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    Trump raises tariffs on Canada by 10% in retaliation for anti-tariff TV ad

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    Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he will raise US tariffs on Canada by 10% in retaliation for an anti-tariff advertisement sponsored by the Ontario government, which has further strained one of the world’s largest trade partnerships.The statement, posted on Trump’s Truth Social account, came after several days of public disputes over the ad, which referenced Ronald Reagan’s support for free trade and provoked the US president’s anger.“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” Trump said Saturday on social media.He further accused the ad of being a “fraud” and said the “sole purpose” of it was “Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their ‘rescue’ on Tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States”, he added.“Now the United States is able to defend itself against high and overbearing Canadian Tariffs (and those from the rest of the World as well!),” the president wrote.Ontario premier Doug Ford said Friday that the province will suspend its US ad campaign on Monday, after discussions with prime minister Mark Carney, in an effort to reopen trade negotiations.The ad, which was paid for by the government of the Canadian province of Ontario, uses excerpts of a 1987 speech where Reagan says “trade barriers hurt every American worker”.View image in fullscreenThe ad aired Friday during the broadcast for Game 1 of Major League Baseball’s World Series, in which the Toronto Blue Jays faced off against the Los Angeles Dodgers.“Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD,” Trump posted.Trump had previously terminated trade talks with Canada due to the ad.It was not immediately clear what goods would be affected by Trump’s announcement. The majority of Canadian exports to the US are exempt from tariffs because of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that was signed during Trump’s first term.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Trump administration in August imposed a 35% tariff on Canadian goods not covered by the USMCA. Canada’s economy has suffered from sector tariffs of 50% imposed this year by Trump on steel and aluminium from all countries.Candace Laing, president of the Canadian chamber of commerce, said: “tariffs at any level remain a tax on America first, then North American competitiveness as a whole. We hope this threat of escalation can be resolved through diplomatic channels and further negotiation. CUSMA [the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement] means a North America where businesses do better. A successful free trade zone is fundamental for both our economies.”The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, a non-profit organization that works to advance his legacy and principles, wrote in a post on X that Ontario did not seek or receive permission to use the clips.The foundation said in a statement that the advert used “selective audio and video” and “misrepresents” Reagan’s comments. It said it was “reviewing its legal options”, which Trump cited in his Truth Social post.Carney on Friday said Canada stood ready to resume trade talks with the US. Trump and Carney will both be at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Malaysia, but the president told reporters on Air Force One he has no plans to meet with the Canadian leader.The Canadian prime minister had previously removed most of Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on US imports imposed by his predecessor, but White House adviser Kevin Hassett said on Friday that Trump was frustrated with Canada and trade talks have not been going well. More

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      US and Canada spar over ad of Reagan denouncing tariffs that led to derailed trade talks

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      After the US suspended all trade negotiations with Canada over a 1987 speech by Ronald Reagan denouncing tariffs that appeared to spark Donald Trump’s ire, the premier of Ontario said he planned to run an ad featuring the speech again during the World Series on Friday.Doug Ford, whose government ran the Reagan ad in US markets this week, first posted on X that the two nations were “stronger together”, while Trump added his own string of social media posts trumpeting the supposed benefits of tariffs.“Canada and the United States are friends, neighbours and allies. President Ronald Reagan knew that we are stronger together,” Ford wrote on X alongside the Reagan video. “God bless Canada and God bless the United States.”Ford said the ad will run during the first game of the World Series, but, after speaking with Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, Ford announced the campaign will end Monday.“Our intention was always to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build and the impact of tariffs on workers and businesses,” Ford said. “We’ve achieved our goal, having reached US audiences at the highest levels.”The quick breakdown in relationships apparently stems from a one-minute television advertisement featuring Reagan’s radio address declaring that “trade barriers hurt every American worker”.Trump responded on Truth Social without evidence that Canada had somehow run a “fraudulent” and “fake” advertisement, and announced that “all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated”.Rubio, the secretary of state, told reporters on Friday that Ford had aired commercials in the US which “took President Reagan’s words out of context”, adding that the Reagan Foundation had criticized the effort, too. “The President made his announcement that he suspended any trade talks with Canada for now,” Rubio said.The Reagan Foundation said on Thursday that the Ontario government’s advertisement “misrepresents” Reagan’s address, without elaborating how. It added that officials “did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks” and added that the organization was reviewing its legal options.It also encouraged people to watch the video of Reagan’s speech on its YouTube channel.Ford’s office responded by reposting the longer, five-minute excerpt, and said that the commercial uses “an unedited excerpt from one of Reagan’s public addresses, which is available through public domain”.Democratic lawmakers on the House ways and means committee jumped in to defend the Ontario advertisement. “This is the ad that drove Trump to cancel all trade talks with Canada,” the committee posted on social media. “Unlike Trump’s AI slop, this is real and uses Reagan’s own words on tariffs.”The dispute comes as both countries face critical deadlines in the next few weeks. Next week marks the cutoff for public comments on the scheduled review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which faces its mandatory six-year assessment in July 2026. The following day, 4 November, Carney, will deliver a federal budget expected to focus on reducing reliance on US markets.Then on 5 November the US supreme court will hear constitutional challenges to Trump’s authority to impose tariffs under emergency powers. A federal appeals court ruled in August that such sweeping duties exceed presidential authority, potentially undermining the legal foundation for the 35% tariffs now applied to Canadian steel, aluminum, timber and automobiles.Chris Sands, the director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, suggested the collapse in talks simply formalizes a dead-end process.“Can we stop trade talks? Yes, you can stop talks about steel, aluminum, energy, all of it,” he said.“But there was no evidence we were going anywhere anyway.”Sands noted the irony of Trump citing Reagan while reversing his trade legacy. “Reagan loved the country – he loved free trade. Maybe Donald Trump believes that, but it’s not what he’s selling now.”Washington imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian imports this spring, prompting retaliation from Ottawa before Trump raised duties to 35% in August. Ontario, heavily dependent on cross-border manufacturing and automotive trade, has been particularly affected. The breakdown ultimately leaves Carney navigating domestic pressure with a minority government.“Carney’s trying to keep all the provinces together,” Sands said. “He’s walking a tightrope between angry Canadians, an angry Trump, and premiers who are going off-script.”Before departing for Asia on Friday morning, Carney acknowledged the changed reality. “We can’t control the trade policy of the United States,” he told reporters, noting that US policy had fundamentally shifted from previous decades.But he emphasized Canada’s readiness to resume detailed negotiations on steel, aluminum and energy sectors, “when the Americans are ready to have those discussions, because it will be for the benefit of workers in the United States, workers in Canada and families in both of our countries.”For now, Carney said, Canada will focus on what it can control: building at home and “developing new partnerships and opportunities, including with the economic giants of Asia”. More

