In short
The episode links rapid U.S. military escalation in Venezuela to a broader “America First”/Monroe Doctrine-style push for Western-hemisphere dominance, and discusses knock-on threats to Greenland and Canada’s economic security.
Guests/backgrounds
Jacqueline Furlan-Smith case is referenced as the show’s Season 10 framing (former Canadian military trainer who vanished in Costa Rica in summer 2021). The episode also features CBC Washington correspondents/hosts: Katie Simpson, Paul Hunter, and Willie Lowry, who report from Colombia and Washington.
Key claims
Venezuela operation was driven primarily by oil control; stated reasons (Iran/Russia links, narco-terrorism, illegitimacy) are secondary. Oil investment is “uninvestable” due to instability and legal/commercial barriers. The strategy document modernizes the Monroe Doctrine; “flood the zone” journalism reflects democracy strain. Trump’s mood and retaliation shape decisions; Canada is not exempt.
Notable examples
U.S. strikes beginning with Caribbean drug-boat attacks; Maduro taken to Guantanamo then indicted in New York; border reporting in Colombia involving ELN/FARC and Bolivarian colectivos; ExxonMobil reservations; Trump/Stephen Miller comments on Greenland; discussion of tariffs and “we don’t need their cars/lumber.”
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOAnalyzing the Current Political Climate
0:25 to 1:30
The hosts discuss the overwhelming nature of news cycles and their impact on democracy.
“Available now on CBC Listen and wherever you get your podcasts.”
The Venezuela Military Operation
1:30 to 2:10
The hosts describe the recent U.S. military operation in Venezuela and its implications.
“And that's why it's, I think, unhealthy for democracy.”
Context of U.S. Actions in Venezuela
2:10 to 4:12
Discussion on the reasons behind U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the role of oil.
“President Donald Trump is speaking from Palm Beach, Florida this hour after U.S.”
On-the-Ground Insights from Colombia
4:12 to 6:20
Paul shares experiences and observations from his time at the Colombian border with Venezuela.
“forces went into Venezuela, you were at the door deployed to neighboring Colombia.”
Economic and Political Ramifications
6:20 to 7:45
Discussion on the implications of U.S. actions for Venezuela's nationalized oil industry.
“when you got to the border with Venezuela?”
Addressing Risks for Major Oil Companies
7:45 to 11:05
The hosts discuss the challenges and risks for oil companies considering investment in Venezuela.
“And the way the Venezuelans that I spoke with see things, that oil is in our ground.”
Trump's Influence on Foreign Policy
11:05 to 12:34
Examination of how Trump's decisions and moods affect U.S. foreign policy and business.
“And I don't know if the American people have that kind of patience for it.”
Potential Threats to Colombia
13:03 to 14:04
Discussion on Trump's comments about Colombia and the regional implications of U.S. interventionism.
“And don't forget to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode.”
Colombia's Turbulent Politics and Trump's Impact
14:04 to 15:49
Discover the turbulent political relationship between Trump and Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, and how Trump's comments sparked nationwide protests.
“But you know what's interesting about that beyond on its face is that the whole Colombia thing, which has been brewing for a while.”
Greenland and U.S. Foreign Policy Ambitions
15:50 to 17:58
Explore Trump's persistent interest in Greenland and the implications of U.S. foreign policy under his administration, especially in the Arctic region.
“So that threat seems to have gone away and it went away quickly.”
Show all 14 chapters
National Security Strategy and America's Global Role
17:59 to 20:49
Learn about the Trump administration's national security strategy focusing on hemispheric dominance and its implications for international relations.
“And I think Stephen Miller's comments are the most revealing about what this administration really wants, how it views the world.”
Canada's Position Amidst U.S. Imperialism
20:50 to 27:01
Understand the challenges Canada faces under Trump's economic policies and the potential long-term impacts on U.S.-Canada relations.
“One, on other issues, immigration being one of them, we've often noted that Trump campaigned on that, Right.”
International Law and Trump's Power Dynamics
27:02 to 27:54
Examine Trump's views on international law and the implications of his belief in unilateral U.S. action on the global stage.
“because this one, the United States, is a different partner than it was a year ago.”
