The MeidasTouch Podcast - Canadian MP Charlie Angus on Canada Making Trump Pay

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas speaks with Canadian MP Charlie Angus who rips Trump to shreds in this powerful interview. Visit MeidasPlus.com for more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. We've been telling you for a long time that Canada is going elbows up. They are not going to be bullied by the Trump regime. And now we're finally seeing corporate media start to recognize this. For example, the headlines for the past few days from Politico, what other countries are taking away from Trump's battle with Canada? This from USA Today. Canadian cold shoulder. Trump's antics anger our otherwise polite neighbor. You think? From the Washington Post. These Canadians are canceling U.S. trips as

Trump sours relations. In notes explaining why they're not coming, Canadians say farewell for now. And by the way, we told you that while the U.S. Tourism Bureau was expecting that the Canadian boycott would be around 10%, I was saying, no way. I said it's going to be closer to 50 to 75, closer to 100%. I said most Canadians are not coming to the United States unless they absolutely had to. And even if it was 10%, it would have made a massively devastating impact on the United States. So just imagine what actually is happening right now when those numbers start to show themselves in economic reports. Or how about this headline?

How Trump united Canada against him and flipped its election upside down. But despite all of this, the Trump regime is not changing its tone or tune. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Canada for the G7 summit, and he was asked about Donald Trump's desire to annex Canada. And here's what the American Secretary of State said. Do you understand why the Canadians are taking such umbrage at these comments coming from the president? The Canadian government has made their position, how they feel about it, clear. The president has made his argument as to why he thinks Canada would be better off joining the United States for economic purposes. There's a disagreement between the

president's position and the position of the Canadian government. I don't think that's a mystery coming in. And it wasn't a topic of conversation because that's not what the summit was about. I want to share this with you as well. This was a protest recently in Basel, Switzerland, just shows you when the people in Switzerland are pissed at you. I think this tells you where the Trump regime is right now. I'm here with now Charlie Angus, member of Parliament in Canada. Now, Charlie, you have Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, says, look, it's a disagreement. On the one hand, Donald Trump wants to annex and take over Canada.

On the other hand, Canada does not want to be conquered and taken over. You know, just a disagreement while he's out there in Canada. What's your response to all of this? Well, I think Marco Rubio probably needs to be sent back to school because when you say that someone doesn't have a right to have a country, that's an act of war. When you rip up arbitrarily trade agreements and threaten and say you're going to break a country, that's an act of war. And Canadians have responded in kind. The boycott that Canada has launched against the United States is punishing. We were told in January a 10% drop in Canadian travel to the United States would cost 140,000 jobs. We're seeing at least a 40% drop now. And we're getting these nightmare stories of ice detention centers of people

who traveling across the border to fix their visa or that who've been, you know, strip search, chained, kept in deplorable conditions. Is Donald Trump really trying to destroy the tourism industry in the United States? And then like three days before St. Patrick's Day, picks a fight with the Irish. Of all people, you're going to pick a fight with the Irish

on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, throwing 200% tariffs and then 200% tariffs on France. I mean, that's the last bottle of bourbon that will be sold in a generation in Europe. So what we're really picking up here is not just the rising level of resistance in Canada. I've been on a tour through the industrial heartland of Canada, and the resistance is so much stronger than I could have even dreamed. But we're picking up now the rest of the world is watching Canada and following our strategy, which is to just disengage and to disengage economically. So the United States has become a much weaker force on the stage of the world.

If people aren't buying products, if people aren't traveling, if people aren't willing to buy anything American right now, that's hurting so many American businesses who are basically collateral damage in Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance's idiotic campaign to please the MAGA voters. It's hurting us to some degree, but it's right now we think the impact on the average American business that has always had good relations with people in their markets. They're getting punched in the face right now because of what Donald Trump's doing. Now, one of the things you had told me going into this, as you and I have been talking now for several months, is that Canada was prepared. They were ready, but the United States wasn't. We were being fed a lot of disinformation and our media was parroting Trump's line that tariffs are just going to be great. Any in your assessment, any surprises that you've seen? Is it going as you thought? Is is the Canadian unity even more than you expected? Is the boycott stronger? What's your assessment as you do this resistance tour?