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      Trump says all trade negotiations with Canada ‘terminated’ over an anti-tariff advertising campaign – US politics live

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      Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I am Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.We start with the news that president Donald Trump said on Thursday all trade talks with Canada were terminated following what he called a fraudulent advertisement from Canada in which former and late US president Ronald Reagan spoke negatively about tariffs.“Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.The Thursday night post on Trump’s social media site came after Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country’s exports to countries outside the US because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs.Trump posted: “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is fake, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.”The president wrote: “They only did this to interfere with the decision of the US supreme court, and other courts”. He added: “Tariffs are very important to the national security, and economy, of the USA. Based on their egregious behaviour, all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated.”Carney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. The prime minister was set to leave on Friday morning for a summit in Asia, while Trump is set to do the same on Friday evening.Earlier on Thursday, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation + Institute posted on X that the ad created by the government of Ontario “misrepresents the ‘Presidential Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade’ dated April 25, 1987.” It added that Ontario did not receive foundation permission “to use and edit the remarks”.The foundation said it is “reviewing legal options in this matter” and invited the public to watch the unedited video of Reagan’s address.Read our full story here:In other developments:

      The federal government remains shut down.

      Donald Trump canceled plans for a federal deployment to San Francisco at the request of two billionaire supporters, but he reiterated threats to Chicago.

      Trump said that he does not plan to ask Congress to declare war on Venezuela, ahead of possible strikes targeting suspected drug cartels as “we’re just gonna kill people”.

      Trump said an unnamed “friend” had just sent him “a check for $130m” to be used to pay military salaries during the government shutdown.

      A federal judge in Texas on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Republican congressman who argued that California’s redistricting proposal would cause him personal injury and should be blocked.

      Trump claimed his militarized war on drugs was a huge improvement over the Biden administration’s effort, but a government database shows drug seizures are down from 2022.

      The White House has revealed that major companies in the tech, defense and crypto industries are helping Trump fund his $300m ballroom at the White House, where work is under way to demolish the entire East Wing.

      Top House Democrats have accused Donald Trump of orchestrating an illegal scheme to pay himself $230m in taxpayer money, demanding he immediately abandon claims they say violate the constitution.
      Donald Trump canceled plans for a deployment of federal troops to San Francisco that had sparked widespread condemnation from California leaders and sent protesters flooding into the streets.The Bay Area region had been on edge after reports emerged on Wednesday that the Trump administration was poised to send more than 100 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agents to the US Coast Guard base in Alameda, a city in the East Bay, as part of a large-scale immigration-enforcement plan. By early Thursday morning, hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the Coast Guard base, holding signs with slogans such as “No ICE or Troops in the Bay!”.But just hours later, the president said he would not move forward with a “surge” of federal forces in the area after speaking with the mayor, Daniel Lurie, and Silicon Valley leaders including Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO who recently apologized for saying Trump should send national guard troops, and Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia.Lurie said he spoke with the president on Wednesday night, and that Trump told him he would call off the deployment.“In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco. Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning,” Lurie said in a statement.Trump confirmed the conversation on his Truth Social platform, saying: “I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around.”Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I am Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.We start with the news that president Donald Trump said on Thursday all trade talks with Canada were terminated following what he called a fraudulent advertisement from Canada in which former and late US president Ronald Reagan spoke negatively about tariffs.“Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.The Thursday night post on Trump’s social media site came after Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country’s exports to countries outside the US because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs.Trump posted: “The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is fake, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs.”The president wrote: “They only did this to interfere with the decision of the US supreme court, and other courts”. He added: “Tariffs are very important to the national security, and economy, of the USA. Based on their egregious behaviour, all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated.”Carney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. The prime minister was set to leave on Friday morning for a summit in Asia, while Trump is set to do the same on Friday evening.Earlier on Thursday, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation + Institute posted on X that the ad created by the government of Ontario “misrepresents the ‘Presidential Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade’ dated April 25, 1987.” It added that Ontario did not receive foundation permission “to use and edit the remarks”.The foundation said it is “reviewing legal options in this matter” and invited the public to watch the unedited video of Reagan’s address.Read our full story here:In other developments:

      The federal government remains shut down.

      Donald Trump canceled plans for a federal deployment to San Francisco at the request of two billionaire supporters, but he reiterated threats to Chicago.

      Trump said that he does not plan to ask Congress to declare war on Venezuela, ahead of possible strikes targeting suspected drug cartels as “we’re just gonna kill people”.

      Trump said an unnamed “friend” had just sent him “a check for $130m” to be used to pay military salaries during the government shutdown.

      A federal judge in Texas on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Republican congressman who argued that California’s redistricting proposal would cause him personal injury and should be blocked.

      Trump claimed his militarized war on drugs was a huge improvement over the Biden administration’s effort, but a government database shows drug seizures are down from 2022.

      The White House has revealed that major companies in the tech, defense and crypto industries are helping Trump fund his $300m ballroom at the White House, where work is under way to demolish the entire East Wing.

