Rob Russo

of the united states but they also have right-wing populist parties in europe that are poised to take control uh if polls are to be believed uh there's going to be a right-wing populist take control in the united kingdom uh another one in france they're on the march uh in germany holland uh i know everybody points to hungary uh peter magyar as as

of sort of progress in Europe.

Yes, it's true, the new leader of Hungary has turned towards Europe and away from Putin, but he's also a right-winger who is anti-immigration, like many of the other right-wingers in Europe, and also skeptical of Ukraine.

He's very anti-Putin, but skeptical of some of the aid that's given to Ukraine, so I'm not sure

if Canadians would be comfortable with all of that.

Europe, 450 million people, a great idea to try to get to them, but they have sclerotic growth in terms of their economies.

They're growing at a much weaker, more pallid pace than Canada.

They've been left behind technologically, they've been left behind militarily, they've been left behind economically by the United States and China, which enjoy the greatest growth

both economic growth, military prowess, technological prowess.

And before we get too excited about joining forces with Europe, I don't think anybody's talking about us becoming the

But before we even consider that, I think we should ask the Europeans to ratify our trade deal with them, which was signed nine years ago in 2017, the CETA, Canada-Europe Trade Agreement.

And it's still not been ratified by 10 of the 27 countries.

17 have ratified, 10 have said no.

So there are a lot of, I would say, cracks in that foundation.

It's unstable at times.

People within the trading block say that there are all kinds of obstacles to growth and to prosperity there as well.

Yeah, I think Althea has summarized it very nicely.

There is a cliff.

And I don't know that anybody should put it past Donald Trump to say he is a guy who loves the madman theory.

So no one should put it past him to say on July 1st, I'm giving six months notice, even if the intention isn't to pull out, but to do it as a negotiating tactic that I'm leaving.