51st state. Donald Trump did not like Prime Minister Trudeau, who did not like Donald Trump. He was so frustrated by the surpluses that Canada kept racking up that he would troll Canada. And of course, Trudeau took that very seriously. Then there was an election.

Trudeau was a failure. Carney was the champion of Canadian nationalism. It was very successful to whip up Canadian nationalism. We were never going to make Canada a 51st state. Carney knew that, but he ran on it. But now he's in a conundrum. He's got to come to the White House. But there's two issues, and they don't look good for Canada.

Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. This week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was newly elected, as the Prime Minister with a majority of seats in the Canadian Parliament is visiting Washington. And as I speak, he's been holding sessions with Donald Trump about the so-called trade war and Trump's trolling of him about being a 51st state. Let me just address that first. Donald Trump did not like Prime Minister Trudeau, who did not like Donald Trump. And he was so frustrated by the surpluses that Canada kept racking up,

and they're on willingness to spend the required NATO 2% of GDP investment in munitions that he would troll Canada and say, were the same language, the same people. We could do a lot better job than this guy. And, of course, he took that very seriously. Then there was an election. Trudeau was a failure. Pouillev, the conservative candidate, had a 20-point lead. He lost it partly because Carney was the...

champion of Canadian nationalism and said, never, we're never going to make a 51st state. Donald Trump has no business doing. It's kind of like what Trump did with Panama and Greenland. It's a way of art of a deal. We got China to the, we kind of made it a little bit more irrelevant in Panama. We've got some reforms going on. Same with Greenland. We were never going to invade either one. We're never going to make Canada a 51st state. You need a majority vote of the Congress. The Congress is never going to a vote to admit Canada because the left would feel it was an infringement upon their sovereignty. We were imperialists, colonialists. The right said, why do we want another New York or Colorado to screw up the country?

So it's not going to happen. Carney knew that, but he ran on it and he whipped up nationalism. And that was fine. That's what politicians do. But now he's in a conundrum. He's got to come to the White House. Trump knows what. But he did. So Trump is reminding him about the 51st state. But there's two issues and they don't look good for Canada. Number one is, in 2014, all the NATO countries promised to spend 2% of GDP. And under Trump's prodding during the first term and then the Ukraine war during Biden's term, it has frightened most of them. And there's only eight of the 32 nations about that have not met their 2% obligation. Canada's one of them, but it's one of the least cooperative of the 32 nations. In other words, it only spends 1.37% of its GDP on defense. It won't kick in another $40 billion to help arm it.

And you can make the argument that it depends on the United States. It looks at that if there's any hostile activity cartels, they're down there in Mexico with the United States between them. and nobody is going to proverbially mess with Canada when the United States has it under its nuclear shield, Alaska, early warnings, you name it. So they know that, and they do not want to spend the money, and they're shorting their other NATO partners, and they're derelict, and they're culpable. The other thing is they're running up a $63 billion with their trade surplus with their partner, and most of it is because they have a thick, sulfurous crude oil that's in the middle.

middle of the country. And it's very convenient for them to go right across the border and sell it to us. And we like it. And we can refine it. We have the refineries that can deal with that type of difficult crude. It'd be very difficult for them to send it all the way to their east or west ports and make the same profit. 95% of their oil comes to us. We're a good customer, in other words. Why would they not then say, we'll try to import more points? poultry, cheese, agricultural products. We can't get down to zero, but we can cut the trade surplus by 20 or 30 billion. You're our neighbor, but they didn't do that.

And so he instead whipped up, it was very successful to whip up Canadian nationalism, very successful to win that election. But then where do you go from that? You go and see Donald Trump and you want to just say, we're not going to be a 51 state, we're not going to be a 51 state. Does he really believe that the majority of people in Congress are going to vote to admit Canada? Nobody wants to do that. So what am I getting at?

He could have had a statesman-like message both during the election and when he saw Trump. He could have said this. Donald Trump is trolling us. We're friends with the United States. He's trying to needle us so that we spend more money on NATO and we lower our surplus, which is growing very big. And we're going to do that. We're going to negotiate.

Don't take him serious. He's just doing this like he did to Panama. We're good friends. He kids us. We kid him. But he didn't do that. He tried to whip it up and it was successful. But once you whip it up and you get that hostility,

then you've got to go deal with him. And then you've got to tell him, I'm not going to spend $40 billion on our defense. We're going to be subsidized you in defense. And we're not going to lower that. That's not going to work. It's not going to work. And so I think that he can say,

he'll leave the meeting and say, I told him we're not going to be a 51st. That was an irrelevant misadventure. It was going nowhere, and he knew it. But the two issues that he knew were important, that they should man up and pay their 2% and help defend not only NATO, but the North American continent,

which they had done brilliantly in the past, he didn't want to talk about. Or he'd say they'd do it in five years. Five years will do it. No, you've already been derelict for 11 years. Or he could have said, we don't run up big surpluses with our friends. We're not Mexico.

We're much closer to you. And we're going to work on this and we're going to try to import. We'll work it down. No. No, he created his nationalist paradigm and got him elected and now he owns it. And it's not going to work with Donald Trump. I wish it would, but it's not. Because if you want to alienate the United States

and you want to take seriously the art of the deal trolling and sort of laugh it off or better yet, the Panamanians knew what they were doing. They were getting too close to China. They were surrendering partial sovereignty, and they backed off. And it's going to be a beautiful relationship with us. But Canada just couldn't do that. And I think they will eventually.

Thank you very much. It's Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content. like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.