      Top House Democrats have accused Donald Trump of orchestrating an illegal scheme to pay himself $230m in taxpayer money, demanding he immediately abandon claims they say violate the constitution. More

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      A US fascism expert’s warning to Australia: ‘You guys are probably next’

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      It’s a warm autumn evening and Jason Stanley is walking through downtown Toronto, his home of a fortnight, discussing his view that America is sliding into fascism, and its global and historical parallels.“But the far right is everywhere,” he tells the Guardian. “There is a chill of fear everywhere.”As if on cue, a man emerges walking in the opposite direction wearing a bright red T-shirt bearing the slogan “Canada First”, a nationalist political movement promoting the mass deportation of migrants.“You can feel the sense of threat,” Stanley says. “Fascism begins with immigrants and national minorities, and it moves quickly to political opponents.”The trend is a global one, Stanley argues; the United States is just further down the path than other places. It is descending more quickly – and, as the events of past days have shown, more violently.When we speak, it is a week since rightwing provocateur Charlie Kirk was murdered at a university campus in Utah. In the days since, Kirk’s death has been weaponised by some supporters to attack political opponents. In an address from the Oval Office, the US president, Donald Trump, specifically blamed “radical left political violence” for Kirk’s death.View image in fullscreenA website has been established to dox anyone the site’s creators believe has “celebrated” Kirk’s assassination, or made comments they deem insufficiently orthodox on his legacy. People’s names, phone numbers, home addresses and places of work have been listed online, accompanied by threats and acts of violence.A thread on X is celebrating people losing their jobs for making comments about Kirk’s death: the thread lists dozens of cases of journalists, teachers, even hamburger cooks and Secret Service agents, summarily fired.“And JD Vance, the vice president of the United States, has encouraged ordinary citizens to report people for their negative comments about Charlie Kirk,” Stanley says.“That was a real signal saying, ‘We’re going to police your speech at every level’ … It’s a terror campaign against ordinary citizens’ speech.”Stanley made global headlines in March this year when, as a Yale professor specialising in the study of fascism, he announced he was leaving the US because he believed it was at risk of becoming a “fascist dictatorship”.View image in fullscreenNow a fortnight into his exile, he says he is not surprised by the worsening political climate in the US, “but it’s always terrifying when it comes”.He does not regret the move, arguing he can “fight better” from outside the US.“Right now, walking through the streets of Toronto, I feel safe. Given that the president of the United States said we’re going to target the people who call us fascists and Nazis, I probably wouldn’t feel safe in the United States. A lot of people don’t feel safe in the United States.”There is historical resonance, too, in Stanley’s exile from a rising tide of fascism. His German Jewish forebears, including both his parents and grandmother (who rescued more than 400 Jews from concentration camps) fled a Nazi regime that had them marked for extermination.As we speak, Stanley is partway through writing an article on America’s current moment, drawing from his grandmother’s memoir of the Kristallnacht, a Nazi-coordinated, nationwide antisemitic riot in 1938.View image in fullscreenHe cites a quote (mis)attributed most often to Mark Twain: “History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.”“I find myself asking: ‘Is this moment exactly Kristallnacht? Is it exactly the Reichstag fire?’ It’s like it’s these jigsaw puzzles … it’s a piece of one and a piece of another.”Stanley says he sees elements of Kristallnacht in the current conflagration after Kirk’s killing – the tumult exploited to expand the target of hostility from immigrants to political opponents.There is parallel too, he says, in the militarisation of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) – echoes of the Sturmabteilung, Ernst Röhm’s feared brownshirts.Much of the US’s political upheaval is idiosyncratic to its own history and political moment, but Australia, far distant, perhaps, with a different political culture, is not immune from a descent into fascism, Stanley insists.View image in fullscreenIn fact, he argues, Australia’s history makes it acutely vulnerable to precisely that.“You guys are probably next, right? The first domino to go.“You guys had a White Australia policy until the 1970s. That’s a terrible sign. And you attacked your universities ages ago.”Stanley cites, as well, Australia’s history of Indigenous displacement, its “performatively vicious” treatment of asylum seekers and the fierce “anti-woke” rhetoric that pierces public discourse.“A lot of what you’re seeing in the United States must seem familiar to you, even though you’ve come nowhere close to what we’ve seen in the last few months; but the ideological preconditions are certainly familiar to you.”The response to this might be that Australia has just re-elected a centre-left government with a commanding majority, rejecting anti-immigration rhetoric and division to such an extent that the leader of the opposition – who ran on these campaign platforms – didn’t just lose the election, but his own seat in parliament.Australia’s institutions, too, can be argued to be more robust: the public service and judiciary are far less politicised, voting is independently overseen and compulsory (driving parties towards a more moderate centrism), political violence is rare (and not fuelled by a firearm epidemic).But Stanley points out that fascism often comes cloaked in the language, the institutions and the processes of democracy: an insidiousness that lies in seeking to appear democratic.“Fascism conceals its anti-democratic nature by representing itself as the general will of the people, where ‘the people’ are the dominant racial or religious group.“It will say ‘the majority of people want this’, but that’s not the core idea of democracy. The core idea of democracy is not the tyranny of the majority. Democracy is a system based on freedom and equality.”Fascism is not a binary question either, nor one of an absolute threshold. Democracy and fascism are concepts that exist on a spectrum – a country can be more or less democratic, more or less fascist.“Yes, the United States is quite fascist now. It’s much less of a democracy. But, officially, at least, the United States is a democracy living under an emergency.“And this emergency allows the government to scoop people up into unmarked vans; perhaps you can stay indefinitely as a democracy under emergency?”View image in fullscreenA nation’s slide into fascism carries obvious consequence for the nation itself, but Stanley argues that when the country in question possesses the strongest military on Earth, is the global superpower and dominates international politics, it carries immense ramifications for the entire world.“It normalises and legitimates fascist movements everywhere,” Stanley argues. “So you’re going to see more of that dynamic, I suspect. All the remaining democratic countries are going to face surging anti-democratic, ultranationalist movements.”For Australia, the consequence of America’s descent is particularly acute.Since the end of the second world war, Australia has depended on the United States for its defence and security (including sheltering under its nuclear umbrella). The postwar “international rules-based order” (to use the parlance so loved by Australia’s foreign policy establishment) is, some argue, more accurately characterised as a US imperialist one.But Australia’s “great and powerful friend” (another particularly Australian foreign policy nomenclature) is no longer a reliable or consistent ally. Perhaps it never was, only now it is more nakedly so.Trump’s second administration has an exposed record of treating allies with worse than indifference – rather with contempt.Here, Stanley has perhaps his strongest note of caution. “Undoing fascism is very, very hard,” he says. Democracy is not some natural default.“We shouldn’t be surprised if, very soon, there are no more democracies, or very few. Democracy wasn’t a thing for a long time: we had monarchies and we had empires, and other forms of government, but we’re now in a situation where India, Russia, the United States and China are not democratic countries. So you have to ask: what will remain?” More

