Post Carney Washout Analysis

The mouse got mauled. Meet the Undertakers of the Canadian economy.

A “washout analysis” is a post event analysis for an exercise that either didn’t take place because of external factors, or was such an utter failure that it was a complete waste of time, but lessons can still be learned from the mistakes.

Some of my predictions came true.

(a) the state funded media was in distract and deflection mode. Having nothing positive to report, they shifted to praising Glorious Leader.

(b) as I predicted, the mood in Washington was already set in stone before Carney’s arrival. As expected, no deal was announced because the possibility of a deal never existed. Carney’s visit was optics for his domestic audience and for the most part, he failed spectacularly. Canadian expectations were that he would be “strong” and yet he came across as whipped, timid and weak - even at one point raising his hand to be allowed to answer a media question, requiring Trump’s permission, like he was in Miss Abernathy’s 6th grade algebra class.

While Canadians were continuing to live in denial and hearing what they wanted to hear, these were my takeaways:

Carney is emblematic of everything MAGA voted for Trump to crush so thoroughly it can never rise again. The same outcome would have been achieved had it been Pierre Poilievre in the hot seat. Both are globalists, not nationalists, and adherents to the “neoliberal consensus” religion.

While normie Canadians chattered online about Trump being a “blowhard”, “a self obsessed talking machine without a filter and without the ability to tell the truth”, etc. what I heard was a man who is well aware that he holds all the raw power, and he intends to use it. I am assuming Team Canada were given one last opportunity to get their ducks in a row and commit to mass deportations and removals of security threats, and declined.

Carney made a tell - stating that the “owners of Canada” say it is not for sale.

Which made more than a few Canadians sit up and ask, “Who are the owners he’s referring to?”.

So, it is my honest belief a deal for Canada is no longer on the table or possible. Trump intends to destroy them (the Laurentian Elite), and what ever little social cohesion and “national pride” still exists within the Canadian psyche.

Trump: “We don’t want their cars. In fact, at one point, they’re going to stop making them” (paraphrased).

So begins the Punisher phase of the Trump persona. Canada is about to experience the summer of pain and deliberately engineered chaos. One by one, he will pick off industry by industry, until they are all at each other’s throats - the proverbial “death by a thousand cuts”.

It has already begun, with Premier Doug Ford calling out Premier Daniel Smith’s “Alberta Separation Presser” as “traitorous”.

So, the scorecard so far:

Auto industry gone - 500,000 industry adjacent jobs, $8.7 billion in payroll, $19 billion of Canada’s GDP

Film industry gone - 250,000 jobs, $14 billion to Canada’s GDP, plus the status and perceived prestige that preening liberals live for. Premier Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim are having meltdowns, because “they worked really hard to build this industry up”, and Trump just erased it forever with one mean tweet.

For those who don’t think Trump can “tariff” films, all he has to do is threaten Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and other major US streamers to make screening content created outside of the US prohibitively expensive through application of a variety of taxes. They will cave. Canada’s domestic film industry is donezo. Cooked.

Trump’s announcement will also impact the profitable domestic industries in both Australia and New Zealand, causing alarm and consternation there as well.

Steel industry gone - 22,000 jobs, 70,000 “steel adjacent” jobs, $24 billion in sales

Trump to Carney: “We don’t want your steel. We’re setting up factories to make our own again”. Even in the first term, Trump identified the steel industry as a national security issue. Substandard steel from China had become a significant issue, especially in the industries that build military equipment, and there were allegations that Canada was allowing China to use Canada as a passthrough to dump steel into the US market.

Natural resource industries - aluminum, lumber, potash, copper - all gone.

Other commenters are also seeing the oxygen being cut off from the Canadian resource industry:

“We don’t want any of it”. The US is Canada’s biggest customer for natural resource exports, buying 56% of what Canada sells. The next largest customer is China, which represents 7% of sales. With China’s economy slowing and also dealing with tariffs, even Chinese sales will begin to dry up for Canada as a consequence of Trump’s tariff war with China.

And my sense is, the Trump team are just getting warmed up. Canada was offered the “easy way” or the “hard way”. Apparently they felt they could dictate terms to their largest customer, and have been schooled. My comment earlier that Trump is toying with Canada the way a cat plays with a mouse before it kills and eats it still holds. The bemused looks on the faces of the American Cabinet team towards Carney et al in the media presser today further reinforced my perception.

So not only did Carney leave empty-handed, he got to be publicly lectured to by Trump, and advised that not only was a deal not on offer, but whatever scraps of business they still had just evaporated into thin air as well.

I’d call that a washout.

Summer of pain incoming.

Engineered chaos, confusion and uncertainty.

Death by a thousand cuts as lifeline after lifeline is severed, many ignominiously by “mean tweet” without prior notice.

Trump and his team are just getting started. They are prepared to settle in and engage in the long war of attrition, and starve Canada out.

Meet the undertakers of the Canadian economy. A member of the Soros team that crushed both the British pound and Japanese Yen (skills which will come into play soon enough), and a ruthless, self-serving Wall Street shark. Canada is a prize they will endeavor to capture, with no intentions whatsoever of playing “nice”.

Previous posts published on this topic:

Elbows Up, Carneys Wheels Up

Carney White House Meeting Predictions