Meidas Canada Leader Charlie Angus Discusses Carney Asia Trip

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1:23Ben Meiselas:shake, I might add, than the one between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. It was also a very different meeting as well, one where it seems that real substance and a real productive dialogue emerged between Prime Minister Carney and Xi Jinping. So Carney has accepted Xi's invitation to visit China that will be taking place relatively soon. They also talked about joint efforts to find better ways to collaborate, whether that's in the form of electric vehicles, Canada's rare earth elements, the types of things that the United States desperately needs. And based on what Trump did with Xi Jinping, Donald Trump every year is going to have to go to China to beg, please, Xi Jinping, can you release some rare earth elements that you shut down with export controls into the United States?

2:21Ben Meiselas:It would be nice, Donald, if you just look to your neighbor in the north who's got a bunch of that as well and who was your ally before. But okay, Canada said, we've moved on. And this is one of, I think, the biggest ways we've seen it. I mean, there hasn't been a meeting really between leadership in Canada and China since 2017. And Prime Minister Carney described his meeting with Xi Jinping in no uncertain terms as a turning point in the relationship between Canada and China. Just think about this. As Prime Minister Carney says, we've moved on. We're not looking to the US anymore. Now a turning point in the relationship between Canada and China.

3:02Ben Meiselas:Perhaps China now is a more reliable trading partner and ally, dare I say, than the United States. Let me show you what Carney said when he talked about it being a turning point. This is as he left the meeting and here's how he addressed the press. Let's talk about it. This meeting today is long overdue. It has been eight years since a Canadian prime minister has met with the president of China. We now have a turning point in the relationship, a turning point that creates opportunities for Canadian families, for Canadian businesses, and Canadian workers, and also creates a path to address current issues.

3:53Ben Meiselas:So we're very pleased with the outcome of the meeting. Our officials are instructed to work at pace on issues moving forward. Is it to China, Prime Minister? You alluded to an invitation. The invitation has been extended and I indicated that I look forward to accepting that invitation.

4:25Ben Meiselas:You're not going to see Donald Trump speaking multiple languages. You're not going to see Donald Trump, frankly, speaking the English language either. I mean, what a contrast right there as well. Let me just show you the remarks by Prime Minister Carney in that meeting with Xi Jinping. The contrast could not be more stark between this meeting and the one we saw between Trump and Xi. Here play this clip. Thank you, Mr. President. It is a pleasure to meet you again and to meet you for the first time in my capacity as prime minister. I had the great pleasure of attending, amongst other meetings in China, the G20 over which you presided at a time of great hope for the international system and great progress under the banner of the G20.

5:15Ben Meiselas:I look forward to further progress with your presidency of APEC next year. As you mentioned, our countries have a long history of cooperation, engagement and trade. Fifty-five years of diplomatic relations marked the anniversary two weeks ago. In recent years, we have not been as engaged. In fact, as you know, this is the first meeting between, formal meeting between the Canadian Prime Minister and the President of the People's Republic of China for eight years. Distance is not the way to solve problems, not the way to serve our people with people-centered growth as you have advocated. Pragmatic and constructive and constructive engagement is, and I welcome the momentum that has been established in recent months, meetings of our officials, meetings of ministers, and the meeting that I was able to have with Premier Li in New York.

6:28I also welcome the invitation to come to China to further the dialogue, and I very much look forward to doing so because it's through this constructive and pragmatic dialogue

6:41Ben Meiselas:that we will address a path for current issues, that we will establish a road to seize the many great opportunities between our countries and also to have the platform that's needed for the dialogue to help build a more sustainable, inclusive international system. I want to bring in Charlie Angus, leader of Midas Canada, leader of the Midas Canada Resistance Tour, coming to an area near you in Canada. Charlie, this is big. This is monumental. I mean, if we told you this was going to happen nine months ago or a year ago, you would have said, come on, what are you talking about here? How big of a deal is this, Charlie?

7:30This is really big. I think big for a number of reasons. One is you really see Mark Carney emerging in this time of darkness and chaos, looking like the senior politician on the stage. Very, very interesting position that Carney – I mean he's got enormous background as all the work he's done. But this meeting with China right now, you couldn't have imagined this as you say, Ben. I mean, our relations with China were so toxic. There's been so much anger over Chinese it held two Canadians in custody in response to when we held one of their top executives on behalf of the United States. It sent our relations south in a really bad way.