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      One by one, leaders learn that grovelling to Trump leads to disaster. When will it dawn on Starmer? | Simon Tisdall

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      Sucking up to Donald Trump never works for long. Narendra Modi is the latest world leader to learn this lesson the hard way. Wooing his “true friend” in the White House, India’s authoritarian prime minister thought he’d conquered Trump’s inconstant heart. The two men hit peak pals in 2019, holding hands at a “Howdy Modi” rally in Texas. But it’s all gone pear-shaped thanks to Trump’s tariffs and dalliance with Pakistan. Like a jilted lover on the rebound, Modi shamelessly threw himself at Vladimir Putin in China last week. Don and Narendra! It’s over! Although, to be honest, it always felt a little shallow.Other suitors for Trump’s slippery hand have suffered similar heartbreak. France’s Emmanuel Macron turned on the charm, feting him at the grand reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral. But Trump cruelly dumped him after they argued over Gaza, calling him a publicity-seeker who “always gets it wrong”. The EU’s Ursula von der Leyen, desperate for a tete-a-tete, flew to Trump’s Scottish golf course to pay court. Result: perhaps the most humiliating, lopsided trade deal since imperial Britain’s 19th-century “unequal treaties” with Peking’s dragon throne.The list of broken pledges and dashed hopes is lengthy. Relationships between states normally pivot on power, policy and strategic interests. But with faithless, fickle Trump, it’s always personal – and impermanent. Disconcertingly, he told Mexico’s impressive president, Claudia Sheinbaum, that he “likes her very much” – then threatened to invade her country, ostensibly in pursuit of drug cartels. Leaders from Canada, Germany, Japan, South Korea and South Africa have all attempted to ingratiate themselves, to varying degrees. They still haven’t fared well.All this should set red lights flashing for Britain’s Keir Starmer ahead of Trump’s state visit in 10 days’ time. The prime minister’s unedifying Trump-whisperer act has produced little benefit to date, at high reputational cost. Starmer apparently believes his handling of the US relationship is a highlight of his first year in office. Yet Trump ignores his Gaza ceasefire pleas and opposes UK recognition of a Palestinian state. He hugely boosted Putin, Britain’s nemesis, with his half-baked Alaska summit. US security guarantees for postwar Ukraine are more mirage than reality. His steel tariffs and protectionist policies continue to hurt UK workers.His second state visit is an appalling prospect. The honour is utterly undeserved. It’s obvious what Trump will gain: a royal endorsement, a chance to play at being King Donald, a privileged platform from which to deliver his corrosive, divisive populist-nationalist diatribes at a moment of considerable social fragility in the US and UK. Polls suggest many Britons strongly oppose the visit; and most don’t trust the US. So what Starmer thinks he will gain is a mystery. The fleeting goodwill of a would-be dictator who is dismantling US democracy and wrecking the global laws-based order championed by the UK is a poor return.View image in fullscreenAs he demands homage from abject subjects, this spectacle will confirm the UK in the eyes of the world as a lackey state, afraid to stand up for its values. Starmer’s government is now so morally confused that it refuses to acknowledge that Israel, fully backed by Trump, is committing genocide in Gaza, while at the same time making the wearing of a pro-Palestine T-shirt a terrorist act. The Trump travesty will be an embarrassment, signalling a further descent into colonial subservience. As next year’s 250th anniversary of US independence approaches, the chronically unhealthy “special relationship” has finally come full circle.Not everyone is genuflecting to Trump – and evidence mounts that resistance, not grovelling, is by far the best way to handle this schoolyard bully. Modi’s geopolitical fling in China showed he’s learned that when dealing with Trump, firm resolve, supported by alternative options, is the better policy. Last week’s defiant speech by China’s leader, Xi Jinping, reflected a similar realisation. Both he and Putin have discovered that when they dig their heels in, whether the issue is Ukraine, trade or sanctions, Trump backs off. Xi has adopted an uncompromising stance from the start. Putin uses flattery, skilfully manipulating Trump’s frail ego. The result is the same. Like cowards the world over, Trump respects strength because he’s weak. So he caves.The bigger the wolf, the more sheepishly Trump responds. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, like Putin, an indicted war criminal, has shown that by sticking to his guns (literally, in his case), he can face down Trump. More than that, Trump can be co-opted. After Netanyahu attacked Iran in June, against initial US advice, he induced the White House to join in – although, contemptibly, Trump only did so once he was certain who was winning. Then, typically, he claimed credit for a bogus world-changing victory. North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, similarly bamboozled Trump during his first term. Having learned nothing, and nursing his implausible Nobel peace prize ambitions, Trump is again raising the prospect of unconditional engagement with Kim.Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has the right idea. The more Trump tries to bully him with 50% tariffs and a barrage of criticism, the more he resists. Trump is particularly exercised over the fate of Jair Bolsonaro, Lula’s hard-right predecessor, who, like Trump, mounted a failed electoral coup. But Lula is not having any of it. “If the United States doesn’t want to buy [from us], we will find new partners,” he said. “The world is big, and it’s eager to do business with Brazil.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat’s the spirit! And guess what? Lula’s poll ratings are soaring. Wake up, Keir Starmer – and dump Trump.

      Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Canada finally faces a basic question: how do we defend ourselves? | Stephen Marche

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      The second Trump administration has been worse than Canada’s worst nightmare. The largest military force in the history of the world, across a largely undefended border, is suddenly under the command of a president who has called for our annexation. Canada could not be less prepared. The possibility of American aggression has been so remote, for so long, that the idea has not been seriously considered in living memory. Donald Trump has focused on economic rather than military pressure, but the new tone in Washington is finally forcing Canada to ask itself the most basic question: how do we defend ourselves?For most other countries in the world, self-defence is the key to national identity. Canada’s immense good fortune has been that we haven’t really needed a strong military to build our country. In the war of 1812, we were British, and the British kept us alive because we were British. There hasn’t been an attack on our homeland since. Confederation, the founding of the country, was the result of a political negotiation rather than a conquest or a violent independence movement. Our military was based on a fundamental assumption about our place in the world, and the nature of the world itself. Our place in the world was to contribute to the global order. The global order shared our fundamental values. Peacekeeping was more our style than defense.Recently, I’ve been working on Gloves Off, a podcast about how Canada can protect itself from any threat emanating from the US, and from every other country in the world now that the US is no longer our protector and guardian. The consensus from military and security experts is that we would be “a snack”.It is far from unusual for countries sliding toward authoritarianism, such as the the United States, to use foreign engagements to justify the suspension of their own laws. Trump has already started trumping up crazy excuses for anti-Canadian sentiment – a supposed flow of fentanyl over the border and other nonsense. His ambassador says Trump thinks our boycotts make us “nasty” to deal with.So what does Canada need to do to develop the capacity to defend itself?The good news is that Canada’s new reality is far from unique. In fact, it’s the historical norm. Finland is a potential model for us. It has lived its entire existence next to a belligerent country that is either expanding imperially or collapsing dangerously. The Finns do not have nuclear weapons. They are only 5.5 million people, next to Russia’s 143 million.Finland’s strategy is whole society defence. Matti Pesu, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, and a reserve commander of an armoured personnel carrier, explained that whole society defence does not pretend to be able to overcome a potential Russian onslaught. “Power asymmetry is an absolutely essential factor in the Finnish security thinking,” he told me. “Given how much bigger Russia is, in order to thwart that potential threat, we need to mobilize broadly the resources available in society.”Because Finland is geared, throughout its national institutions, towards self-defence, its resistance to Russia is credible. The idea is not to match Russian military capacity, but to make the conquest of Finland not worth the trouble. “Full societal resources of a smaller nation can actually be enough to thwart the potential threat from a larger power because the costs for the larger power to invade could actually be much higher than the potential benefits it would gain from such an invasion,” Pesu explains. The more capable a country is of causing pain to occupiers, the less likely the occupation happens in the first place.Conscription is essential. The Finns can put a million soldiers in the field within 72 hours. But every facet of Finnish government, from the healthcare system to the national broadcaster, has a role in the security system, and knows its role in a possible military conflict. “A preparedness mindset permeates the whole society,” Pesu says. “From the state level all the way to an individual living somewhere in the country.”To rise to Finland’s level, Canada would need to reorchestrate its entire frame of reference. The prime minister, Mark Carney, has recently announced serious boosts to national military spending: 2% by the end of this year, rising to 5% at some point in the future. But the government has pushed its readiness targets back to 2032. And those are targets that align with our typical military practices: meeting our commitments to our alliances. That money sounds good on a theoretical level. But the Canadian military situation has not fundamentally altered. We have not reset our position.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe period we are entering is a period of deep chaos, of the weakening of international institutions, of multiple, interlocked collapses. Any reliance on international institutions and their restoration is a false hope. If Canada is to remain a stable democracy, we will have to find the stability in ourselves. A whole society defence would bolster us against the chaos that threatens us from every side and from within. In an era of splintering society, conscription is a force of unification, what Pesu calls “a strong democratic linkage”. Canada is a big country, with huge geographical and demographic diversity. We are as vulnerable as any other society to the informational chaos that is overtaking the world, to the incipient breakdown. A whole society defence would be a massive force for unification. It would establish, to Canadians at least, that there are crises we are going to face and we need to face them collectively. The thing about a whole society defence is that it determines that you are living in a whole society, a society that needs defending.Canada has no history of needing to defend itself. In fact, not needing a military is baked into our national identity – and that creates a psychological bind. To preserve who we are, we have to overcome one of our oldest tendencies, one of our best tendencies: our peace-loving nature, our idea of our country as an escape from history rather than its perpetrator or victim.And that leads to a very scary question: what will be the crisis that makes us realize that we need whole society defence? Let us hope it won’t be Canada’s last.

      Stephen Marche lives in Toronto and is the author of The Next Civil War and On Writing and Failure More

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      in US Politics

      Trump’s first-term labor statistics chief denounces ‘groundless firing’ of successor – live

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      Bill Beach, a former Heritage foundation economist who was picked by Donald Trump in 2018 to oversee labor statistics, denounced on Friday what he called the “totally groundless firing of Dr Erika McEntarfer, my successor as Commissioner of Labor Statistics at BLS”.Beach added that Trump’s order to remove the bearer of bad news on jobs “sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the Bureau”.He also co-signed a statement with Erica Groshen, who served as the commissioner before him, from 2013 to 2017, which began:
      Today, President Trump called into question the integrity of the Employment Situation report that the BLS released this morning. He accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of deliberately reporting false numbers to reflect poorly on this administration. This baseless, damaging claim undermines the valuable work and dedication of BLS staff who produce the reports each month. This escalates the President’s unprecedented attacks on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system.
      The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news. The Commissioner does not determine what the numbers are but simply reports on what the data show. The process of obtaining the numbers is decentralized by design to avoid opportunities for interference. The BLS uses the same proven, transparent, reliable process to produce estimates every month. Every month, BLS revises the prior two months’ employment estimates to reflect slower-arriving, more-accurate information.
      This rationale for firing Dr McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers. US official statistics are the gold standard globally. When leaders of other nations have politicized economic data, it has destroyed public trust in all official statistics and in government science.
      Other experts and elected officials were equally scathing in their response to Trump’s move.“This will make it difficult to trust government sources on economic and financial data,” Rohit Chopra, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, wrote. “Many businesses and investors use these data sets to determine where they want to launch or grow, so this will have real costs.”“Instead of helping people get good jobs, Donald Trump just fired the statistician who reported bad jobs data that the wanna-be king doesn’t like,” Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and bankruptcy law expert, posted.“No. Mr. President,” Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, wrote. “In America, you do not fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing a jobs report that you don’t like. That’s what authoritarians do. We need serious economists in these positions, not hacks who will only tell you what you want to hear.”US stocks slumped on Friday, with the S&P on track for its biggest daily percentage decline in more than three months as Donald Trump unveiled new import tariffs on dozens of trading partners and a surprisingly weak jobs report spurred selling pressure.Shares in Amazon also fell after the company failed to meet expectations for its Amazon Web Services cloud computing unit.Just hours before Trump’s latest self-imposed tariff deadline on Friday, the president signed executive orders imposing import taxes on goods imported from around the globe, including key trading partners such as Canada, Brazil, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the 27-nation European Union.Investor confidence was also hit by new data showing that US job growth slowed more than expected in July, and was significantly lower than previously reported in May and June. Those job numbers prompted Trump to fire the messenger, commissioner of labor statistics Erika McEntarfer.The jobs report significantly pushed up expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at its next meeting in September.According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 101.60 points, or 1.60%, to end at 6,237.79 points, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 472.78 points, or 2.24%, to 20,649.67. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 543.97 points, or 1.23%, to close at 43,587.01.

