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      ‘He's jealous of Covid’s media coverage’: Obama ridicules Trump at Florida rally

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      Barack Obama ridiculed Donald Trump at a Florida rally on Tuesday for the president’s complaints about the media closely covering the national coronavirus crisis.
      The 44th president has recently abandoned traditional decorum where a former president refrains from publicly criticizing his successor, lambasting the 45th president in recent speeches for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, in particular.
      At a drive-in rally in Orlando to boost support for his former Vice President and now Democratic nominee for the White House, Joe Biden, Obama took a tone combining mockery of Trump with indignation.
      He spoke of record numbers dying of coronavirus in the US and asked rhetorically of the president: “What is his closing argument?” with the election just a week away.
      “That people are too focused on Covid. He said this at one of his rallies ‘Covid, Covid, Covid’, he is complaining. He is jealous of Covid’s media coverage,” Obama said with mock incredulity as the crowd laughed.

      At a rally on Saturday in North Carolina, Trump did say those words and complained that the media was paying too much attention to coronavirus, even as he claimed record case numbers are exaggerated and downplayed the death rates.
      Obama said: “If he had been focused on Covid from the beginning, cases would not be reaching record highs across the country this week, the White House would not be having its second outbreak in a month.
      Staff working for Mike Pence, the vice-president, have come down with Covid, it was revealed at the weekend, just a few weeks after Trump, his wife and youngest son all had coronavirus and multiple prominent people tested positive after the event at the White House to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court.
      Obama also roasted the White House for chief of staff Mark Meadows’s remark on television at the weekend that the administration was not going to control the pandemic.
      Obama said: “Winter is coming. They are waving the white flag of surrender. Florida, we can’t afford four more years of this, that’s why we’ve got to send Joe Biden to the White House.”
      Trump tweeted that it was a “no crowd, fake speech” and slammed conservative Fox News for airing it.
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      'Thank you for all the love': Melania Trump returns to campaign after Covid diagnosis

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      Melania Trump returned to the campaign trail on Tuesday afternoon, a week before election day and nearly a month after her positive test for coronavirus.The first lady, a reluctant campaigner at the best of times, postponed a planned return last week, citing a “lingering cough” and an abundance of caution. She has not appeared at a Trump rally since the president kicked off his re-election campaign in Florida in June 2019. But on Tuesday she headed for the suburbs of Philadelphia, for an event aimed at appealing to female voters.Pennsylvania, one of the post-industrial Democratic strongholds which Donald Trump won from Hillary Clinton in 2016, is emerging as perhaps the key battleground state in 2020. Joe Biden leads polling there by more than five points, according to the fivethirtyeight.com average, but results have narrowed as the president has returned to the state again and again.Speaking in Atglen, the first lady told a crowd: “Thank you for the all the love you gave us when our family was diagnosed with Covid-19. We are feeling so much better now thanks to healthy living and some of the amazing therapeutic options available in our country.”On Monday, Donald Trump staged rallies in Allentown, Lititz and Martinsburg. Melania Trump’s event on Tuesday was moderated by the former White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway.The president is seeking to make up ground with women, particularly in suburban areas, who have deserted him in droves. At one recent rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump pleaded: “Suburban women, will you please like me? Remember? Hey, please, I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?”The first lady appeared with her husband at the White House on Sunday, for a Halloween celebration, and on Monday night, for a ceremony marking the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett’s controversial confirmation to the supreme court.Melania Trump in Pennsylvania: “Thank you for the all the love you gave us when our family was diagnosed with COVID-19. We are feeling so much better now thanks to healthy living and some of the amazing therapeutic options available in our country.” https://t.co/dlmHTmd8jP pic.twitter.com/w5N2oXBrLd— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 27, 2020
      A previous event for Barrett, on 26 September, has been called a “super-spreader event”, given that coronavirus prevention measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing were not observed and the president, first lady, senior advisers and leading Republicans all fell sick. Melania Trump’s son, Barron, also contracted the virus.Announcing her recovery, Melania Trump said she had been “very fortunate as my diagnosis came with minimal symptoms, though they hit me all at once and it seemed to be a rollercoaster of symptoms in the days after. I experienced body aches, a cough and headaches, and felt extremely tired most of the time.”In contrast to her husband, who was hospitalised and received treatment not available to the public, the first lady said she “chose to go a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting more for vitamins and healthy food”.The Trump administration has been strongly criticised for continuing to stage campaign events with minimal Covid mitigation measures, even as cases surge across the country and as an outbreak was detected among senior aides to Mike Pence, the vice-president.Pennsylvania is currently seeing rising case numbers, particularly around Philadelphia. More than 8.6m cases have been recorded in the US as a whole, and nearly 226,000 deaths. More