Wrapping Up the Discussion
28:00 to 28:21
The hosts reflect on the conversation and the unpredictability of future topics.
“And I think he's feeling particularly empowered right now.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Katie Simpson:Jacqueline Furlan-Smith, a 40-year-old former Canadian military trainer, moves to Costa Rica to follow her dreams, but in the summer of 2021, vanishes without a trace. How can a woman just go missing and us put out all that effort to find her and she's still missing? I'm David Ridgen and this is Someone Knows Something Season 10, The Jacqueline Furlan-Smith Case. Available now on CBC Listen and wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast.
0:34Paul Hunter:Okay, we are just two weeks, believe it or not, into 2026. It may feel like a lifetime already. Paul, Willie, if you had one word to describe, oh, say, the events so far here in Washington, what would it be?
0:53Willy Lowry:I got a million words, man. Overwhelming. Unreal. Insane. Unhealthy. unhealthy there's too much you know what i mean like it's like i think it's not to get all in the weeds here but i think it's unhealthy for democracy because you there's too much to cover
1:08Katie Simpson:so nothing gets covered properly nothing sticks and interesting that you use the word democracy because i might describe it as undemocratic as well in the kind of way it is yeah because
1:18Willy Lowry:the whole idea of what we do in journalism is to try to report the news so people can understand what's going on and make decisions in their life but the news cycle under donald trump changes so quickly. It's this tsunami of something new every day. It's impossible to keep up. And that's why it's, I think, unhealthy for democracy.
1:37Paul Hunter:And we know that it's by design. We've heard from Donald Trump's advisors in the first term. It's flood the zone. Flood the zone.
1:45Willy Lowry:It works.
1:46Paul Hunter:The word I was going to pick has nothing to do with what you guys just said. I was going to pick Epstein. Because you know what we're not talking about? You know what we're not talking about? That's all part of the same thing. It's all.
1:57Willy Lowry:We're all making the same point. Yeah, that's exactly it.
2:00Paul Hunter:So, you know, to that point, we are living in this moment where major events are happening so quickly. No slowdown over the holiday break with the U.S. military launching an operation in Venezuela on January 3rd, capturing President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. U.S. President Donald Trump is speaking from Palm Beach, Florida this hour after U.S. forces carried out an overnight attack in Venezuela's capital. Across Caracas, Venezuelans captured the extraordinary scenes on their cell phones.
2:31Willy Lowry:We're going to run it, essentially, until such time as a proper transition can take place.
2:36Paul Hunter:Mr. Maduro had been taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba before being flown to New York, where he was indicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges.
2:45Katie Simpson:What a wild scene. You know, right before we went on holiday, we were kind of joking that it would be December 24th. whatever day kind of had the maximum impact of messing up your holiday plans. But to be honest, even though we were talking about it and seeing the buildup over three months from the beginning of September, I would be lying if I told you that I saw this happening.
3:10Paul Hunter:And Paul, not long after the world learned of what happened, you were right out the door.
3:15Willy Lowry:My phone rang that morning. And you know when it's work calling at 7 a.m. The next thing you're going to be doing is getting in the shower and packing. and we got to the Venezuelan border. But to your point, Willie, I too thought someone's going to chicken out. Someone's going to back down. Somehow it won't come to this. But it did. And it was like, oh, my God, here we go.
3:39Paul Hunter:Now, you just got back a couple of days ago, and we're going to get into what you saw and what you learned. Since so many people, understandably, are wondering, Is all of this just the beginning of an imperial foreign policy from the United States? That is what we're going to be talking about today on this first episode of our new podcast, Two Blocks from the White House, which is where we're sitting right now in the Washington Bureau. I'm Katie Simpson.
4:05Willy Lowry:And I'm Paul Hunter. And I'm Willie Lowry.
4:09Paul Hunter:OK, so, Paul, I want to start with you. You know, shortly after U.S. forces went into Venezuela, you were at the door deployed to neighboring Colombia. We're going to ask you about, you know, what you saw on the ground firsthand. But I think first, before we get into that, Willie, sort of walk us through the lead up to this military intervention.
