British activist Tim Field once wrote “bullies thrive wherever authority is weak.”
School-age children today are taught from a very early age that bullying is not only frowned upon, but is downright wrong. In this day and age, it not only includes the stereotypical schoolyard threats, but online cyberbullying as well. And educators are absolutely right in that bullying and belittling behaviour serves no purpose in today’s society.
But what happens when the leader of one of the world’s most powerful countries decides to throw their political weight around, with the sole purpose of threatening and intimidating other world leaders?
As you are all well aware, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump has decided that mocking and bullying tactics will be the new U.S. foreign trade policy.
As The Navigator reported last month, right out of the gate, Trump announced he will be imposing 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico once he is inaugurated. But more recently, Trump has even trumped himself.
He appears to be taking great pleasure by belittling an already downtrodden and beleaguered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Via social media, Trump has referred to the “great state of Canada” and “Governor Justin Trudeau,” noting that this country should just become the 51st State.
While few are taking him seriously, is this the rhetoric those of us on this side of the border are going to have to endure for the next four years?
Mexico is not faring much better than the Great White North.
Along with the 25 per cent tariffs, Trump is also threatening to deport millions of migrants to Mexico, putting extreme pressure on that country’s infrastructure, society and economy.
Now, the Commander in Chief is floating the idea of using U.S. military personnel to track down and eliminate drug traffickers within Mexico itself.
Given the history of his first term in power, many view Trump’s bullying tactics against Canada and Mexico as predictable. But many observers were left scratching their heads when Trump spoke about taking back the Panama Canal and appropriating or purchasing Greenland from Denmark. Is he really serious about such threats?
American journalist Sasha Abramsky summed up Trump’s unusual tactics this way: “When Trump talks about seizing land in Panama, or appropriating Greenland and all its vast mineral resources without considering the will of the Indigenous population that lives there, that is an updated version of the European colonial project of the 19th century and the fascist colonial project of the 1930s and ’40s. When Trump deliberately needles Canadian leader Justin Trudeau by referring to him in social media posts as Governor Trudeau and speculates about absorbing Canada into the U.S. as its 51st state, he is positing an Anschluss philosophy of Manifest Destiny updated for the 21st century; a worldview that believes all of wealthy North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic, is, inherently, destined to fall under the governance of Washington, DC.”
And if that was not enough, Trump has also fired a shot across the bow of the global organization BRICS – which stands for founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. However, BRICS recently added more members with Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) becoming full members this year, while four Southeast Asian countries – Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand – have become partner countries of BRICS.
So, what is Trump’s beef with this odd cohort, whose member economies represent over U.S.$28.5 trillion or about 28 per cent of the global economy? In a warning to BRICS, Trump threatened to impose 100 per cent tariffs on any country that challenged the U.S. dollar’s dominance in the global economy.
“The idea that the BRICS countries are trying to move away from the dollar while we stand by and watch is over,” Trump posted on social media.
So, why the detailed descriptor of President Trump’s bid for world dominance, or at least global political and economic chaos? With all of the threats and ill-advised promises being bandied about, there is risk that certain critical industries, such as the commercial fishing and seafood, will be swallowed up in all of the rhetoric. We can’t let that happen.
One can only speculate on the damage a 25 per cent tariff would have on the Eastern Canadian seafood industry — harm that could take years to overcome.
However, there are some that are looking at Trump’s threats with quiet optimism.
Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, told the Associated Press (AP) “that the new Trump administration has a unique chance to throw its support behind U.S. fishermen. I think we should be focused on feeding Americans. The ‘America First’ administration I think will make that point loud and clear. Know where your food is coming from.”
But the majority of seafood industry analysts and stakeholders, on both sides of the border, are raising serious red flags if Trump carries out his tariff promise.
Well-known analyst John Sackton is one of those raising alarm bells.
“The seafood industry, which is international in nature, could be seriously disrupted if Trump goes through with a plan to impose a 25 per cent tax on all products entering the country from Canada. Canada is the largest seafood market for the U.S. for both imports and exports and nearly a sixth of the seafood imported by the U.S. is from its northern neighbor, according to federal statistics published in November. In total, about 80 per cent of seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported. Losing Canada — an especially important buyer of American lobster — as a market for U.S. seafood could cause prices to fishermen to collapse and some products could become unavailable while others become more expensive and still others oversupplied.”
With the current instability surrounding Canada’s own federal government in Ottawa, it is even more important than ever that all Canadian seafood industry stakeholders rally together under a unified voice to try and ward off this trade threat from the south.
Remember the words of another politician, Benjamin Disraeli, “Courage is fire and bullying is smoke.”