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      Section 230: tech CEOs to defend key internet law before Congress

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      [embedded content]
      The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google are expected to tell lawmakers in a rare appearance before Congress that a federal law protecting internet companies is crucial to free expression online.
      Wednesday’s hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai will take place less than a week before election day and was convened to address section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law underpinning US internet regulation that exempts platforms from legal liability for content generated by its users.
      The hearing will investigate “how best to preserve the internet as a forum for open discourse”, according to the Senate judiciary committee, and it comes largely in response to allegations of anti-conservative bias in the tech world.
      Senate Republicans indicated they wanted to question Pichai and Zuckerberg in October to discuss issues related to section 230. Dorsey was added to the mix after Twitter restricted the circulation of a controversial New York Post article that featured potentially hacked materials relating to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
      In prepared testimony for Wednesday’s hearing, Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, said eroding the foundation of section 230 “could collapse how we communicate on the internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies”.
      Facebook’s Zuckerberg warned that tech companies were likely to censor more content to avoid legal risks if section 230 were repealed. “Without section 230, platforms could potentially be held liable for everything people say,” he said.
      The Facebook executive also argued that without the law, tech companies could face liability for doing even basic moderation, such as removing hate speech and harassment. He said he supported “updating” the rules for the internet if it were done with the potential consequences in mind.
      Pichai said Google approached its work without political bias and was able to offer the information it did because of existing legal frameworks such as section 230. “I would urge the committee to be very thoughtful about any changes to section 230 and to be very aware of the consequences those changes might have on businesses and consumers,” Pichai’s written testimony said.
      Republicans’ allegations that tech companies unfairly silence conservative voices is unsubstantiated. In fact, a recent report alleged that Facebook had suppressed progressive content to appease Republican lawmakers.
      Still, Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Twitter and Facebook of censoring him and has zeroed in on section 230 as one of the culprits. Trump has stepped up his criticism since the companies began to label or even remove posts by the president or his campaign that spread misinformation or call for violence.
      “Repeal section 230!!!” Trump tweeted on 6 October, after Twitter added a misinformation warning label to one of his tweets claiming the flu is more deadly than Covid-19.
      Ironically, the repeal of section 230 protections would probably lead social media platforms to take more, not less, action over Trump’s posts, as it would hold them legally liable for any falsehoods he posts. Experts say the effects would be comparable to what was seen with the passage of Fosta/Sesta, legislation that held platforms responsible for sexual service advertisements posted on their sites. The passage of those bills led to the removal of Craigslist personal ads and upended content policies on sites like Tumblr.
      Privacy advocates have long called for the protection of section 230, saying it is integral to internet freedom. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group, called section 230 “the most important law protecting internet speech”.
      The Internet Society, another non-profit organization advocating for internet access, warned that poorly informed policy decisions on section 230 could bring “dire consequences” for what we are able to do online.
      That is because the law applies not only to platforms like Facebook and Twitter but to other internet infrastructure like domain name registries and internet service providers. Without section 230, these entities may have to approve content prior to posting or take other action that would significantly slow the flow of the internet as we know it.
      Despite the warnings, the modification of existing regulations has become a major point of contention in the run-up to the election, with both presidential candidates proposing section 230’s repeal. There have been an additional 20 attempts to amend or revoke the law in the past two years.
      In addition to discussions on reforming the law, the hearing will bring up issues about consumer privacy and media consolidation. On Tuesday, Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate commerce panel, released a report on how big tech platforms have decimated the local news industry, including newspapers and broadcasters.
      The tech executives will begin their testimony at 10am ET and all three will appear remotely.
      Reuters contributed reporting More

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      US coronavirus cases surge in midwest as Trump heads there in campaign push