8:17There's been a standing committee in Parliament set up by the Pierre Pauly of mega-conservatives to investigate China for all manner of interference, kind of a conspiracy-driven agenda. But there were serious issues of Chinese interference in our elections, Chinese intimidation. The fact that we are now announcing that we think we've got a better trade partner in China than in the United States is, it's just unbelievable that that could have happened before, but it's now really setting us up into this kind of new shift in global relations. The United States is getting more and more toxic. Their ambassador is getting more and more belligerent with us.

8:59And so now we're saying China is where we have a future. This is going to represent a big change. And Ben, it's really important to also point out that China has the Chinese culture, the Chinese identity. It has a huge footprint in all of our communities and all our major cities. So the trading options are very strong for Canada. And there's going to be a lot of issues such as agriculture and critical minerals that will have a huge detriment to the United States because of the positions Donald Trump has taken.

9:32Ben Meiselas:look donald trump's purported deal that he was spiking the football about was that whereas in 2024 the united states was bringing in 27 million metric tons of soybeans now the united states next year will get 25 million metric tons 2 million metric tons less what a deal and this year the U.S., if it's lucky, may get 12 million metric tons of soybeans, so less than half. And that's what they're spiking the football. And then every year now, Donald Trump has to go to Xi Jinping and beg for rare earth elements. Please do not do export controls this year. And Xi Jinping every year is going to say, OK, great.

10:14Ben Meiselas:What are you going to give me this year? How about those Blackwells? How about those semiconductor chips? Like the literally the worst deal imaginable. but it's all right. Donald Trump's back posting photos of the new marble in the Lincoln bedroom, because that's really what he cares about, just himself and his vanity. But you're right. I mean, Carney emerging on the world stage, and he's already done this on the world stage, but the walk soft and carry the big stick that we used to see in the United States, and that philosophy, you're seeing it play out, I think. Well, let's talk critical minerals.

10:50The entire United States economy, I mean, the Silicon Valley economy, the economy that you need to build a 21st century economy is based on access to the critical minerals. Donald Trump announced that copper from Canada represented a national security threat. I mean, this cutting off and attacking the Canadian copper supply, he's not going to make America great in copper again, because it takes 15 to 20 years to get an American copper mine into production. Where Canada will send that copper, we're sending a lot of it right now to Asia. We've had very toxic relations with China. China controls the critical minerals market.

11:30They control the rare earth market. Canada is one of the few countries that can supply a number of these metals to either the United States or Europe. If we sign up with China, the Chinese economy is going to continue to grow. And what it will mean is that there will be a gate that China can close on the United States anytime they want in terms of access to the metals that are needed to run the whole Silicon Valley project. All of the American economic prospects are tied up in these metals. Canada has them, China has them. And with the, again, the increasingly belligerent behavior and insults that we're seeing in threat that's coming, it's not from Trump.

12:12It hasn't lessened, it's increased in many ways. So for us to start talking about this trade with China will have an enormous, enormous impact in the geopolitical world in the years to come.

12:26Ben Meiselas:Let's talk about Pete Hoekstra, the United States ambassador to Canada, who famously or infamously sent you a bizarre letter a month ago or so at this point, letting everybody know that he's watching our interviews and your coverage and leadership of the resistance tour there. You've offered to meet with him. He hasn't taken you up on that. He said, let's grab a beer and let's do it in public. We could do it on Midas Canada or whatever. But talk to us about the latest because even Premier Ford was telling Hoekstra, you better shut the F up and stop yelling at our people. Like, who do you think you don't come into Canada and start yelling at our trade representatives in Ontario.

13:11Ben Meiselas:And that's what he's doing, like going around in conferences, like yelling and like pretending he's like Trump. It's like all weird thing. What's going on there? Well, I think, you know, in the in the wake of Trump's meltdown over the World Series and sorry, Ben, but yeah, Jays are going to win. Sorry for L.A., but we are going to win. Maybe that's what sent Hoogstra off to D-Ben, but I don't think so because they probably hate California almost as much as they hate Canada. So they're probably just mad about the World Series in general. But after Trump's meltdown and his claim that he was going to throw 10 % tariffs on, which he can't do.

