U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at an event in Phoenix, Arizona on Dec. 22.Cheney Orr/Reuters
Cracking down on border security may not spare Canada from Donald Trump’s promised 25-per-cent tariffs, his former White House national-security adviser says.
John Bolton warns that Mr. Trump is serious about the tariffs because he sees them as good economic policy and not just a negotiating tactic. Last month, the president-elect threatened to impose the taxes against Canada and Mexico until the two countries stop migrants and fentanyl from crossing into the U.S.
“A lot of people in the United States, I think, are living in a bubble where they’ve said, ‘Oh, that’s just Trump, typical rhetoric, he’s just bargaining, it’s not going to be a big deal, everything’ll turn out fine,’” Mr. Bolton said. But “this desire to use tariffs in an aggressive way against allies is something he really believes in.”
Mr. Bolton was a top adviser to Mr. Trump in 2018 and 2019 but is now critical of his former boss. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, he discussed Mr. Trump’s thinking on tariffs, the possibility that he will pull the U.S. out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization defence alliance and his dealings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Since Mr. Trump issued the tariff threats, Ottawa has scrambled to assuage his concerns before he takes office on Jan. 20. The government has promised more helicopters, drones, police and border guards. Mr. Trudeau also rushed to Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to plead Canada’s case personally.
Asked whether a border clampdown would stop Mr. Trump from pressing forward with the plan, Mr. Bolton said: “I doubt it. I think he’ll just find something else.”
Part of the problem, Mr. Bolton said, is that the president-elect “does not understand how tariffs work,” and sees them as a good way to punish other countries while raising money for the U.S. Treasury.
Mr. Trump incorrectly insists that foreign countries pay tariffs to the U.S. government, even though people have explained to him that it is actually U.S. importers who pay, with the costs passed on to American consumers, Mr. Bolton said.
At the Mar-a-Lago dinner in November, Mr. Trump joked that the U.S. should annex Canada as its “51st state” with Mr. Trudeau as governor. He has since repeated the line several times on social media. He has also taken aim at Chrystia Freeland, deriding her as “totally toxic” last week after she abruptly resigned as deputy prime minister and finance minister.
“He thinks maybe he can intimidate them,” Mr. Bolton said. “This is how he deals with allies. He’s much nicer to our enemies.”
There is also a personal dimension to the comments. Mr. Bolton said Mr. Trump “doesn’t have any respect for Justin Trudeau” because of animus dating back to a blow-up after the 2018 G7 summit in Charlevoix, Que., and he is upset with Ms. Freeland “because she was a tough negotiator” during trade talks that led to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Ironically, he said, Mr. Trump may have inadvertently helped Ms. Freeland if she ultimately makes a run for the Liberal leadership.
“Trump doesn’t really understand what he’s doing when he attacks somebody like Chrystia Freeland. This may make her the favoured candidate to succeed Trudeau for Canadians because she did stand up to him. He doesn’t think through second-order effects like that.”
Another looming battle between Canada and the Trump administration concerns defence spending. Since 2014, NATO countries have promised to spend at least 2 per cent of GDP on their militaries. But Canada has not met this commitment. Earlier this year, Mr. Trudeau set a goal to reach the target by 2032, but did not outline any plan for getting there.
Mr. Bolton said it was “not a good idea” for Canada to again punt on fulfilling the promise. Mr. Trump does not see the value of NATO, he said, and threats to withdraw from it are serious. Earlier this year, Mr. Trump said that he would encourage Russia to invade NATO countries that do not meet the defence spending target.
It’s “mythology that when Trump says, ‘spend your 2 per cent or the U.S. won’t defend you,’ it’s just a bargaining technique and nothing to worry about. It’s not. He doesn’t like NATO. He thinks it’s a bad deal for the United States. And it’s not going to get better if Canada pays a little bit more.”
Canada’s current strategy of trying to persuade the president-elect to back down on issues is not necessarily wrong, Mr. Bolton said. Ottawa just has to be prepared in the event that it doesn’t work.
“You’ve got to find a way to deal with Trump, flatter and play golf with him, play to his ego, whatever it takes. And it’s arduous work that Trudeau probably thought he’d never have to go through again,” Mr. Bolton said. “If you can pour enough flattery on him, you may get your way. But you’ve got to be prepared to punch, too.”
Key to working with Mr. Trump, Mr. Bolton said, is understanding that he views everything only in terms of narrow self-interest. He might be open to a pitch that makes clear that tariffs could hurt him politically by raising U.S. consumer prices, for instance.
“Arguing that this is going to hurt Canada is the wrong argument. Arguing that this is going to hurt the United States is the wrong argument. Arguing that it’s going to hurt Donald Trump – that’s the right argument.”
He does not see his former boss as operating according to a broader ideological or strategic vision.
“He only thinks about what he sees in front of him,” Mr. Bolton said. “He thinks about Donald Trump.”