4:28Katie Simpson:Absolutely. So we have to go back to September. Beginning of September, we have the first U.S. strikes on these alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. And it begins this quickly escalating crescendo of U.S. military action in the region. Trump for months kind of publicly molds and toys with the idea of getting rid of Maduro. And then all of the sudden he does it. And in incredibly striking fashion. But there are a lot of factors at play. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made a career on the Senate floor of bashing Venezuela, bashing the Maduro government.
5:19Katie Simpson:This has his fingerprints all over it.
5:21Willy Lowry:But there was a bunch of stated reasons, right? It was Maduro is an illegitimate president. The U.S. is worried about links with Iran and Russia and China and Cuba, that Maduro was a narco-terrorist. Indicted in New York. And by the way, this didn't just begin with Trump. Biden was on the same page, right? But at the end of the day, it became as evident as could be, it was about oil. Venezuela has the largest amount. By a significant amount. of oil. Interestingly, to Canada, same kind of oil in northern Alberta, right? That the U.S. has an ability to refine, and the U.S. wants that and now is saying it will control that oil.
6:05Willy Lowry:That's at the end of the day, say what you will about all the other things, right? It was about the oil. I think that's as clear as it can be.
6:11Paul Hunter:And Trump is saying it out loud. It's not a secret. It's not. Yeah, it's spoils of war, essentially. Paul, you were in Colombia. Tell us what you saw when you got to the border with Venezuela?
6:22Willy Lowry:People coming across, which, by the way, they do a lot because the cost of living is much more acceptable to Venezuelans in Colombia than it is in Venezuela. Prices are cheaper, jobs are more plentiful, etc. But people were coming across in the days after all of this. And, you know, I don't know, what were people expecting? Were you, like, flag-waving? Yes, this is fantastic. It was a real mix of feelings from people. yes Maduro's a bad guy that's that's why there were so many Venezuelans in Colombia not only the ones coming across but the ones already living right on the borderlands where we were so good on him to go but on the other hand we can solve our own problems and on the other other hand once uh Delcy Rodriguez was put in as his replacement it's like well what has changed it's like it's not a regime change yeah they got rid of Maduro Venezuelans told me but But for what?
7:19Willy Lowry:And wait a minute. You want the oil? Somebody said it's in our ground. You can't just have it. Venezuela nationalized the oil industry, which is legal. You're allowed to do that.
7:32Katie Simpson:And most countries around the Saudi Arabia has done the same thing.
7:34Willy Lowry:It's all over the world. You have to compensate. And that's the sticky point with Venezuela. Exxon never got the money. And that's an important detail. But they're legally allowed to nationalize. And they did that. And the way the Venezuelans that I spoke with see things, that oil is in our ground. We own it. We get to control it. But it's good that Maduro's gone.
7:55Paul Hunter:Was there a sense of uncertainty and fear on the ground there that you could get a sense of?
8:01Willy Lowry:Well, let me tell you a little story. So we were meeting with Venezuelans coming across for a few days, and we got word that we could get across into Venezuela. They weren't handing out visas. So we were invited, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, by Venezuelan authorities to cross into Venezuela to meet with the Bolivarian colectivos. And these are the paramilitaries who effectively terrorize the countryside to support the Maduro regime. We could go over there. We would be taken by armed motorcyclists who would surround the vehicle we were in, take us 15 minutes into the jungle where these collectivos would come out masked up with guns to say, we stand by the Maduro regime.
8:51Willy Lowry:And if the United States thinks they're going to come in here and run this place, they got another thing coming. Right. And so what happened was we're going to go the next day and then we get word from the collectivos that we've seen some some ELN and some FARC fighters in who are Colombian in because this is the major drug trafficking areas. Cocaine labs up and down these borderlands. Things got too dodgy. These guys wanted to meet in a no-go zone where there'd been kidnaps just two days earlier. We decided the story wasn't worth it, so we let it go. The reason I tell you this story is because it underlines the uncertainty.
9:33Willy Lowry:The militants in that region are a real problem. They were a problem for us, and they are definitely, they will definitely be a problem for oil companies if they want to go back in and for the United States. If I'm ExxonMobil and we heard from the CEO, right, who says it's uninvestable right now. If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it's uninvestable. Right. It's going to take a decade to get things up and running again and hundreds of billions of dollars. Are you going to want to spend that in that kind of a circumstance? I don't know.
