Trump Miscalculates as Canada’s PM Carney Plans for US Invasion

0:00Michael Popok:It looks like Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada in an interview with the New York Times may have triggered, likely intentionally, Donald Trump. Because in his New York Times interview, Mark Carney said, while it may be a tail risk, it is a risk nonetheless of a U.S. invasion of Canada. See, when you talk constantly about belittling our allies to the north, when you talk constantly about them wanting to be a 51st state, when you try to destabilize them economically, Canada, which has nuclear power but is not yet a nuclear power, if you know what I mean, but could be with a flip of a switch, has to seriously consider how to protect their homeland.

0:45Michael Popok:It would be political malpractice for the Prime Minister of Canada not to do that, not to protect his citizenry. And so when he gave the interview to the New York Times and he said, well, it may be a tail risk. It may be a certain low percentage, but I have to plan for it. That seems to have triggered Donald Trump, who is now retaliated by calling Canada one of the worst. On Canadian trade tomorrow, you're going to have a ban of certain items with Canada to the United States. Can you still have a trade deal or an agreement with Canada or could more items be added to that list? Well, they want to have a deal with us.

1:23They call us all the time the problem is that they've treated the United States very unfairly they have been one of the worst countries in the entire world you know we get along with China we get along with the people and we make good deals but Canada has been really very difficult to deal with actually they've they've charged our farmers 400 percent tariffs and more and they they take advantage of us they feel entitled and you know they get 95 95 of the business they do they do with the united states with us it's a tiny fraction of that number it's not a big number at all and yet uh you know we give them military we give them icebreakers they want icebreakers we work with them we buy icebreakers we have a lot of them we have 11 of them right now under construction.

2:14They want to know if they can use our icebreaker, so many things. And they feel entitled. And, you know, they're not a state. There's nothing they have that we need. We have more energy than they have. We have all the lumber you could possibly use. We have everything we have we don't need. And they have to treat our country with respect. They've been very, very bad to our farmers in particular. I'm Michael Popok,

2:40Michael Popok:kicking off our Tuesday morning here on Legal AF. Take a moment, hit the free subscribe button, and thank you for all of you that have already subscribed that got us to 2 ,500 ,000 subscribers. With your help, we're going to reach our goal of 2 million, 2 million total, before the Trump administration is done and dusted. All right, let's turn back to Canada. Global trade war, advantage Canada. They used the global trade war started by Donald Trump, the Canadian trade war against them as an act of war. They put themselves on war footing. They went into a reassessment internally of their economics and their economy.

3:22Michael Popok:They looked inward. They restructured their entire economic system. They had the government invest more money to shore up Canadian economies and marketplaces. They then invited in a conference just a couple of weeks ago in Toronto, trillions of dollars of worldwide investment led by American banks to come and invest in Canada. A stable trading partner, I think was one of their mottos. What else have they've done? They've also turned away from America and turned back to their European and United Kingdom roots, having deep, deep conversations with the European Union about having a favored nation status economic relationship with them.

4:10Michael Popok:All that's going on. It came up in the New York Times interview to Mark Carney about whether he believes he's got a plan for the worst, a U.S. invasion. Here's another clip of Mark Carney talking about being on a war footing. I'm going to go through why we're walking away from a bad deal and what comes next.

4:34Good morning everyone. Bonjour tout le monde. You're at war when you get attacked. We got attacked.

4:48We've been under no illusions. We recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes its signature was written in pencil. The gap between partnership and competitor, unfortunately, has remained too wide in recent days.

5:19Let me be clear. We take this step reluctantly. Reluctantly, because we recognize that some of these measures will raise costs.

5:40Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so they can own us. And I promise that that will never, ever happen. We are keeping that promise.

5:55Michael Popok:That's resonated with the Canadian people who have rallied around Mark Carney and who would now have overwhelmingly a negative impression of Donald Trump. And unfortunately, by extension, the American people who are suffering along with them under this Trump presidency. Now, it has made its way into mainstream Canadian conversation. Let me show you a clip first of the Canadian Defense Secretary, David McGinty, and his comments about the prime minister having to think about these things. Play the clip. The military has all kinds of CONOP plans, likely, unlikely. The military has all kinds of what sort of?

6:38CONOP plans, like plans for unlikely scenarios, including a military invasion. When Mr. Carney talked about a scenario that you modelled, are we talking about reviewing one or coming up with a new one, refreshing one, beefing one up? What are we talking about here? We're talking about one of the most significant military relationships in the world. We're talking about decades of cooperation under NORAD. We're talking about cooperation to keep North American airspace safe. We're talking about integrated air missile defense. We're talking about maritime domain awareness investments. We're talking about all kinds of issues around keeping North America safe.

7:18And that's exactly what we're doing. It's normal.

7:25All militaries in the world spend time analyzing risk scenarios.

7:35Michael Popok:And then we have a clip from one of the NDP, one of the major parties in Canada's parliamentary leader, Don Daniels, had this to say. Did you see what Mark Carney had to say about the unlikely possibility of a U.S. military invasion and that he's thought about it and that it'd be irresponsible for him not to have? What did you think? Yeah, I just briefly saw the story that you referred to. I mean, it's really a sign of the times, isn't it? And it just shows, I think, the dramatic, profound change in Canadian-U.S. relations that a Canadian Prime Minister would have to even contemplate such a, you know, such a, what's the word I would use?