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      [embedded content]
      A surge in new cases of coronavirus in the midwest continues, as Donald Trump plans multiple rallies in the region and presidential rival Joe Biden heads out to campaign in Georgia.
      Researchers at Johns Hopkins University recorded 60,789 new cases in the US on Monday, not far off all-time highs reached at the weekend. Total cases have surpassed 8.6m, with more than 225,000 deaths.
      Trump continues to bleed political support from the perception that he does not take the virus seriously. Despite that, on Monday night he held a ceremony at the White House for supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett, which was reminiscent of an earlier event linked to an outbreak of Covid-19 that infected the president himself.
      Trump, Barrett, her husband Jesse Barrett, and supreme court justice Clarence Thomas appeared outside the White House without masks for a ceremonial swearing-in.
      On Tuesday, Trump traveled to a rally in Michigan and planned to go on to events in Wisconsin and Nebraska the same day, on a pre-election blitz across three states where cases are rising most steeply. New daily cases in Michigan have more than doubled in the last week, while Nebraska has one of the highest rates of test positivity in the nation at 21.5% over the last week, according to Johns Hopkins.
      Wisconsin, one of the most important electoral prizes, where the Democratic governor has asked Trump previously not to hold rallies that could spread coronavirus, broke one-day state records on Tuesday in Covid-19 deaths and cases as state officials told residents to stay home, wear a mask, and implored them to cancel travel and social gatherings.
      The state had 64 deaths due to the virus and 5,262 new cases over the last 24 hours, state officials said during an afternoon news conference.
      Thousands of supporters attended a Trump rally last week in Waukesha, Wisconsin, for which a local rural activist group rented out a billboard reading “Trump Covid Superspreader Event”, with an arrow.
      Local doctors urged the president not to hold a rally on Tuesday evening in western Wisconsin.
      “Returning to Wisconsin, repeating a reckless, risky event like a packed campaign rally is just asking for trouble,” said Robert Freedland, an ophthalmologist in La Crosse and state representative for the Committee to Protect Medicare, according to a local media report.
      “In all likelihood, my colleagues in La Crosse will be putting on their N95 masks and dealing with the impacts of Trump’s super-spreader event long after he leaves. It is dangerous and it’s unacceptable,” Freedland said.
      But the plea was likely to fall on unsympathetic ears in the Trump campaign, just as similar pleas did when the president held a rally in Janesville in the state earlier this month.
      Meanwhile Joe Biden delivered speeches with social distancing measures in place in Georgia, which has recorded fewer than 1,000 cases a day over the last seven days and where test positivity is at 7.2%.
      While Covid-19 hotspots are proliferating across the US, the states undergoing the most serious increases are Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Tennessee and California, according to Johns Hopkins.
      Vice-President Mike Pence, who continues to campaign despite having been in close contact with confirmed Covid-19 cases including his chief of staff, planned to speak in North Carolina and South Carolina on Tuesday.
      Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, planned to speak in Nevada, where most voters vote early and Democrats are in a tough fight to keep the state blue.
      Elections officials across the country have issued health safety guidelines for voters planning to visit polling sites in person.
      The city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, advised voters to wear a mask, wash hands and maintain 6ft distance. In Michigan, the secretary of state issued personal protective equipment to all poll workers. More than half the teams in the National Basketball Association have taken steps to convert their facilities into safe polling places.
      In states such as Texas that do not have a mask mandate, officials advised voters to take extra precautions.
      “To prevent becoming infected from someone who has Covid and is not wearing a mask, be sure to wear a mask to the polling site that is of sufficient quality to protect not only others, but also yourself,” Erin Carlson, director of graduate public health programs at the University of Texas at Arlington, told Mirage News.
      “Also, remember to carry your own black pen, stylus and hand sanitizer. If you don’t have a stylus, bring a wipe to wipe down the polling booth touchscreen before you use it.”
      Residents in the border city of El Paso have been urged to stay home for two weeks as coronavirus cases threaten to overwhelm some hospitals, potentially keeping some voters away from polls.
      “We are in a crisis stage,” said El Paso county judge Ricardo Samaniego. More

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      Obama mocks Trump: 'He’s jealous of Covid’s media coverage' – video

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      Former US president Barack Obama mocked Donald Trump at an election rally for Joe Biden in Florida. Obama criticised his successor’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, noting that Trump had complained about the amount of news coverage it had received even as the US death toll continues to climb. ‘He’s jealous of Covid’s media coverage,’ Obama said.
      The former president also criticised Trump for his personal lack of coronavirus safety, saying that he had turned the White House into a ‘hot zone’ in the wake of two coronavirus outbreaks among the president and his senior staff. ‘Florida, we can’t afford four more years of this,’ Obama added. ‘We cannot afford this kind of incompetence and disinterest.’ More

