Trump Swirls Drain as He Threatens to Pull Out of Global Economy in Response to Canada’s Moves

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2:27Michael Popok:Well, the United States just came up with a brilliant response to the Canadian counter tariffs that go into effect the day after Labor Day. According to Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, he was asked, well, how is the trade war going to end? Effectively with a bang or a whimper? He said, it's going to end with leaders, leadership. Yeah, we got that. The problem is we're one leadership short to resolve the Canadian tariff war that was started by Donald Trump. And the Canadians know it. We're on Friday. Economic numbers come out that show that the Fed, as I said, is about to raise interest rates.

3:07Michael Popok:And what's Donald Trump's response? The leaders should try to cut a deal. Yeah, the leaders should try to cut a deal. But what do you expect from Mark Carney, the prime minister from Canada, when he's been trolled and attacked, as has the Canadian people by extension, by the Trump administration officials? The easiest way to solve the Canadian counter tariffs is to tell Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, to stop talking. He doesn't know a thing about diplomacy. The only thing he's good at is opening his mouth and inserting his foot. And that has gotten Canada roiled up, if you will. We just have this new reporting from Mark Carney reached in Ottawa by the press.

3:55Michael Popok:And note, by the way, how he, a true leader with Gravitas, interacts with the free press of Canada. You don't see him calling the reporter a pig or calling her out for being dumb or stupid or telling her to hush or trying to take away her press credentials. You hear him after the reporter announces where they're from, calmly, solemnly, logically answering questions. That's what we demand and deserve in our leaders as well. Although Donald Trump doesn't fit that bill. Bill, play the Mark Carney clip. Next question. Okay, now here's the Ottawa Press Gallery. You know, bring it right there. You got some different.

4:35Hi, Catherine Morrison with the Canadian Press. U.S. politicians, including Howard Lutnick, say you walked away from their deal because of domestic politics, and they also say any future deal won't be as good as the one you said no to. What do you say to him and other Republicans? Well, I don't. I communicate with Canadians. In the U.S. administration, I communicate with the president. So it's not a comment directed to those individuals per se. The first thing is that, look, we were elected 16 months ago, 17 months ago, to build Canada Strong and build Canada Strong for all. And that's what we've been focused on.

5:25The core of it is announcements such as today and everything that it represents. It's building at home, it's that positive attitude building out. It's one Canadian economy, it's diversifying an economy with more than 20 partners around the world, reliable partners who want to do more with Canada. That's the core of what we're doing. I don't think, with all respect, appointed, unelected cabinet members in the United States are experts on Canadian politics.

5:58Our core role, everything this government is doing, everything I'm trying to do, is to work with provinces, work with willing partners around the world, work with labor, work with business to move forward to the benefit of our citizens. That's the small P. If you want to call that politics, that's small P politics. We're not positioning on this stuff. I'll say one other thing, which is that there are a few issues that the United States was arguing right up to the last hour. Red lines, we're not going to change, boom, it's in there, you know, our way or the highway, take it or leave it, you know, attitude.

6:35That now they're not. So all of a sudden they don't care about Canadian language or culture and those elements. Well those, well if they didn't care, they should have kept them in the deal up in the last, but it's good. We welcome that we care about those issues. Those are rights. Those are fundamental to who we are. So that's not there.

6:54Michael Popok:And welcome to Legal AF on Friday, Labor Day Friday. Hit that free subscribe button, if you will. Help us to continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Now, that's Mark Carney's reaction to this ridiculous observation that it's going to take decision makers to make decisions. That's what Trump's left with. Wake up. I know he's busy celebrating jobs numbers that were slightly better than they were predicted to be. Oh, 160 ,000 jobs that were made in the last month. Okay. Joe Biden made three to four hundred thousand jobs per month every month he was in office. This has effectively been a jobless economy under Donald Trump.

7:36Michael Popok:You're talking about, on average, even with these new numbers, about 15 to 20 ,000 new jobs a month in an economy of 330 million people. It's nothing to brag about, although Donald Trump will brag about it and has bragged about it. But all it's going to do is when the rest of the economic data comes out, including price data, inflation data, next week under the Consumer Price Index, that is what the Federal Reserve will rely on. Because if job creation is moving towards full employment in the United States, we're still at 4.1%, but that's considered to be sort of full employment in the United States.

