The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Dialogue with Andrew Coyne: Trump demands half ownership of the Gordie Howe Bridge and will Carney call a spring election?

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

For 72-hour advanced access to the full-length editions of Munk Dialogues with Andrew Coyne consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $50 annually, or $1.00 per episode. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Donald Trump is trying to claim that the new $6.4-billion bridge built between Windsor and Detroit - fully funded by Canada - should belong in part to the US. This is not just about a bridge, it's a commentary on the decline in US-Canada relations. Trump's bizarre Truth Social post also tries to delegitimize Canada as a vassal state of China and a threat to the United States. Trump is trying to destabilize Canada and all signs suggest he will attempt to use the leverage of CUSMA to impose all kinds of conditions on us as we enter into new trade negotiations. Andrew believes he is overstating his leverage and destroying the American trade position such that every traditional US trade partner is looking elsewhere to make deals. In the second half of the show Rudyard and Andrew turn to Canadian domestic politics and rumours that Mark Carney will call a spring election to shore up a majority government. Why would the Liberals want an election sooner than later? And can Carney get his majority without forcing Canadians to head to the polls?Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The long-term, even medium and short-term impact of his unreliability, of his dishonesty and of his attempts to monetize a relationship to hold the rest of the world to ransom, the impact of that is that people are working around him. And he is destroying the American trade position in the process. It's going to have much less leverage over time because nobody wants to play this game with it. Welcome to the Monk Dialogues with Globe and Mail journalist Andrew Coyne. Andrew, thanks for coming on the program again this week to share your insights and analysis on this bizarre moment we find ourselves in. And wow, we have something strange to kick off today's show. The Gordie Howe. They didn't know why.

So, you know. Yeah, the Gordy Howe Bridge. the president seems to think that half of it should belong to the United States. Maybe him, we don't know. Canada has paid for it and is expecting, obviously, to charge vehicles and transit and other thing across the bridge, ultimately to recoup our investment. What do you make of this? And in a moment, we'll share some of the president's tweet because there are some interesting

little codicils in there that suggest Canada-U.S. relations is indeed in a bumpy patch and not just about a bridge. Yeah. I mean, I'll just note off the top, this is after Jamil Giovanni came back from his self-appointed peace mission, or what I want to call it, in which not only did he basically take the Trump side on the Canadian U.S. trade. There's implicitly. or explicitly blaming Canada for the impasse and warning us against trading with China, etc. But he claimed to bring a message from Trump saying, quote, tell them I love the Canadians. And then two days later he does this.

It's preposterous, of course. We paid for the bridge because the Americans wouldn't because it was all tied up with the existing ambassador bridge, the owner of which is a donor to Trump, a friend of his. And so we paid for it. Trump agreed to that arrangement in the past, didn't seem to have any trouble with it. We collect the revenue since we paid for it up front. My understanding, correct, right from wrong, is we nevertheless share ownership with Michigan. Absolutely.

I don't know what the half ownership Trump wants, except, as you say, maybe for him. I wouldn't be surprised if in the end he demands that it be named after him since he's doing that with virtually everything else these days. So it's a manufactured grievance. It may be because his friend, the owner of the Ambassador Bridge, has got issues. It may be because this is another sort of dominance move where he can show to Canada, I can make life miserable for you. I can make life miserable for Michiganders as well. And some of the most striking criticism of this move has come from Michigan,

which needs that bridge as much as Canada does. So it's, you know, to me, it's a sign of things to come. It's one of the many ways in which our countries are interconnected far beyond tariffs. Now, he may, what part of the may also be is he may be about to lose the tariff weapon. There's a vote coming up in the Congress, I believe, still coming, where the Democrats are going to try and push to take away the power to slap these egregious tariffs on Canada. but he's got many other weapons in his toolkit. He's got many other ways in which he can exploit our propinquity, our interconnectedness, our dependence.

And this, we should sort of look at this as being a warning sign of things potentially to come. Yeah. Well, let's pull up the, it's not a tweet. I think it's called it truth, Andrew. Yeah. It's called the truth because of the total absence of truth in it. Exactly. It's good marketing. This is what we do. In marketing speak these days, you call something the opposite of what it is. Let's just go through the bottom half of this tweet, though. There's some strange things here. He takes a shot at the trade deal. He says Carney wants to make a deal with China, which will eat Canada alive. We'll just get the leftovers. Then he says, I don't think so. The first thing China will do is terminate all capital.

ice hockey being played in Canada and permanently eliminate the Stanley Cup. I mean, again, what do we make? It's a very trope that he's got hold of now. It's like a vocal tick, he can't stop saying it. But beyond that ludicrousness, I think there's some deadly seriousness underneath this. What is it?