      Donald Trump said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in “appropriate regions” in response to “highly provocative statements” from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who said yesterday that the US president should remember Moscow had Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities. It comes amid a spiralling war of words with Medvedev as tensions rise over Trump’s efforts to get Russia to end its war in Ukraine or face economic sanctions. Medvedev had earlier said that Trump’s threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were “a threat and a step towards war”.

      Leaders of more than 60 countries were plunged into a fresh race to secure trade deals with the US after Trump unleashed global chaos with sweeping new tariff rates last night. Our story is here and a table of all the tariff rates for each country is here.

      Trump ordered the firing of the federal government official in charge of labor statistics, hours after data revealed jobs growth stalled this summer, prompting accusations that he is “firing the messenger”. In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed (with no evidence) that Erika McEntarfer had “faked” employment figures in the run-up to last year’s election, in a bid to boost Kamala Harris’s chances of victory, and implied she “manipulated” today’s numbers for political reasons. “We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” Trump wrote.

      The Bureau of Labor Statistics released revised job stats today which showed the US economy added only 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns with Trump’s escalating trade war. In the report, the BLS also slashed the number of jobs added in May, revising the figure down by 125,000, from 144,000 to only 19,000, and in June, which was revised down by 133,000, from 147,000 to just 14,000 – a combined 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.

      Trump also said once again that Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, should also be “put out to pasture”, as he continued to insist the US economy is booming on his watch and implore the Fed to lower interest rates. The Fed later announced that Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler will resign from the central bank’s board as of 8 August, leaving a key vacancy for Trump to fill ahead of schedule.