10:07Willy Lowry:It's complicated.
10:08Paul Hunter:And Willie, it sort of was a reality check to this this image that the Trump administration is projecting. We heard the energy secretary last week say, listen, lots of oil companies want to come in. My phone is blowing up. Donald Trump sort of echoing the same kind of message. And then in that meeting, we heard essentially a reality check.
10:27Katie Simpson:Yeah, a lot of reservation, as Paul alluded to. Venezuela is not a stable country. Its infrastructure for oil is incredibly outdated. This is a massive, massive undertaking that essentially was done unilaterally by the Trump administration. And so there's a lot of apprehension on the part of big oil and oil companies of going back in there. One of the issues with a lot of what President Trump has tried to do from a foreign policy perspective, but also from a domestic standpoint, when you look at the implementation of tariffs and the attempt to kind of draw industries back to the U.S., this is not something that happens in six months a year.
11:06Katie Simpson:This is a decades long process. And I don't know if the American people have that kind of patience for it.
11:14Paul Hunter:No, and one thing that also stood out to me after that meeting that took place with the oil executives is that by Sunday, so that happened on a Friday, then by Sunday, Donald Trump's on his way from Mar-a-Lago back to Washington, D.C., and he's talking to reporters on the plane. And he's visibly upset with the answer from ExxonMobil saying, well, maybe we'll keep them out. And it's just such a reminder, even if ExxonMobil doesn't want to go in, it's a reminder of how Trump's moods, if you offend him, he'll use that as reason or base to make a decision. Whether you're a foreign leader, whether you're a business leader, whatever capacity you deal with the president or the Trump administration in.
11:53Katie Simpson:Don't poke him. Don't poke. They're essentially playing this kind of game of appeasement. But the question that I often ask is how much of it is just public appeasement to kind of let him hear what he wants to hear and then not actually following through? And I think that's the thing, right? So he can paint this picture of success because he sees all of these big companies and sometimes countries bending to his will. But we are still in that period where we don't actually know if they're following through with those kind of.
12:28Willy Lowry:Because the news cycle to go back to square one of it changes so quickly, things are forgotten the next day. Exactly.
12:34Paul Hunter:OK, so we have a lot more ground to cover here, including, you know, what other countries might be part of this, you know, the so-called Don Roe doctrine. And we'll get into that in just a moment. But first, I want to shout out to anyone listening on Spotify to leave us a note in the comment section to tell us what you want to hear about in 2026. Or you can also send an email to WashingtonPod, all one word, at cbc.ca. That's WashingtonPod at cbc.ca. And don't forget to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode.
13:09Paul Hunter:Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson, host of the Daily News podcast, FrontBurner. I got this really cool note from a listener the other day. They wrote, I find myself torn between the desire to understand the world around me and the anxiety associated with the easily accessed barrage of terrible news. And yet, amidst the torrent, there lies a sweet spot called FrontBurner. This is exactly why we make the show, so you don't get swept away in a tide of overwhelming news. So follow FrontBurner wherever you get your podcasts. OK, so looking forward, what's happened in Venezuela has taken place. But of course, the success of this operation only seems to have emboldened Donald Trump, who is now making all kinds of threats.
Read the full transcript
13:57Paul Hunter:Paul, you were in Colombia when Trump was talking about going in and carrying out a similar operation in Colombia.
14:04Willy Lowry:But you know what's interesting about that beyond on its face is that the whole Colombia thing, which has been brewing for a while. I mean, Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro hate each other, right? And they've been having this war of words for a while. But the reason this bubbled over wasn't a proclamation by Donald Trump. It was a question from a reporter who said, well, effectively, would you do the same thing in Colombia? And I forget the quote, but it was something. I think he said something like that. Sounds good to me. Sounds good to me. And I was in Colombia. It's like people lost their minds.