Well, trying to label Canada as being sort of a vassal state of China and therefore a threat to the United States, point one. Point two is not being kind of not really a country. You know, he's been doing that already with the border. It's an artificial border. Why is it even there? And now it's, well, if it's just a, it's just going to be a wholly owned subsidiary of China,

then is that really a country? It is part of a delegitimizing campaign that's going on with Canada. And I would not be at all surprised if, the Alberta business comes into this as well that at some point well lay this out as a prediction maybe it won't come true but we'll see at some point

America that this dalliance this oh the Albertans are going to have a referendum isn't that interesting at some point it's going to turn into Albertans are being oppressed they're captives of this this Chinese dictatorship in Canada

if it gets to a referendum which I guarantee to you, the Americans and everybody else will be trying to interfere with Six Ways to Sunday. But if it gets to that and if it's defeated, and I'm not the first to predict this, I could well see Trump saying, oh, it was rigged. The authorities, and we've got to do something. Alberta is being oppressed. I just think there's so many interesting patterns here that all that up to me to basically

saying he's going to do what he can to destabilize. the country for whatever reason, whether it's just the delight of destabilizing or as part of some larger project of trying to absorb us. But that part, I think, is very serious. Yeah. Let's go back to the so-called truth. And he then goes on to say the capital T tariffs Canada charges us for our dairy products have for many years been unacceptable putting our farmers at great financial risk. I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them. And also importantly, Canada treats the United States with capital fairness and capital respect that we deserve. Well, if it were just about supply management, I might have some sympathy, although it doesn't really hurt Americans, nearly as much as it hurts Canadians.

You sometimes get people objecting saying, we don't actually charge the tariffs. they just kick in, you know, when imports exceed a certain amount, which is both true and untrue. It's technically true, but all that just says is the tariffs succeed in keeping the imports from exceeding the quota. People can keep the imports below it so they don't have to pay these 300 percent tariffs. So I don't think he's on a certain amount of firm ground in objecting to the tariffs. American administrations always have, I think decent Canadians always also. projected to it. Although the last reason I would want to get rid of supply management is to make Donald Trump happy. But if it were only that, that would be one thing. But the stuff beyond that is

a pretty open-ended list. We've got to compensate them for all the things we've given them. Whatever the hell that might mean. That sounds like a big bill. Exactly. So, you know, we'll see whether he actually follows through. You know, he makes a million threats a day. We'll see whether he actually tries to follow through on this. And what kind of a reception he gets in the United States if he does. But again, you know, this the, this is a precursor also, I think, of the Cozma negotiations, that he's going to bring a bunch of demands to the table that have got nothing to do with trade irritants or trade or tariffs or anything like that. They're just things on his grievance list, real or imagined, that he will try to use, again,

the leverage of Kuzma, of our professed need for Kuzma, to try to impose all kinds of conditions on us. So we should be prepared for that as well. Yeah. And just on that very point, to go back to the last few sentences of this truth from the president, he says, we will start negotiations immediately, presumably this is about the bridge. With all that we've given them, we should own perhaps at least one half of this asset. The revenues generated because of the U.S. market will be astronomical. Thank you for your attention. To this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So this seems to be another kind of trope here that, again, if you think of President trolling Canada, I just can't stop, but imagine in my mind the troll under the Gordy Howe bridge in this case.

It writes itself. I think that'll be the editorial cartoon in your paper, no doubt, this weekend. But it's this idea that, you know, it's access to the market. Like, he's feral enough to understand that. That access to the market is of great value to Canada. The bridge, in a sense, is a metaphor of precisely why we, we want more access to that market. What's the contrary argument to that?

I mean, leaving aside all of his kind of the insanity of this of this tweet and the hyperbole, what really is our answer to that, Andrew? And do we fundamentally have one in a time frame that's meaningful enough to provide us with leverage in the context of the Kuzma renegotiation, which is in a, effect upon us now? Yeah. Well, there's several answers to that. One is you don't pay ransom to blackmailers because it doesn't end there. It'd be one thing if we had some certainty that, okay, it's humiliating and it's painful, but it'll get us a trade deal and then our troubles will be over and we'll get over it. I can understand that impulse. But it doesn't end there.

That's the thing. We pay ransom. We pay concessions. and it simply becomes the platform to make new demands. That's the nature of blackmail relationships. So even if you were not objecting to people saying, oh, just pay him whatever he wants to make him go away, it doesn't make him go away. Point one. Point two is he's overstating his leverage.

Even a monopolist can't charge exactly whatever they want. And he's not a monopolist. So yes, in the short term, he's got us to some extent over a barrel in that, you know, it's hard to adjust your trade dependence in a short time. The world is moving, not just Canada, but the whole world is moving. Europe is signing a trade deal with India the other day. They've been negotiating for 20 years. Suddenly they closed the deal.

Why? Because of Trump. Europe has got a deal now with Mercosur. We've got talks with Mercosur. Europe is in talks with the TPP. We're already part of the TPP. So we do have other cards to play over time that will become. increasingly relevant. So, you know, it doesn't mean you ignore the Kuzma. It does mean you go into

the talks and you try to keep him talking and try to keep him from doing anything rash in the short term, which he may well anyway. I'm all in favor of that. I'm all in favor of seeing what kind of negotiations it's possible to have with him. But I would always bear in mind, you can't trust him. You literally cannot trust anything that comes out of his mouth. Nobody does in the world. That's why, there's all these trade aggrams that are being formed around him. So the long-term, even medium and short-term impact of his unreliability, of his dishonesty, and of his attempts to monetize a relationship to hold the rest of the world to ransom, the impact of that is that people are working around him.

