The hopes that Donald Trump’s multiple legal problems would seriously damage his election bid are fading.
The long-running hush money trial hasn’t dented his support in opinion polls. Most legal experts are predicting an acquittal or a hung jury. Even if convicted, it’s uncertain that there would be much negative impact.
As his luck would have it, trials on three other more serious sets of charges are all now likely to be put off until after the Nov. 5 election day.
Mr. Trump maintains a lead in almost all the swing states that will decide the election. President Joe Biden might get some help on the economy with projected interest-rate cuts. The abortion issue will help Democratic turnout.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who obviously favours a Biden re-election, needs to focus significant attention on Mr. Trump’s potential return to power. So too should Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre who, short on foreign affairs experience to begin with, has not been to the U.S. to confer with Biden administration officials or with people in Mr. Trump’s entourage. Before long he could be facing one of them as prime minister.
Mr. Trump shows no signs of moving off his ugly, protectionist America-first agenda. He’s spoken of imposing a 10-per-cent tariff on all imports, a measure that would cripple the Canadian economy.
Mr. Trudeau was in Philadelphia on Tuesday, where he made the point that any future punitive measures taken against Canada “would hurt American jobs as well.”
He made that argument with Mr. Trump over and over between 2016 and 2020, and it helped him survive their rocky relationship. In recent months, cabinet ministers, MPs and businesspeople have been sent down to build ties with Republicans influential with their leader and clue them in on how much the health of their economy depends on Canadian trade.
That should be obvious. We’ve been their most important trading partner for eons. But one should never underestimate the ignorance level of American lawmakers when it comes to what is going on in this country on trade and everything else.
A recent illustration came at a session that Canadian MPs – members of the Canada-U.S. Inter-Parliamentary Group – had with 20 or so American legislators in Washington earlier this month.
One of the Canadian participants, speaking on background because it was a closed-door session, told me of a Congressman from a southern state who wondered what system of government Canada had. He asked if our prime minister was kind of like a president. Maybe that shouldn’t have been all that surprising. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, it might be recalled, twice referenced our country in speeches as “the Republic of Canada.”
The Canadian MPs, who pressed the Americans on how bad new tariffs would be, had an exchange with Republican Bill Huizenga. He’s from the border state of Michigan and serves on the House Foreign Affairs committee, so it would seem reasonable to assume he knows a fair bit about Canada.
But when the issue of Canadian defence spending, a perennial griping point with U.S. administrations, came up, Mr. Huizenga was unaware that the Trudeau government had made a recent commitment of billions in new defence spending. He also didn’t know of Ottawa’s multibillion dollar plan to modernize NORAD, something obviously important to the strategic interests of the U.S.
The group met with another border-state Republican, Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan. He’s a leading ultra-right staunch ally of Mr. Trump, and could play a very significant role in a new Trump administration.
He’s been a critic of illegal immigration from our northern border. But he was unaware, according to the Canadian participant, about the crisis at the Roxham Road crossing. The Quebec entry point to Canada was shut down after more than 95,000 irregular asylum seekers used it to cross our border.
Some of the American lawmakers, particularly Democrats like Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, are well informed on Canada. But the meetings were an indication of how much work, in addition to the strong push already being made by our Washington ambassador Kirsten Hillman, still has to be done.
And even then, it still might not be of much benefit. Given the impulsive nature of the ill-informed Mr. Trump, and given how vindictive he’ll likely be if re-elected, he’ll be even less inclined to listen to sound advice than he was in his tumultuous first four years.