(Dobbs) President Trump “can kiss my ass.”Canada’s match for Iran’s vow, “Not a single drop of oil will be exported.”
It is hard to imagine what in the world Iran and Canada might have in common. Iran is a brutal dictatorship run by Islamic zealots who have long screamed “Death to America.” Canada is a democracy whose soldiers have fought alongside Americans in every big war since WWI. I covered news in both nations over the years and know firsthand that they couldn’t be more different. But there is one trait— a trait of character, a trait of stamina, a trait of nationalism— that they do share. If there’s a choice between enduring hardship to sustain their sovereignty, or being overrun and brought under the yoke of another nation, they will opt for hardship. We Americans are that nation. Donald Trump doesn’t understand enduring hardship, whether Iran or Canada. Back in 2015 when he was running the first time for president, he told NBC News about his start in business: “My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.” That’s how far removed he is from the plight of almost all other Americans: a million dollars is just “a small loan.” It’s also how far removed he is from the full truth: as The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations have reported, his landlord father also loaned him tens of millions more to build his failed casinos and other Trump developments. What this means is, Donald Trump, born with a silver spoon in his mouth which he later plated with faux gold, wouldn’t recognize hardship if he tripped on it. So Iran and Canada accepting hardship to stave off subjugation by the United States? That’s something Trump could never comprehend. Which might be why his escalations of wars with both of them might fail. We’ve already learned a lot about Iran’s defiance. It has been bombed from border to border and had the U.S. president threaten that “a whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again.” Yet it hasn’t raised a white flag. To the contrary, it has fought back with the best weapon it has: control of the Hormuz Strait and thus of a portion of the global economy. Now, as Trump is raising the stakes, Iran is deepening its defiance. Last Wednesday the president posted on his website, “I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale.” Then he told how it will work: “ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences.” To which the chief of Iran’s national security council retorted that “not a single drop of oil” will be allowed to transit the strait. He threatened on X, “Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war.” Then yesterday Trump’s treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced at a news conference his “Operation Economic Outcast” attack on Iran: the “single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary. Total financial isolation.” President Trump, he said, will call other world leaders who have any kinds of contracts with Iran— financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities— to demand the “economic asphyxiation of this regime.” “The United States expects action,” Bessent said, accusing nations that do business with Iran of “appeasement.” He declared, “We do not have infinite patience here.” But it seems that Iran does. In fact its deputy foreign minister posted on X and threw it back in Trump’s face: “You say Iran’s military capability has been dismantled, 100% of military factories destroyed, and the nuclear program buried. Yet for the very same Iran, the largest financial offensive in history and the mobilization of all U.S. agencies and authorities have become necessary! Is this a victory or an admission of U.S. defeat?” Coming from a nation that faces even worse hardships than it already has weathered, it’s a fair question. Iran cannot hurt the United States on the scale that the U.S. can hurt Iran. But Iran has two weapons that the American president doesn’t have: control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the incapacity of Americans to endure hardship, no matter how comparatively mild it might be. The longer this war goes on, the more dissatisfied most Americans will be with prices and inflation under Donald Trump’s leadership. That might lead to defeats for him and his MAGA movement in November, which could lead to roadblocks against everything left on his agenda. Not to mention impeachment in 2027. The value of Iran’s money has reached a new low, and the International Monetary Fund projects an even weaker economy by the end of this year. But as international reporter Ephrat Livni wrote yesterday in The New York Times, “The Islamic Republic has faced nearly five decades of American and international sanctions and survived.” Then there’s Canada. Toronto-based journalist Stephen Marche, who long wrote for Esquire Magazine, began an opinion piece yesterday with a blast: “Friday, Aug. 21, may go down in history as Canada’s Liberation Day. It was the day America came for us, and we said no.” Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney said no Friday night when, after months of trade negotiations, he suspended the talks because the United States “asked too much and offered too little,” insisting on terms that would have put limits on trade deals Canada could make with other countries. In response, President Trump immediately announced 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian products, major products like cars and trucks, automotive parts, and Canadian steel. Which could mean coils of steel like these, sitting at a Canadian factory, would have nowhere to go. Carney knows this. He knows that since almost 75% of Canada’s exports are sent to the United States, Trump’s tariffs will “raise costs and reduce choice for Canadians.” But he also knows that Trump’s tariffs will hurt Americans too. A Michigan-based auto industry consulting company, Anderson Economic Group, issued a statement saying, “It would be a body blow to the auto industry. We would see plants closing on both sides of the border.” What Carney knows is that Canadian historian Robert Bothwell was right when he told The Associated Press, “No country is more exposed than Canada. Other countries have to fear American misbehavior, but none as much as Canada.” But Prime Minister Carney said no anyway. Because he knows that Bothwell also spoke a truth: the alternative for Canada is to buckle “in the face of Trump’s desire to subordinate it and absorb it.” In fact he didn’t just say no. He said, “We’re going to hit back.” He announced dollar-for-dollar retaliation starting early in September. As Canadian journalist Stephen Marche wrote, “For Canada, the choice came down to either severe but temporary economic instability or binding itself to a pseudodemocratic fiscal basket case of a nation, whose only apparent foreign policy objective has become domination for the gratification of its president’s slapdash vanity.” Carney recognizes the choice and faces up to it. According to polls, so do most of his countrymen. None more than Doug Ford, the premier of Canada’s most populous province which also is the heart of its auto industry, Ontario. Ford’s language yesterday was blunter than Carney’s. “I don’t respond to a dictator” Ford said on the CBC. President Trump, he said, “can kiss my ass. Bring it on, buddy.” Carney’s charge in his televised speech was that Canada had been “attacked” by the U.S. and now was “at war.” After he spoke, the former prime minister of Italy and economy minister for the European Union said, “Here is a speech I would like to hear in Europe.” Share Trump’s arrogance ultimately might lead to that. As columnist Max Boot wrote yesterday in The Washington Post, “Trump makes almost no attempt to win over either domestic or foreign audiences to his views. Instead of cajoling or convincing, he tries to coerce and compel others to do what he wants.” To wit, Trump said in his post after the trade talks broke down, “WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED U.S.!” Leave a comment The king of insults called Canada “among the worst Nations in the World to deal with.” I think it is fair to guess that other world leaders, if asked about dealing with the United States, would not call it “among” the worst. They would say it’s the worst, hands down.
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