13:44I mean, unless there is no law left in the United States, we don't know whether that's real or not yet. But Pete Hoekstra then comes and he started swearing, like dropping F-bombs at our trade representatives. This is completely unacceptable behavior. Doug Ford said, you've got to apologize. We haven't seen any apology from Pete Hoekstra. People in Canada are really, really fed up with him. And you look at Pete's record. This guy has no business being any kind of ambassador. He has been a peddler of disinformation, a peddler of racist hate. He, as an ambassador to the Netherlands, he was called out numerous times.

14:22And for accusing Canada of foreign interference for running an ad, when this guy was hosting far-right fundraisers in the American embassy in the Netherlands and got called out on it. When we have these stories now of these Alberta separatists, this fake MAGA group in Canada that are going to break up our country talking about getting a$500 million slush fund offered to them by Washington. Was Hoekstra involved in that? Because you're dealing with treason here in Canada, and Hoekstra needs to settle down a hell of a lot right now if he's going to start swearing at our people. I think people are now starting to have the conversation that we want action.

15:04We want this guy recalled. We want something done. But what it tells us also is that we were America's number one trading partner. Now, they sent a moron like Pete Hoekster to insult us and push us around, thinking he's going to push us around. And out of all the stuff that went down with Doug Ford's ad, there was a big shrug here. Nobody responded to the rants. Nobody responded to the raging. What we saw was that a president did not look like a man fit for leadership that his ambassador looked like some two-bit thug. And boy, now we're talking to China. Now they're going to be our new ally. This is, Donald Trump thought that these tantrums would get our attention.

15:43Well, it has. Well, just didn't get the attention the way you thought, Donald, because we're not intimidated.

15:50Ben Meiselas:I always ask you at the end of these videos to to direct a message to Donald Trump and to Hoekstra to some extent, because we know they watch this because they're literally writing letters to us. So what's your message right now to the Trump regime, given all we're seeing right now with the ASEAN conference, the conference in South Korea thereafter? What's your message to Donald Trump? Well, Donald, I know that for you, this is always one giant grift. You don't care what happens to your people. You don't care what happens to American jobs as you're trying to act like this Caligula in an ill-fitting suit, doing your rants and raves because you don't like what you see on TV.

16:33What has meant is that you're becoming more and more isolated on the world stage, that the rest of the world is realizing whether or not we liked each other before, we're going to have to get along now. A whole bunch of countries that never spoke are now speaking, and we're starting to build new trade alliances, and you are left on the outside. As for you, Pete Hoogstra, you know, yeah, you sent me a letter and talked about shared values. Well, my values do not include disinformation. My values do not include anti-Muslim hate. My values do not include Project 2025. And my values do not include bending the knee and kissing the ring of a president and an ambassador who shouts and swears and insults the people of Canada.

17:14because as Canadians, we've been through tough times before. We'll be through tough times again, but we will be true nor strong and free. We'll always be true nor strong and free, and we will never, ever allow our nation to be intimidated or pushed around. So way to go, Pete. I think it's time you packed your bags because if your job was to come here to get us pissed off, you succeeded. So there, now you can go retire, but they're going to need someone to go in and clean up the mess because whether you like it or not, whether you like us or not, trade with canada remains necessary for the united states in order not to collapse into recession and as for us we're talking to singapore we're talking to germany we're talking to the uk we're talking to china we're talking to korea we're talking to australia we're talking to new zealand we are stepping up when you guys are hitting the gutter it's just also funny worth mentioning like

18:11Ben Meiselas:Like at these conferences, the motto, the themes are like all trolls at Donald Trump, but he doesn't realize it. It's like inclusivity, sustainability, multilateral. And they have all the banners surrounding it. It's an obvious thing that they're doing. And I just wanted to point that out as well. Charlie Angus, the leader of the resistance tour in the Midas Canada tour and leader of Midas Canada. Thanks so much, Charlie. Thanks so much for having me. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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