14:35Willy Lowry:Well, we're next, right? And then on the, I think it was the Thursday, there were going to be nationwide demonstrations in Colombia, anti-Trump stuff organized by Petro. And I was talking, there were marches in Cucuta where I was and we had a crew in Bogota. And we're just waiting for the president to come out, president of Colombia, to sort of say what his next thing was after he'd already said Trump has a senile brain, all this kind of stuff. And all the people in the demonstrations are anti-Trump stuff, Trump bad, you know, dirty, rotten Yankee imperialists. And then out comes Petro to say, I just got off the phone with Donald Trump.
15:16Willy Lowry:And what an honor to speak with him. And all these bad things that he thinks about me were lies by my political opponents. And everything is unicorns and rainbows. And I'm going to go to the White House and everything is hunky-dory. Like what?
15:30Katie Simpson:It was a little Mom Donnie-esque because Trump had the same response on True Social as well, saying essentially, you know, great guy, great leader, great conversation. Milk and honey, exactly.
15:40Willy Lowry:But it's like once you can unpoke the bear, the bear goes back to sleep. Take that finger back. Take that finger back.
15:48Paul Hunter:And so that whole sort of—
15:50Willy Lowry:I can't unsee that.
15:51Paul Hunter:So that threat seems to have gone away and it went away quickly. But the other threat that is not going away and that keeps coming up time and time and time again really is Greenland.
16:04Katie Simpson:Yeah. So to be fair to Trump on this, he divulged his desires for Greenland in the same way that he he ended up kind of bashing on Colombia. It was on Air Force One Sunday night, a few days after the attack on Venezuela. He also asked the question by a reporter, said Greenland, Greenland. I don't want to talk about Greenland. But then he kept talking. And of course, he went back to something he said many times on the campaign trail and in the lead up to his inauguration and after that he wants Greenland. He thinks the U.S. needs it for security reasons. Of course, Greenland, Arctic territory, the U.S.
16:46Katie Simpson:wants more, wants to be able to protect and insulate itself from rivals like China and Russia and just sees it as a very strategically important piece of land.
16:58Paul Hunter:And, you know, it did come up on that plane. Donald Trump keeps giving these news conferences on the planes on Sunday nights. I work a Sunday to Thursday shift, so I wait Sunday night for them to come out. And he usually says things that completely up under the news cycle again, you know, in this unprecedented moment. And this was a news conference that really stuck to me as he said thing after thing after thing. And it was clear that he was so emboldened after the Venezuela operation being a success that he was just going to say all of these things that he wanted to do. And he was feeling powerful.
17:32Paul Hunter:But what really sort of struck fear in the heart of leaders across Europe, NATO allies, is Stephen Miller, who went on CNN the next day, was interviewed by Jake Tapper. And he also sounded emboldened, talking about how, well, if the U.S. wants to take Greenland militarily, who's going to get in the way?
17:53Katie Simpson:You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. And I think Stephen Miller's comments are the most revealing about what this administration really wants, how it views the world. unfold. And, you know, we keep talking about how Trump has been buoyed by the military success in Venezuela. I think there's a few things at play. I think there is a genuine kind of amazement at how the U.S. was able to do that. I think it's a bit of a kid in a candy store.
18:38Katie Simpson:He got to watch it. He said it was like watching a movie unfold. So there is this sense of awe about what this military can accomplish. It went very well. 100%.
18:47Willy Lowry:How did they turn the lights out? Who turned them in? Yeah.
18:52Katie Simpson:So many questions.
18:53Willy Lowry:Very well executed, at least from a purely military execution perspective.
18:57Katie Simpson:100%. And to be fair, in a way that the US hasn't had that kind of military success in years, because it's a very focused operation, which is very different from a sustained ground campaign or war that you saw in Iraq or Afghanistan. So a totally different kind of operation. But then there is also the sense that, okay, we got away with this. The world's not going to stop us. Where else can we go? And what else can we achieve? And Greenland is certainly on their mind.
19:32Paul Hunter:You know, Willie, in some ways, the operation in Venezuela, it was sort of laid out in the national security strategy that was released by the Trump administration in December. You know, what more can we learn from that sort of release, that document?