      Ghislaine Maxwell was “routinely moved” to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas, a senior administration official has told NBC News, due to safety concerns. “Any false assertion this individual was given preferential treatment is absurd. Prisoners are routinely moved in some instances due to significant safety and danger concerns,” the official said of Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes. She has appealed to the supreme court to overturn her conviction.
      Continuing his attacks and baseless claims that the employment figures released today were “manipulated” for political reasons, Trump said the numbers were “rigged” to make him and his party look bad.He wrote on Truth Social:
      In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad – Just like when they had three great days around the 2024 Presidential Election, and then, those numbers were ‘taken away’ on November 15, 2024, right after the Election, when the Jobs Numbers were massively revised DOWNWARD, making a correction of over 818,000 Jobs — A TOTAL SCAM. Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell is no better! But, the good news is, our Country is doing GREAT!
      The Federal Reserve has announced that Adriana D Kugler will step down early from her position as governor of the Federal Reserve Board on 8 August.Her term was due to expire in January, but her early resignation gives Donald Trump an opportunity to more quickly appoint someone who could eventually replace Jerome Powell as chair.In a speech earlier this month, the New York Times notes that Kugler said the Fed should not cut interest rates “for some time” as tariffs trickle through to consumer prices.Responding to Ghislaine Maxwell’s move to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Texas, a senior administration official has told NBC News that prisoners are “routinely moved” due to safety concerns.“Any false assertion this individual was given preferential treatment is absurd. Prisoners are routinely moved in some instances due to significant safety and danger concerns,” the official said of Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice.In a statement earlier today responding to Maxwell’s move from a Florida facility to the one in Texas, the family of Virginia Giuffre, along with Maxwell and Epstein accusers Annie and Maria Farmer, said:
      It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received.
      The New York Times (paywall) notes that the Senate confirmed Erika McEntarfer to the post of commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2024 in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. Among her supporters at the time was then senator and now vice-president JD Vance.Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s labor secretary, has said she “wholeheartedly” supports the president’s firing of Erika McEntarfer to “ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from [the Bureau of Labor Statistics]”.Trump ordered McEntarfer’s firing hours after data revealed that jobs growth had stalled this summer and administration officials scrambled to explain the lackluster report.“A recent string of major revisions have come to light and raised concerns about decisions being made by the Biden-appointed Labor Commissioner,” Chavez-DeRemer wrote in a post on X.She said William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, would serve as acting commissioner during the search for McEntarfer’s replacement.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, may call a special election in November to begin the process of redrawing the state’s congressional maps in response to Texas’s plans to change their own maps to help Republicans keep their majority in the House of Representatives.Donald Trump is pushing Texas and other Republican-dominated states to carry out mid-decade redistricting that will favor the GOP and potentially stop Democrats from retaking control of the House in next year’s midterm elections. Governors in Democratic-led states have responded by warning they will move to redo their own maps if Texas goes ahead with its plans, which could create an additional five Republican-leaning districts.California is viewed as the best opportunity for Democrats to pick up seats through gerrymandering, but voters will first have to approve changes to an independent redistricting commission that was given the power to draw congressional districts in 2010.Speaking at a Thursday press conference, Newsom said “a special election would be called, likely to be the first week of November” to approve the changes.“We will go to the people of this state in a transparent way and ask them to consider the new circumstances, to consider these new realities,” the governor added.The party out of power typically regains control of the House in a president’s first midterm election, as the Republicans did under Biden in 2022 and Obama in 2010, and Democrats did during Trump’s first term in 2018.Newsom argued that another two years of unified Republican control of Congress would be especially harmful for California, noting that Los Angeles residents were still waiting for lawmakers to approve aid from the wildfires that ravaged the region earlier this year.“They’re doing a midterm rejection of objectivity and independence, an act that we could criticize from the sideline, or an act that we can respond to in kind – fight fire with fire,” Newsom said.While Republicans could gain the most seats by redrawing Texas’s maps, Ohio, another red state, must also redraw its maps before next year’s election, and there’s talk of redistricting to the GOP’s advantage in Missouri and Indiana.Democrats are seen as having a more difficult path to improving their odds of winning the House majority through redistricting, often due to their states’ embrace of independent commissions intended to draw fair congressional amps.Voters created the California Citizens Redistricting Commission in 2008 to draw its legislative maps, and in 2010 expanded its powers to congressional districts. Newsom said, “We’re not here to eliminate the commission,” but rather to respond to what he described as “the rigging of the system by the president of the United States.“And it won’t just happen in Texas. I imagine he’s making similar calls all across this country. It’s a big deal. I don’t think it gets much bigger,” Newsom said.In the same Truth Social post, Trump said Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell should also be “put out to pasture”, as he continued to insist the US economy is booming on his watch.
      The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’ despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting ‘Kamala’ elected – How did that work out? Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should also be put ‘out to pasture’.
      Donald Trump has said he’s ordered the firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, hours after data showed US employment growth was weaker than expected for the last few months.McEntarfer was nominated by former president Joe Biden to serve in the role in 2023 and was confirmed by the US Senate the following year.In a Truth Social post, Trump suggested (with no evidence) McEntarfer had “faked” the employment figures in the run-up to last year’s election, in a bid to boost Kamala Harris’s chances of victory, and implied she “manipulated” the numbers for political reasons.“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” Trump wrote.“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”The bureau released revised job stats today which showed the US economy added only 73,000 jobs in July, far lower than expected, amid ongoing concerns with Trump’s escalating trade war.In the report, the BLS also slashed the number of jobs added in May, revising the figure down by 125,000, from 144,000 to only 19,000, and June, which was revised down by 133,000, from 147,000 to just 14,000 – a combined 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.Here is my colleague Andrew Roth’s report:Donald Trump has said that he has deployed nuclear-capable submarines to the “appropriate regions” in response to a threatening tweet by Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev, suggesting that he would be ready to launch a nuclear strike as tensions rise over the war in Ukraine.In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump wrote that he had decided to reposition the nuclear submarines because of “highly provocative statements” by Medvedev, noting he is now the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council.Medvedev had earlier said that Trump’s threats to sanction Russia and a recent ultimatum were “a threat and a step towards war”.Donald Trump also continues to voice his frustration over the war Russia continues to wage in Ukraine, writing on Truth Social earlier (before the submarine announcement):
      I have just been informed that almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine. Russia has lost 112,500 soldiers since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH! Ukraine, however, has also suffered greatly. They have lost approximately 8,000 soldiers since January 1, 2025, and that number does not include their missing. Ukraine has also lost civilians, but in smaller numbers, as Russian rockets crash into Kyiv, and other Ukrainian locales. This is a War that should have never happened — This is Biden’s War, not ‘TRUMP’s.’ I’m just here to see if I can stop it!
      As Trump and Medvedev have traded taunts in recent days following Trump saying on Tuesday that Russia had “10 days from today” to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or be hit, along with its oil buyers, with tariffs, Moscow has shown no sign that it will comply with Trump’s deadline.As my colleague Shaun Walker reports from Kyiv, Vladimir Putin has not responded to Trump’s ultimatum. He has claimed he wants a “lasting and stable peace” in Ukraine but has given no indication that he is willing to make any concessions to achieve it, after a week in which Russian missiles and drones again caused death and destruction across Ukraine.“We need a lasting and stable peace on solid foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and would ensure the security of both countries,” said Putin, speaking to journalists on Friday, a week before Trump’s new deadline for hostilities to cease.Trump has said if Russia and Ukraine do not come to an agreement to end the war by next Friday, 8 August, he will impose a package of economic sanctions on Russia.Per my last post, Medvedev on Monday accused Trump of engaging in a “game of ultimatums” and reminded him that Russia possessed Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities of last resort after Trump told Medvedev to “watch his words”.Medvedev has emerged as one of the Kremlin’s most outspoken anti-western hawks since Putin sent tens of thousands of troops to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.Reuters notes that while Kremlin critics deride him as an irresponsible loose cannon, some western diplomats say his statements illustrate the thinking in senior Kremlin policymaking circles.The Associated Press also notes that with his frequently wielded nuclear threats and lobbing of insults at western leaders on social media, some observers have argued that Medvedev is seeking to score political points with Putin and Russian military hawks with his extravagant rhetoric.The escalation from Trump comes amid a spiralling war of words with the former Russian president over Trump’s efforts to get Russia to end its war in Ukraine.Trump yesterday called Medvedev a “failed former president”, writing on Truth Social that he should “watch his words” and is “entering very dangerous territory”.
      Russia and the USA do almost no business together. Let’s keep it that way, and tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!
      Medvedev, who was prime minister of Russia from 2012 to 2020 and is a very vocal supporter of its invasion of Ukraine, has ridiculed Trump’s ultimatum to the Kremlin to reach a peace deal. He wrote on X earlier this week:
      Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10 … He should remember 2 things:
      1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran.
      2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war.
      Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country. Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!
      In another post on X, Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, called US senator Lindsey Graham “gramps”, after he told him to “get to the peace table”.
      It’s not for you or Trump to dictate when to ‘get at the peace table’. Negotiations will end when all the objectives of our military operation have been achieved. Work on America first, gramps!
      The jabs continued on Telegram, where Medvedev threatened Trump with a cold war-era doomsday weapon known as the “Dead Hand” – a Russian nuclear system designed to automatically launch a retaliatory strike.
      If a few words from a former Russian president can cause such a nervous reaction from the supposedly powerful President of the United States, then clearly Russia is right about everything and will continue its own way.
      And as for the ‘dead economies’ of India and Russia and ‘stepping into dangerous territory’ – well, let him recall his favorite movies about the ‘walking dead,’ as well as how dangerous the supposedly non-existent ‘Dead Hand’ can be.
      Donald Trump has said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in “appropriate regions” in response to threats from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who said on Thursday that Trump should remember Moscow had Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities.Trump said in a post on Truth Social:
      Based on the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that. Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention to this matter! More