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      The Guardian view on the 2020 US elections: It’s time to dump Trump. America’s only hope is Joe Biden

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      Donald Trump’s presidency has been a horror show that is ending with a pandemic that is out of control, an economic recession and deepening political polarisation. Mr Trump is the author of this disastrous denouement. He is also the political leader least equipped to deal with it. Democracy in the United States has been damaged by Mr Trump’s first term. It may not survive four more years.
      If the Guardian had a vote, it would be cast to elect Joe Biden as president next Tuesday. Mr Biden has what it takes to lead the United States. Mr Trump does not. Mr Biden cares about his nation’s history, its people, its constitutional principles and its place in the world. Mr Trump does not. Mr Biden wants to unite a divided country. Mr Trump stokes an anger that is wearing it down.
      The Republican presidential nominee is not, and has never been, a fit and proper person for the presidency. He has been accused of rape. He displays a brazen disregard for legal norms. In office, he has propagated lies and ignorance. It is astonishing that his financial interests appear to sway his outlook on the national interest. His government is cruel and mean. It effectively sanctioned the kidnapping and orphaning of migrant children by detaining them and deporting their parents. He has vilified whistleblowers and venerated war criminals.
      Mr Trump trades in racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia. Telling the Proud Boys, a far-right group that has endorsed violence, to “stand back and stand by” was, in the words of Mr Biden, “a dog whistle about as big as a foghorn”. From the Muslim ban to building a wall on the Mexican border, the president is grounding his base in white supremacy. With an agenda of corporate deregulation and tax giveaways for the rich, Mr Trump is filling the swamp, not draining it.
      A narcissist, Mr Trump seems incapable of acknowledging the suffering of others. Coronavirus has exposed a devastating lack of presidential empathy for those who have died and the families they left behind. Every day reveals the growing gap between the level of competence required to be president and Mr Trump’s ability. He is protected from the truth by cronies whose mob-like fealty to their boss has seen six former aides sentenced to prison. A post-shame politician, Mr Trump outrageously commuted the sentence of one of his favoured lackeys this summer. The idea that there is one rule for wealthy elites and another for the ordinary voter damages trust in the American system. Mr Trump couldn’t care less.
      The people’s enemy
      Like other aspiring autocrats, Mr Trump seeks to delegitimise his opposition as “enemies of the people” to mobilise his base. In 2016, the institutions that should have acted as a check on Mr Trump’s rise to power failed to stop him. This time there has been some pushback over a Trump disinformation campaign about Mr Biden’s son. It is an indictment of the Trump age that social media companies acted before politicians in the face of a clear and present danger to democracy.
      Mr Biden has his flaws, but he understands what they are and how to temper them. Seen as too centrist in the Democratic primaries, his election platform has borrowed ideas from the progressive wing of his party and incorporated a “green new deal” and free college for the middle class. Mr Biden should not retreat into his comfort zone. The failures of capitalism have been thrown into sharp relief by the pandemic. If elected, he will raise taxes on richer Americans and spend more on public services. This is the right and fair thing to do when a thin sliver of America has almost half the country’s wealth.
      It’s not just Americans for whom Mr Biden is a better bet. The world could breathe easier with Mr Trump gone. The threat from Pyongyang and Tehran has grown thanks to President Trump. A new face in the White House would restore America’s historic alliances and present a tougher test to the authoritarians in Moscow and Beijing than the fawning Mr Trump. On climate change, Mr Biden would return the United States to the Paris agreement and give the world a fighting chance to keep global temperatures in check. With a President Biden there would be a glimmer of hope that the US would return as a guarantor of a rules-based international order.
      Perhaps no country has so much to lose from Mr Biden’s victory as Britain. It has the misfortune of being led by Boris Johnson, whom Democrats bracket with Mr Trump as another rule-breaking populist. Mr Biden, a Catholic proud of his Irish roots, has already warned the Johnson government that it must not jeopardise the Good Friday agreement in its Brexit negotiations. Having left the EU, the UK can no longer be America’s bridge across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, Britain has a prime minister who led the country out of Europe just when an incoming President Biden would be looking to partner with it.
      Faustian pact
      Whether Mr Trump is defeated or not next week, Americans will have to learn to live with Trumpism for years to come. The first impeached president to run for re-election, Mr Trump avoided being the first to be removed from office because the Republican party has lost its moral compass. The party of Abraham Lincoln has become subsumed by the politics of grievance and entitlement. The GOP turns a blind eye to Mr Trump’s transgressions in return for preserving the privileged status of white Christian America.
      The most obvious sign of this Faustian pact is the Senate’s confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the US supreme court — Mr Trump’s third justice. Conservatives now have a 6-3 advantage in the highest court in the land. Compliant judges are key to retaining the status quo when Republicans face a shrinking electoral base. The Republican strategy is twofold: first is voter suppression; if that fails, Mr Trump appears ready to reject the result. He has spent years conditioning his supporters, especially those armed to the hilt, to mistrust elections and to see fraud where it doesn’t exist.
      We have been here before. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by more than half a million ballots. The election turned on a handful of votes needed to capture the electoral vote in Florida. But the votes that counted were not found in the Sunshine State. They were cast by the five supreme court justices named by Republican presidents who gave the election to George W Bush.
      In the 2018 midterms, a coalition of millions marched into polling booths to disavow the president. It is heartening that more than 60 million people have cast their ballot in early voting at a time when the president is doing much to call US democracy into question amid baseless claims of a “rigged election”. Americans are busily embracing their democratic right, and a record turnout in this election may show that voters, worried about whether democracy would endure, strove to save it. Anything other than a vote for Mr Biden is a vote to unleash a supercharged Trumpism. All pretence of civility would be dropped. The divides of race, class and sex would become even wider. Mr Trump is a symptom of America’s decline. Finding a solution to this problem begins with a vote for Mr Biden. More