8:17I guess just such an outlandish possibility as that. so I guess it just shows that everything we thought we knew about Canadian-U.S. relations is really up in the air at this point.

8:32Michael Popok:But it's made its way all the way into serious conversation among intellectuals and the Canadian free press. Here's a clip of the Canadian free press kicking around the idea that you've got a plan for a potential invasion by the United States. Play the panel. Althea, do you think that these comments by the Prime Minister are interesting, unusual. What do you make of them? No, frankly, I think that it would have been irresponsible not to consider the scenario. I mean, you look at the threats that President Trump was leveling against Greenland, of course, and the way the prime minister spoke about it was not like, you know, we were drafting very specific plans.

9:13It was like we asked them to, like, conceptualize what that would mean. And so I think it's entirely responsible. I would say that, actually, the thing that probably annoyed most of my colleagues in the press in Ottawa is that he's been going again to a foreign outlet to talk and part deliver messages that probably he should be saying at home. You know, he's given sit-downs to Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times and the New York Times. And I think it's strategically smart when he's trying to talk to the White House and global investors. And a lot of what he was trying to communicate, I think, in the New York Times article is directed at people in the United States, basically telling them and people in the White House that whatever, you know, changes that Canada is contemplating are not going to be for the shirt torn.

10:03You know, these are big decisions that we have to make. Do we trust you? Do we not trust you? Do we completely disalign or do we not? And I think it's, you know, directed at trying to get the Americans back at the table on a different field than where we were at in August. But I do think that he probably should be speaking to Canadian media, especially when he's talking about, you know, building Canada strong is also about building Canadian media strong and perhaps encouraging people to buy subscriptions to Canadian newspapers would be a good thing. So, yeah.

10:32Michael Popok:Now, of course, on the American side, they don't take it very seriously because, frankly, a lot of people don't take Donald Trump very seriously. They asked Admiral Paparo, who is the leader, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, whether he has plans that he can talk about, about a potential invasion of Canada. And he laughed out loud and said, what are you going to ask me next about a potential invasion by Martians? Play the clip. Would you obey an order to launch military action against Canada?

11:11I find that scenario to be absolutely and utterly preposterous. And so I follow the orders of the commander-in-chief, but that is a needlessly emotional question. I don't find, forgive my saying it too, is that... is that Canada is a close ally.

11:46I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be insulted. No, no, but you didn't answer the question. I'm sorry? You didn't answer the question. I said I follow the orders of the president and I find it to be a... Would you ask me please also what my attack plans are for the Martians?

12:07yes sir i don't dismiss you i don't dismiss you but uh i do dismiss the question i'm sorry i don't think that's the right approach at all this is a serious question but a serious issue we've had threats of annexation i know it's not i know it's hypothetical but nonetheless

12:23Michael Popok:if you've not thought about it thank you because i which i think is an insult to canadians uh But par for the course. Who's winning this global trade war? Well, the polls in America say it's Canada. That the Canadians have rallied around and strengthened the administration and the prime minister position of Prime Minister Carney. He has a galvanizing issue that has united a country that's not that easy to totally unite behind its prime minister. Trump has found a way to do it. polling numbers by contrast for Donald Trump are in the shitter. They're in the trash. You've got in the high 20s at best as an approval rating, given the margin of error.

13:14Michael Popok:You've got 70, 80 percent of Americans think Donald Trump's handling of the Iranian war is a failure and a testament to his administration. Same thing on the economy. When you have the economy, your number one domestic issue is domestic security through an economy and your running of the economy. And when the overwhelming majority of Americans believe you have failed as a domestic president, you got to hope you're doing better on the foreign stage, on the global stage. And your global policy is better, right? That didn't work. See, Lyndon Johnson as a president, when he had a failed foreign policy, mainly because of his conduct of the Vietnam War, he at least turned and became an amazing domestic policy president, building many of the social service and social safety net agencies and passing laws that we have today.

14:20Michael Popok:Of course, he was a one-term president. Trump, on the other hand, is failing at home on the economy and on Epstein, treatment of immigrants, treatment of migrants, people who are not from this country, treatment of women, cutting down and cutting off the social safety net. And he's doing terrible on the global stage, not just Canada and Mexico. Attacks on NATO, attacks on the European Union, attacks his conduct of the Iranian war, which is roundly unpopular with the American people, the American voter. Same thing about how he's allowing Ukraine to be pummeled by Russia with no repercussion. These are on the voters' minds.

15:02Michael Popok:I think it's important to talk about what's on Canada's minds, even if it's referred to as a tail risk, meaning out here in the tail, right? Not in the bell curve of possibilities, but out here in the tail, but it's still a risk they have to think about. Just as I reported that Canada is having serious discussions about whether to flip the switch on its civilian nuclear power, energy, resources, and turn it into enriched uranium to use for nuclear weapons. That would be a good deterrent. When you have a huge, vast country, square mile-wise, but you don't have that many people, and you're up against the United States that is also large, but with lots more people and a powerful military.

15:48Michael Popok:Nuclear weapons could be the great equalizer, and they could be doing it in secret. Many nuclear powers today, Israel, India, and the rest, did it in secret for years and are now considered nuclear powers, even though they haven't declared it. Canada should be and may be seriously considering it. That's come up as well. I'm going to continue to follow it all right here on Legal AF. If you like this kind of reporting and you're already part of our community, make sure you're subscribed. Hit that free subscribe button. Until my next report in about an hour, I'm Michael Popok. Can't get your fill of Legal AF?

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