In this episode of The David Frum Show, David discusses how the Trump administration is in for a stark reality check due to its trade policies. David also debunks the claims of a painless economic transition promised by President Donald Trump and makes the point that the administration is not only bluffing and mismanaging fiscal and trade policies, but also misleading the public with promises of easy success. Then David is joined by the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, to discuss Canadian reactions to the sudden economic and rhetorical attacks from their once-trusted American neighbors. After the interview, David answers listener questions about the Trump base, the media techniques of fascists, and the hidden gift of Trumpism. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/podsub. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Hello, and welcome back to The David Frum Show. I'm David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic, and I'm grateful that you would join us again this second week of the program. This week, my guest will be Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Now, I should make clear, if anyone doesn't know it, I too am a Canadian and an Ontarian by birth, and I still spend a lot of time there.
I'm going to be speaking to the Premier about the sense of shock and dismay that Canadians have felt about Donald Trump's threats, not only to the trade arrangement between Canada and the United States, but his demands that Canada be annexed to the United States.
The Trump people, when they're trying to justify the economic policy that has sent world financial markets into such chaos over the past weeks, try to present this as some kind of confrontation with China alone. Because they don't like to admit to Americans that they are waging a trade war against the entire planet. This is not an anti-China campaign. This is an anti-everybody campaign.
And it's a campaign in which America has almost literally no allies except maybe El Salvador. And the trade war began with attacks on Canada, supposedly and historically America's closest neighbor and ally. You would think if you were trying to build an anti-China coalition, you would start by consolidating the North American heartland, especially the U.S.-Canada relationship.
That's exactly the opposite of what has happened. I'll be talking to the Premier about that, how Canadians feel about it, not so much the facts and figures of the relationship, enormous as it is, but what it has been like for Canadians to be on the receiving end of threats of annexation, threats of violence, and this unrelenting campaign of tariffs and harassment, which is not been paused.
Of all the tariffs against China, paused and unpaused. But those against Canada have remained consistently in place from the very beginning of the Trump administration. It's bizarre. It's shocking. It's upsetting. And that's what we're going to talk about this week on The David Frum Show. After the interview, I will be discussing and answering some reader questions.
But first, some opening thoughts on the events of the past week. When Donald Trump and those around him want to demean or dismiss some opponent, some critic, they sometimes use the phrase, he doesn't have the cards. They said that about Vladimir Zelensky and the Ukrainian people's resistance to Russian aggression. They've said it about Canada and other trading partners.
The implication is that the other person is too weak, too insignificant to be worthy of respect. But there's another implication too, which is that the United States and the Trump administration have does have the cards is so mighty and fearsome that others must give way. Now, the United States is obviously a very powerful nation with a lot of sources of command and control.
But it is important to understand that, in fact, Donald Trump doesn't have the cards that he thinks he does. And that's one of the reasons that this campaign of economic aggression he's launched, not against China, but against the whole planet, every country just about, almost every trading nation, is coming amiss and will likely end in failure and even disaster.
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