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      What is at stake for Donald Trump? It’s certainly not just the election | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Going bankrupt once is unfortunate. Going bankrupt twice looks like carelessness. Driving your companies into bankruptcy six times, however, as Donald Trump has done, makes you a brilliant businessman.
      That is according to the US president, anyway. Trump, a self-described “king of debt”, is proud of his multiple business bankruptcies, boasting frequently about how he has “brilliantly” exploited corporate bankruptcy laws in order to wriggle out of his companies’ financial obligations. Time and time again, Trump has managed to make others – employees, investors and banks – pay for his failures. Trump, who has never declared personal bankruptcy, has been able to protect his own assets and move on to the next fiasco.
      But is Teflon Don’s luck finally running out? With just days to go until the US election, Trump is facing a potentially crippling combination of financial stressors. His business empire has been hit hard by the pandemic; according to a recent report by the Washington Post, Trump’s golf clubs and hotels are practically empty. They were not doing that well before the pandemic: the New York Times’ investigation into Trump’s taxes last month found his businesses were losing money at a staggering rate. (Seriously, what kind of genius invests heavily in a dying sport such as golf?)
      Then there is the fact that Trump is in the middle of a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over a $72.9m tax refund he claimed in 2010; if the IRS rules against him, he may owe more than $100m. On top of all that, Trump has at least $400m in loans with repayments due in the next four years. In fact, that number may be optimistic: Forbes reckons he owes more than $1bn.
      Can Trump afford to pay all his loans? Absolutely, he says. In a “town hall” meeting earlier this month, Trump claimed his business loans constitute a “tiny percentage” of his net worth. Of course, anything that comes out of that man’s mouth needs to be taken with several heaps of salt. The fact is, Trump’s finances are a riddle wrapped in a mystery hidden inside an enormous number of enigmatic shell companies and offshore bank accounts. Nobody knows exactly how much money the president has. While we know that he owes significant amounts to Deutsche Bank (at least $320m) and a real estate investment trust called Ladder Capital (at least $113m), it is not clear to whom else he owes money.
      Much has been said about how, if Trump wins a second term, his debts represent a huge conflict of interest. However, we all know that Trump is not bothered by ethics. If he gets another four years, one imagines he will find it easy to pay off his loans. But what if he loses? Will banks be so eager to renegotiate the terms of their agreements with him? One reason Trump has been able to fail upwards is the value of his brand. Buildings with his name on them used to sell at a premium; a financial summary Trump issued in 2015 valued his “real estate licensing deal, brand and branded developments” at $3.3bn. In the past few years, however, Trump’s brand has taken a kicking. Indeed, his name has been stripped from a number of buildings because it has become a liability rather than an asset.
      If Trump loses the election, there is a possibility he will lose everything. He could face numerous legal problems. There is a not-insignificant chance he may end up in jail. (Joe Biden has promised that, if he becomes president, he will not pardon Trump if he is convicted of any crimes.) If Trump does manage to avoid jail, he might not be able to escape his debts. The jig might finally be up. Sure, no one knows how much money Trump has, but it is clear that this is an election he can’t afford to lose.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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      A Trump win or a disputed result are Canadians' worst fears