19:47Katie Simpson:So much. So this was a document that was quietly released, literally released just before midnight on December 4th, kind of flew under the radar. But it paints Washington retreating to the Western Hemisphere and calling for hemispheric dominance. That's what this operation in Venezuela in large part was about. This is also what Greenland is about, because, of course, Greenland is in the Western Hemisphere. And so there's a few things to take note about this document. One, democracy only mentioned three times. This is a document that really paints a picture of a country that is only interested in what is best for itself.
20:28Katie Simpson:There's no sense of global order or global institutions like NATO that have, you know, essentially defined how the rules-based order, they've defined how the world has interacted for the last 80 years. So this document kind of modernizes the Monroe Doctrine for the 2020s.
20:49Willy Lowry:I would just add a couple of things. One, on other issues, immigration being one of them, we've often noted that Trump campaigned on that, Right. So so listen to what he says, because he to his credit, he acts on what he says. He didn't campaign on this, my recollection, but it's written out there. So if you apply the same thinking, read this document, because this is what he slash they want to do. And, you know, we talk about, you know, the pushback against Trump and his administration on this American imperialism is that it doesn't put America first.
21:28Paul Hunter:right but does it but the argument they're trying to make now that exactly right to all the things
21:33Willy Lowry:that you're that's what made me think all the things you're just saying willie it makes america stronger more secure that is putting america first per the rhetoric from the administration
21:42Paul Hunter:i wonder this is looking way sort of down the calendar but um right now at this stage looking ahead to 2028 whoever's going to be the republican presidential nominee to succeed donald trump Right now, and again, this is years out, it looks like a horse race between J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, the vice president and the secretary of state. Secretary of state Marco Rubio has led very publicly this foreign interventionist policy that what's gone on in Venezuela. J.D. Vance has not been as public about it. The Trump administration, the White House is saying, listen, there's no J.D. Vance is involved.
22:18Paul Hunter:He sort of quashed reports that he's uncomfortable or whatever. But I wonder going down the line, if it is those two, if they're fighting it out to be the Republican nominee, J.D. Vance says, I was not behind this. Marco Rubio led this foreign intervention and whatever comes of it over the next couple of years, however it goes. And J.D. Vance is like, I am no foreign wars. And I wonder if they sort of put it out there together. No, no, I'm just saying. No, no, no.
22:46Katie Simpson:Well, Rubio will be the first one to tell you that the national security strategy is his. He told me himself. Yes, sir. In that row right there. Yeah, right there in the left. On the hemisphere, you recently, the White House recently put out the national security strategy, essentially reorienting towards the Western hemisphere. It was good, right? How is the strategy going to... Well, I was involved in that. So you can answer from both hats. Yeah, exactly. But how is that strategy going to dictate?
23:13Paul Hunter:Looking ahead to 2028, you know, is there a scenario where J.D. Vance tries to court the hard MAGA base, which he is far more connected to already than Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who came to power through the more traditional Republican senator for all these years, the more traditional path to power versus J.D. Vance, who's tried to court the MAGA. And I do wonder years from now if this is something that could be an attack point for both of them.
23:40Willy Lowry:That's a very good question, Katie, but I think we've run out of time.
23:44Paul Hunter:Unfortunately, we have not. Guess what? I'm going to ask you this about now.
23:47Willy Lowry:You know, I think what I'll say to that, I think maybe adjacent to what you're asking, but forgive me. I'm not sure people in the MAGA base give a hoot about a lot of the stuff we've been talking about. What they do care about is the price of bacon and the price of eggs and that that will determine their vote in 2028. All this other stuff, whether or not it's putting America first, I think we care about that. I think the intelligentsia of the Northeast liberal United States cares about that. I'm just I'm not convinced. I think they think a lot of the hardcore MAGA base that J.D. Vance may well try to court because I think Rubio is very well positioned on all this stuff.
24:29Willy Lowry:Otherwise, they just it's white noise that comes out of the politicians in Washington. And I think Trump understands that. And he's understood that for a long time.
24:39Katie Simpson:But I think you're right about the base that ultimately they care about domestic issues. But they like W's. Right. And Venezuela there Maduro is a W. And I think Trump on a foreign policy level, he's had some wins and he can at least point to these. as, you know, evidence of his success.