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      Canada braces as tariff deadline looms and talks with US ‘chaos machine’ drag

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      After months of tariff threats from the US and escalating trade tensions that have sowed anger in Canada and fractured a once-close alliance, the country is now fast approaching a 1 August deadline to reach a deal with the Trump administration – which has shown no signs of backing down.And observers are keeping a close eye on negotiations this week to determine whether too large a chasm has grown between the countries, resulting in what could be an explosive end to what was decades of free-flowing trade.Canada is also in a highly vulnerable position, as it has closely intertwined its economy with the US’s, and is extremely reliant on a low-barrier trade environment, said William Huggins, an assistant professor in economics at McMaster University in Ontario.“Canada has tried to negotiate sort of forcefully from a position of not acquiescing to every demand, but by the same token, has also realised it’s not in the strongest position to do so … We’ve had to navigate carefully,” said Huggins.The Canadian public is also anxiously awaiting the deadline to strike up a deal. Economists and political scientists say the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, was elected on the belief that he’s the right person to be at the helm of negotiations and lead Canada through a tenuous period with their southern neighbour.His successes or failures in this arena could affect public perception – as he has characterised his government as being the most adept in the crisis around its sovereignty due to the tariffs and Donald Trump’s persistent claims that he’d like to make Canada the 51st state.“[Carney] is in a situation where he doesn’t hold all the cards and whoever we put in was going to have to figure out a way through this … [His] ability to plan is severely limited by the chaos machine that is operating south of the border,” said Dennis Pilon, the chair of the politics department at York University in Ontario.On Monday, Carney said at a news conference on Prince Edward Island that the trade negotiations are at an “intense pace” and that they are “complex”. But he projected tentative optimism, stating that the negotiations are “tough” because the government is standing up for Canadian interests.“There is a landing zone that’s possible but we have to get there. We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters.But Trump spoke of the negotiations flippantly when asked by reporters outside the White House last Friday. “We haven’t really had a lot of luck with Canada … Canada could be one where there’s just a tariff, not really a negotiation,” he said.So far, much of the talks have happened behind closed doors. There was a glimpse into what could be the dynamic between Carney and Trump when the prime minister had his first meeting with the president in the Oval Office in early May. There were positive tones in both initially offering praise for each other, but the encounter quickly grew tense as Trump repeated his annexation claims, which were subsequently rebuffed by Carney.Since March, Trump has imposed several tariffs on Canadian goods and energy resources. There is a 25% tariff on all goods, excluding potash and energy products. But there’s separately a 10% tariff on energy resources, including potash. Additionally, there’s a further 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports and a 25% tariff on autos and auto parts.At this stage, the tariffs have seemingly not delivered a significant blow to Canada’s economy, but that could change quickly. The Royal Bank of Canada noted in its June forecast that nearly 90% of Canadian goods are exempt from tariffs under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the free trade deal that replaced Nafta in 2020 and which provides a degree of insulation.In an assessment published by the Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) on Tuesday, it reported that energy exports have not been significantly affected by the tariffs, as most exports are compliant under the USMCA, and are therefore exempt from tariffs.Some of the insulation so far from tariffs could be from opening Canada up to other markets. TD said that in the past four months, Canadian businesses rapidly moved to reorient supply chains and export to non-US markets. Now about 30% of exports go outside the US – a level not seen since the pandemic, when TD notes there was disorientation in trade.But TD also warned that the negative effects of the tariffs might be beginning to emerge. It said that Canadian exports to the US are “generally underperforming” in tariff-targeted industries, particularly steel and automaking. Canada’s auto exports fell to levels not seen since late 2022, following the April imposition of tariffs. Automakers have also “slashed” production in response, it said.Andrea Lawlor, an associate professor of political science at McMaster University, said that while there haven’t been many layoffs or a complete reorientation of production lines yet, industries targeted by tariffs are preparing to do so.Lawlor also said that Carney has been prudent in his negotiation strategy so far, and right in waiting for deals to be brokered between the US and other nations, as they were this month with Japan and the EU, to help inform Canada’s strategy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd despite concerns about marred relationships with First Nations people, pushing forward controversial infrastructure legislation and his quick scrapping of Canada’s digital services tax – which many, including top former diplomats, viewed as fawning capitulation toward Trump – the prime minister is still enjoying fairly positive polling in his term’s infancy.Abacus Data reported at the end of June that 52% of Canadians surveyed approve of the Carney government. The research firm states it shows that his post-election honeymoon period is “far from over”.Lawlor said the best outcome for Carney in the negotiations is a favourable trade deal – however, there has been signalling from Carney, in his discussion of “tough” talks so far, that Canadians may have to accept a baseline of tariffs.“Many Canadians just simply will not be satisfied if that is the outcome,” she said. But due to Carney facing limited criticism of his interactions with the Americans so far, Lawlor said she believes the prime minister will not face extreme negative blowback if he doesn’t trounce tariffs for good this week.But he will be more vulnerable if the tariffs start to place downward pressure on multiple industries, she said.As Canadians are waiting and watching for the Friday deal deadline, the real fears are around the cementing of a new world order and whether long-term business and consumer decisions need to be made in response, said Preetika Joshi, an assistant professor at McGill University in Quebec that specialises in taxation.“If you were a business owner and you knew Trump is going to be in power for only three, four years, would you necessarily make big, significant changes in your supply chain … or would you just wait it out?” she said.But given some grim messaging from those close to Carney – Canadians might be facing tough decisions. Dominic LeBlanc, the federal minister responsible for Canada-US trade, said last week there’s a lot of work ahead of them and minimised the 1 August deadline.“We’re going to continue to work toward the 1 August deadline,” said LeBlanc to reporters in Washington. “But all of these deadlines are with the understanding that we’ll take the time necessary to get the best deal,” he said.Deal or no deal, the negotiations might reveal that there isn’t a best-case scenario, said Joshi.“What we were used to before Trump, where there were very little tariffs, that reality is slightly over,” she said. “We’ll have to wait and see … but the reality is that there are going to be some tariffs.” More