Again, I've started this elbows up resistance tour, and I've been down along the Highway 401 corridor, which, you know, in central, sort of, I guess, Central North America, this is the industrial belt that feeds the auto sector. It feeds manufacturing. Many of the communities that live along this sector, they rely on parts coming in from the U.S. and they ship parts to the U.S. So there's a lot of uncertainty. Steel operations that actually import from the U.S. but then export to the U.S. to other markets. I've been talking to a lot of people who are deeply uncertain. But what I also get is the sense of rage that Donald Trump

is trying to rip this up and trying to divide communities that, you know, from my regions like London, Oshawa, Windsor, that have been tied to Detroit, to Lansing, to Toledo. There's a real anger right now. But at the rallies that I've been at, I've never seen numbers like this. I've never seen people as willing to go to the wall because they actually, and this is really important to understand, Canadians get that this threat against us is an act of war. So we're not picking up guns yet, but we are really forming up into lines in terms of resistance

to making sure that we are not buying and doing the outreach to wherever we have to do to build solidarity. So when we see the resistance starting in Europe, there's a lot of engagement now with France, with Ireland, with European countries to say, this is the model. You have to make the United States pay a huge economic price for the stupidity that Donald Trump has unleashed. And I don't think given the chaos, whether he's picking a fight with China, he's picked a fight with Canada, he's picked a fight with Ireland, he's picked a fight with the EU, he's picking a fight with French wines, you cannot sustain this kind of rage and stupidity with that many enemies.

So Canada might be number one in his gun sights, but we look around and we think, hey, this guy's fighting with everybody right now. It's not sustainable for the American economy. Did you see Donald Trump's one of his top advisors, Peter Navarro? He's been going on TV and he's been saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, Canada, tone down that rhetoric. Tone it down. What are you doing? Show us a little more respect. When you hear things like that, what do you think? Well, we saw two really important indicators last week. Was it Mr. Lutnick, the Baghdad Bob of trade negotiations for the United States, who said that Canada wasn't showing that we were grateful.

Are you kidding me? You've threatened our nation and you said we're not being grateful. And then he said, we're acting like Ukraine. Well, in Canada right now, we're thinking we'll be Ukraine any day if Donald Trump's a two bit Putin. So that was the first message. And then Peter Navarro came out and said, hey, Canada, settle down. Stop talking about taking the gloves off and hitting us. We think that cooler heads are going to prevail. Great. You don't want us to hit you?

Then stop this idiocy. Because if you're freaked out now, Pete, wait till you see when we actually not only drop the gloves, and people in Canada have said to me charlie you left out the other part it's the bench clearing brawl moment where we all go over the board so pete i feel bad that you're feeling a little upset now i get that you're getting kind of freaked out that canada's getting angry uh we will put our gloves back on but you tone it down dramatically or we're going over the boards, we're dropping the gloves, we're going to pull a jersey over your head, and we are going to do the

classic Canadian bench clearing brawl, which at the end of the game is going to be a lot of people hurt, but we will still be standing. Finally, Charlie, I always ask you at the end of these interviews to direct a message to Donald Trump. We know that the Trump team goes through these interviews and they clip them and they cut them. So if he's watching this or his team's watching it, what's your message, Charlie Angus, to Donald Trump? Well, Donald, how many fights can you pick before you really prove to the world

that you lose every single one of them? Your fight against Canada, I mean, you've kissed up to Putin. You've bowed down to him like you're some obedient Boy Scout. This guy is a war criminal. This man is a disgrace. You've kissed up to North Korea, and yet your biggest threat in the world is Canada because you thought we were easy. You thought we were going to roll over, and we haven't, and it's freaking you out. That's why you're sending Pete Navarro out there.

So Donald, like we want to go back to working with our neighbors. We want to go back to working with the communities on the other side of the border that we've worked with for generations who are our friends, who are our neighbors. But if you're going to make them our enemy, well, Donald, we're going to fight you the whole way and you're going to lose. You can't keep control of your economy as it is, Donald. It's starting to turn into a total circus. You've got to understand, Donald, that the economy is something bigger and broader and smarter than your stupidity right now. So if Canada is going to be the front line, and we've always said, whenever there's a dirty job in the war, whenever it was a thankless job,

whenever the job had no glory, well, if defending democracy and defending the international rule of law has become a thankless job, give it to Canadians, because we're going to do that job, Donald, and we are going to stand on the other side with our heads held up high. So it's up to you, Donald. Do what you're going to do, but we're ready. Charlie Angus, Member of Parliament in Canada, always a pleasure and honor to have you on the Midas Touch Network.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas Touch Network. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.