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      Before every US presidential election, a few disgruntled Americans can be relied on to promise that they’ll move to Canada if the results don’t go their way.
      Canadians watch US elections with close attention – and occasional horror – but they rarely expect many voters to make good on that vow. A few do make the move; most do not.
      However, in recent weeks the political temperature in the US has mounted: senior Republicans have called for supporters to“guard” polling stations, and right-wing militias have openly called for armed revolt in the event that Donald Trump loses.
      In Canada, fears are growing that the fallout from a contested vote could spill across the border.
      The spectre of unrest, trade disruption, and even violence is likely to have prompted frantic strategising among senior government officials, said Thomas Juneau, a professor of international relations and security studies at the University of Ottawa.
      “We are absolutely at the point where we have to think about scenarios that … start raising really difficult questions for Canada,” said Juneau.
      A contested election, or a second term of Trump where he begins making decisions that are bad for Canada, are both looking like plausible outcomes, he said.
      As one of the United States’ largest trading partners, Canada cannot afford to be caught off-guard. The two nations share the world’s longest undefended border and have highly integrated economies.
      “There are few things that Canada does better than understanding the United States,” he said. “There is not a single department in the Canadian government, that doesn’t devote a considerable proportion of its resources and time to managing relations with the US. Folks in the Canadian government think about the relationship every day.”
      The prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who has spent much of his tenure restraining any urge to overtly criticise Trump, has expressed cautious optimism about the upcoming election and downplayed fears of violence or disruption.
      “I think we’re certainly all hoping for a smooth transition or a clear result from the election, like many people are around the world,” he said earlier this month. “If it is less clear, there may be some disruptions and we need to be ready for any outcomes, and I think that’s what Canadians would expect of their government, and we’re certainly reflecting on that.”
      Hundreds of billions of dollars cross the border each year in trade networks that thrive not least because of mutual co-operation and the predictability of the bilateral relationship.
      Any disruption could prove catastrophic to Canada.
      “I’ve made no bones about saying that the greatest damage to the US-Canada relationship is Donald Trump,” said Bruce Heyman, former US ambassador to Canada. “[Trump] has never admitted failure. So when you get down to an election where you either win or lose, he has a hard time accepting the fact that he can lose. He has never used the words ‘defeat’ or ‘loss’ in terms of the election.”
      In office, Trump has frequently challenged the norms of the relationship with his country’s closest ally.
      He has feuded with Trudeau, calling the prime minister “two-faced”. He has slapped tariffs on aluminium and steel and forced a redrafting of the continent’s free trade agreement. He has called into question Canada’s critical alliances such as Nato, and the missile defence system Norad.
      Trump’s administration has also failed to stand up for Canada during diplomatic rows with China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, leaving the country to fend for itself.
      “And I think a second term of Donald Trump will be an extreme version of what we have seen in the first,” said Heyman.
      While the Trump era may mark a historic low in the relationship, he is not the first US president to oversee strained relations with Canada.
      Prime ministers and presidents have often sparred in past, most recently when Canada decided not to join the US in its invasion of Iraq.
      Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister for 15 years from the 1960s to the 1980s, likened the relationship to that of a mouse beside a snoring elephant. His clash with President Richard Nixon led to a period of chilled relations.
      “It is time for us to recognise … that we have very separate identities; that we have significant differences; and that nobody’s interests are furthered when these realities are obscured,” Nixon told the Canadian parliament in 1972.
      But the current damage is clear: a recent poll found that Canadian sentiment towards the US had reached its lowest point in 40 years. Only 29% of residents have a favourable view of their southern neighbour.
      And many blame Trump: nearly 66% want Joe Biden to win the election.
      But whatever happens on 3 November, tussles over trade and tariffs are likely to persist. A Biden administration would still face domestic pressure to bring manufacturing jobs home and to maintain hardline US positions on commodities such as softwood lumber.
      “Because Trump is so unpopular in Canada, people naturally tend to idealise what a Biden presidency would look like,” said Juneau. “But the idea Biden would just erase all of the bilateral trade irritants between the two countries is not true. And I think the Canadian government understands that very well.” More