And he is destroying the American trade position in the process. It's going to have much less leverage over time because nobody wants to play this game with him. So he can enjoy it while he can, but it's rapidly going to run out of relevance. And as I say, we're in perhaps the worst bind of any major country being the most dependent on exports to them, although not nearly as much as I see the U.S. trade negotiator pretending or claiming, I think out of ignorance saying that Canada was dependent from the United States for 75% of our GDP. 75% of our trade, which is only a third of our GDP.

Right. But, but, so we're more exposed than any other country. So it's going to be much tougher for us. But A, we shouldn't imagine if we pay the ransom that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's, that, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, what you're, that's, what you're demanding of me. Yeah. Andrew, a final question before we wrap. up this first half of the show, are you concerned, you mentioned it earlier, that his trade power is maybe taken away from him by either some combination of Congress, or more importantly,

the Supreme Court ruling against his emergency powers. Are you concerned about, in a sense, what happens after that? Because this is not a vehicle, a device of his presidency. that he will let go. Kuzma will be in a sense front and center. And yes, there are certain, you know, restrictions with Kuzma vis-a-vis, you know, congressional laws that either have to be repealed if Kuzma was kind of torn down in its entirety. But, you know, there are other domains of threat that Trump is the chief executive well outside of trade can start to project towards Canada. We've talked about, you know,

a Freedom of Navigation Patrol through the Northwest Passage. You've been talking and writing a lot about, you know, the Quebec and Alberta referendums. And here I'll just come right to it. I have a worry that removing his emergency trade powers could, in fact, put Canada in a situation which might actually be worse because we would become a greater focus of attention. He's got, as you said, we're the most exposed country of any in the world to the United States in terms of because of geography and along axes of economic, security, etc. What's your take on that argument? Well, it's not necessarily either or.

He may resort to these other tactics even if he keeps the tariff power. In fact, I would predict that he would. It's every potential for him to escalate. And you've mentioned, yeah, the Northwest Passage, but if he really wants to get serious, you can get into sort of basically hybrid warfare. You could get into things like messing with our infrastructure, messing with our financial infrastructure,

messing with our internet. You know, we're so tied into them in so many ways that I hope. people are working late at night in Ottawa, much more knowledge of than I, working up scenarios of the kinds of things he could do if he really wanted to make trouble for us. And in any normal situation with a normal president, that we've been absurd to be even war gaming in these scenarios, with this guy, you just really have to understand that the sky's the limit. He is capable of anything. That being said, he's also a rapidly diminishing force.

is sinking in the polls, his coalition is fracturing. We are headed for some kind of awful scenario in the United States in the next 10 months, leading up to and including the midterm elections. And it's very clear that he's going to try to steal them in some way or form, and that sets up really alarming scenarios of internal conflict in the United States, and we just all have got to be bracing ourselves and ready for that. And that may also make him more dangerous in that, you know, a cornered animal can be, can be the most vicious. But it has to happen.

However it happens, people have got to grasp the nettle of confronting him and confining him and confining his powers and ultimately removing him from power. I hope and pray. but that's a way down the pike. But the first step is winning those midterm elections, hopefully in a thumping fashion, but also guarding off to the extent that they can, his attempts to rig the result, either to rig the result in advance

or to disregard the result if he doesn't like it, and you've got to have scenarios prepared for both of those. But that is going to consume a lot of his energy and attention as well. He's taken on so many different battles and so many different adversaries and so many different issues. And ultimately, all that's going to come back to bite him and already is. So hanging tough, playing for time, keeping him talking is certainly, should certainly be part of our game. Yeah. Well, we're going to say goodbye to our complimentary listeners and viewers.

If you want to join Andrew and me for a bonus to this conversation, you can do that. right now by becoming a monk donor. Monk donors get 72 hours advanced access to all of our premium audio and video content. Become a donor now. We'll send you an email to get you set up to receive the back half of this show. And my weekly show with Janice Gross Stein on geopolitics. Andrew and I are going to discuss the possibility of a spring election. How likely is it are the odds bending in favor of Mark Carney?

going to the polls before the summer is upon us. That conversation exclusively for our monk donors next. Thank you for listening to the first half of our monk dialogue with Andrew Coyne. To get access to the full episode right now, consider becoming a monk donor. For just $50 a year, less than a dollar a week, you will get 72-hour advanced access to all of our premium podcasts, including Friday Focus with Janice Gross Stein.

You also get our live streams of mainstage debates and all kinds of other great perks and privileges. Simply go to our website, triplew.munkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. And click on the join button on the top right hand corner of the screen. Again, that website, triplew.munk debates.com. The monk debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.