8:15Michael Popok:All that means is wages rise and therefore prices rise and we're back into that cycle of inflation. The target inflation for the Federal Reserve for the last 50 to 75 years is 2%. We're not at 2%. We're pushing 5%. And on some items, we're at 8 % to 10 % at the supermarket. And this has been a burden on the American voter for 60 months. It's the reason Joe Biden and Kamala Harris didn't get reelected. And now Trump is walking around with this giant albatross of inflation around his neck and his way out of it to go pull hundreds of billions of dollars out of our economy by having Canada turn its back at the 5 ,000-mile border on U.S.

9:06Michael Popok:trade. And the more I watch Mark Carney, the more I long for a leader of the United States that matches his gravitas, that matches his charisma, that matches his intellect. We don't have that. We have a bunch of bozos. Scott Bessett, where'd he come from? He worked for George Soros at one point, ran a hedge fund. What does that have to tell you about global economies and how to run them? Howard Lutnick worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, effectively a family-run office that's primarily in the bond market with an investment banking arm. It's not global. It's not macro. He wasn't a macro thinker about public policy, about the policy of how to run the American economy.

9:54These are narrow-minded people who should not have been anywhere near the levers of power.

10:03Michael Popok:But the leader of the free world is somebody who's also equally moronic. What background did Donald Trump have in global economics? Why? Because he went to the Wharton School and got B's and C's at the Wharton School of Business at Penn. That's his qualifications, a failed real estate developer. So what do you expect? You put a Lutnik, a Besson, a Trump in charge of the U.S. economy, put their hands on those levers, and of course the thing is flying backwards. By contrast, who's running Canada? Somebody who was the central banker, basically the head of their equivalent of the Federal Reserve for the U.K., and then in Canada, an economist, a serious person.

10:51Michael Popok:Here's Howard Lutnik going after Canada. Friday at four o 'clock, the Canadians call and say they start adding crazy ideas to the mix. And we said, what are you doing? And I said to one of the ministers, are you actually trying to blow this up? And his answer to me was, I'm not allowed to say that. And they blew it up for political reasons only. So if you're going to mess with the United States of America and its economy, and you're right adjacent to our northern border, I think it was really disrespectful. We were treated disrespectfully. And I think when you treat Donald Trump disrespectfully, you know, he knows it.

11:31And that's what happened. They did it for politics. They're going to do it through their elections in Quebec. And then they have an election in Alberta. And after October 12th, all of a sudden, the Canadians are going to treat us respectfully because their elections will be behind them. It's just, it's sad. If you're from my perspective, it's just sad the way Canada's treated us.

11:50Michael Popok:So what's going to happen next? Those counter tariffs are going to go into effect on September the 8th against more than$50 billion worth of US trade. It's going to have a negative impact on the Midwest of the United States, on the Rust Belt of the United States, in Michigan, in Ohio, in Indiana, in Kentucky, in California. The dairy trade, steel, iron, ferrous metal, appliances, cars, trucks, trailers. These are things that make America move. We used to have a phrase in America about the economy. As GM moves, so does America. and the same thing about Canada. We cannot live without Canada. I know Donald Trump thinks we can.

12:41Michael Popok:Here's a clip of Donald Trump saying, we don't need Canada, they need us. Play the clip. We do a very small percentage compared to others. We do a very small percentage by comparison to that. But they need us, we don't need them. They've taken advantage of us for years and it's time to stop. We can't lose 60 to 100 billion dollars. It's exactly that type of thinking. that has gotten us into this mess economically. If you ever wanted to know what it would look like with a chimpanzee running our economy for two years, here's where we're at. Here's where we're at. Except that chimpanzee also stole hundreds of billions of dollars from the American people.

13:22Michael Popok:Canada's going to get through this just fine. You know, I saw their unemployment numbers go up a little bit today. You know, they're more in the 6 % range. We're in the 4 % range. They're going to lose some more jobs because of this trade war. but it will be worth it. The fortitude, intestinal fortitude of Canada, the strengthening, looking inward and strengthening their economies and industries and provinces are going to pay dividends for Canada. It's not a bad thing for Canada to turn away from the United States. It's a terrible thing for the United States. We need their electric power. We need their fuel line to our electric grid to run our gross domestic product.

14:02Michael Popok:We can't run or fuel our economy without Canada? And if Donald Trump's comment that we can indicates the amateurishness of their approach, I'm going to continue to follow it all right here. Do us a favor, help us to continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Hit the free subscribe button here. Come over to Legal AF Substack, where we are running a 50 % sale for new annual memberships only on Legal AF Substack. Until my next report, this is Michael Popak. Popak here. When life changes in an instant because of an injury or the bad acts of another, you need fighters in your corner. The Popak firm is dedicated to helping the injured and their families get justice and the money they deserve.

14:41Michael Popok:And we don't back down. Contact us today and let's start your fight for justice together.