25:01Willy Lowry:And they're feel-good wins for many Americans. For sure.
25:04Paul Hunter:You know what we haven't heard a lot of with all of this imperialist talk? I know where you're going. We have not heard about Canada becoming the 51st state. I'm wondering if Trump's not focusing on Canada, do either of you think that, you know, Canada can take a deep sigh of relief and say, okay, this imperialist vision doesn't include Canada?
25:24Katie Simpson:Absolutely not. I think that would be a serious mistake. I don't think that this means we're immune from this administration and that they've stopped thinking about Canada.
25:36Willy Lowry:I think it would just take somebody asking him, have you forgotten about the 51st state in Canada? And then all of a sudden it's headlines for the following two weeks.
25:46Paul Hunter:The other thing is, I don't think that at any point Canada should breathe a sigh of relief. But in a sort of different context, that Donald Trump has made it very clear through his economic policy and his tariff agenda that he wants companies to leave whatever country they're based in and move to America and set up shop and create uncertainty that makes it difficult for countries to court investment. It makes it very difficult to grow and keep jobs. Canada is on the front line of that, the Canadian manufacturing sector, the Canadian auto industry. And all of that turmoil is making it very, very difficult for workers, for companies and for leaders to sort of navigate.
26:23Paul Hunter:And I do not think at any point Donald Trump is going to let up on that. He has openly said, we don't need their cars, we don't need their lumber, we don't need their products. And so I do not think that Donald Trump is going to ease up on this quest to deliver on a promise that he did make to workers in Michigan, workers in Pennsylvania, workers in Ohio to try and draw back those kinds of factories.
26:46Willy Lowry:And by the way, do you think the next president will reverse and send those jobs back to Canada? Of course not. So the moral to Canada is this relationship has indeed changed perhaps forever. Be careful about poking the bear. Tread carefully. Create, strengthen, renew trading relationships with other parts of the world. because this one, the United States, is a different partner than it was a year ago.
27:12Katie Simpson:All of this illustrates just how difficult a tightrope that Prime Minister Mark Carney has to walk here. And there's no easy or obvious solutions. And trying to interact with this president is really, really hard.
27:26Paul Hunter:Donald Trump has made it clear, speaking to four reporters from The New York Times, that international law is not going to be what guides him necessarily. Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?
27:43Willy Lowry:Yeah, there's one thing. My own morality, my own mind, it's the only thing that can stop. Not international law. And that's very good.
27:52Katie Simpson:I don't need international law.
27:54Willy Lowry:That is a scary proposition. I think it's one of the most sobering things we've heard from him. And truthful, right? And truthful. No, exactly. It's all bets are off. And I think he's feeling particularly empowered right now. And I think what we just heard in that clip underlines that.
28:14Paul Hunter:On that very sobering note, I think that that is a good place to leave the conversation for now. But clearly there is a lot more to talk about. And that is what we're going to be doing here every week on two blocks from the White House. So I'm looking forward to spending more time with both of you.
28:32Katie Simpson:It's going to be fun. I think what is so interesting about this country is I could not tell you or predict what we will talk about next week because things move so quickly.
28:43Paul Hunter:Or because I don't want to think about it. Those are my last words.
28:46Willy Lowry:This is going somewhere, but we don't know where it's going to go. And that's, I mean, that's the madness of it and the fun of it.
28:50Paul Hunter:All right. Make sure you hit follow so that you don't ever miss an episode. Thanks, guys.
28:56Katie Simpson:Thanks, Kevin. Thank you.
29:00Katie Simpson:For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.
From the publisher
Three days into the new year, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and removed President Nicolás Maduro. Threats against Colombia, Mexico, Greenland and Iran followed. Has U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise to put 'America First' morphed into a foreign policy of imperialism and expansion? And if so, what does it mean for Canada? Fresh off reporting from the Venezuelan border, Paul Hunter joins fellow CBC correspondents Katie Simpson and Willy Lowry in the CBC’s Washington bureau — Two Blocks from the White House — to talk about America’s aggressive international relations.
What you want to know about how American politics affects Canada? Connect with us at washingtonpod@cbc.ca
