ArcaMax

PARIS — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney went to China, met with President Xi Jinping, opened up roughly $7 billion in potential new revenues for Canada through trade deals — and immediately sent the America First commentariat into a full-blown meltdown. Which is odd, because this is exactly the kind of national self-interest that the more coherent wing of free-market conservatism has been asking for all along.

Every Trump sycophant within internet range lost their mind. Canada, they warned, was actively sabotaging the American auto industry by allowing a test run of 49,000 imported Chinese electric vehicles, tariffed at a scandalously low 6.1 percent. In a market of 2 million cars. Canada was apparently about to destroy a deeply integrated North American auto sector by nudging Chinese EV market share from 2.1 percent to a terrifying 2.5 percent. Sound the alarm.

Meanwhile, Team Trump keeps repeating the mantra that Canada has nothing that America needs, while simultaneously slapping tariffs on whatever crosses the border. So why wouldn’t Canada go see other people? If the guy you live with keeps telling you that you’re irrelevant, you hardly owe him celibacy.

Trump imposed 25 percent tariffs on the Canadian portions of cars not made in the U.S., and did the same to Canadian farm products — effectively begging Canada to diversify its trade relationships. Back then, Trump supporters cheered his America First protectionism and his musings about Canada becoming the 51st state, with its prime minister rhetorically demoted to a mere “governor.”

So you can imagine the confusion when Trump’s fan club discovered that Carney had signed deals with “Communist China,” only for Trump himself to shrug and say: “That’s OK. That’s what he should be doing. And it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal. If he can get a deal with China, he should do that.”

Did it ever occur to them that the America First independence they want for themselves is precisely what other countries are now pursuing? And where was the outrage when Trump himself said just months ago that he was looking to cut a deal with China? “It’s going to be fantastic for both countries, and it’s going to be fantastic for the entire world,” he said.

Trade diversity is strength — a point some of us on the right have been shouting ourselves hoarse about for years. Trump helped get the ball rolling by dismantling the globalist order that reduced once-serious nations — like Canada, France, the U.K. — to dependency-minded extensions of Washington.

Carney has now referred to a “new world order” during his Beijing visit, but not the Davos kind — the opposite. Something much closer to sovereignty. “Rather than being developed through multilateral organisations like the International Monetary Fund or World Trade Organisation, it’s going to be coalitions for sub-sectors of the world,” he said.

None of this has curtailed Trump-aligned critics’ panic over Chinese cars potentially stealing Canadian data. Some even floated the idea that Canada could be kicked out of the Five Eyes Anglo intelligence alliance. Right — because it’s not as though two of the five members, the U.K. and Australia, already import Chinese vehicles without triggering the collapse of Western civilization.

Speaking of which, can we get an update on all the past China-related moral panics? The Chinese “smart refrigerator” that was supposedly spying on you while you drank milk from the carton in your underwear? The Chinese-made buses that were allegedly one software update away from being remotely hijacked?

Funny how quiet it gets after the initial hysteria burns itself out. It's always been a dumb argument, anyway. I'd personally much rather be spied on by China, on the other side of the world, than by my own government that's in a position to mess with me.

And what about the communism? Well, they seem to be doing capitalism rather effectively for folks who’ve been written off as ideological cavemen. Carney made it clear that he isn’t interested in being the kind of leader who refuses to do business unless he’s been allowed to audit every room in someone else’s house for ideological purity, “human rights” differences notwithstanding.

It shouldn’t shock anyone that Trump is suddenly speaking about Canada with something approaching respect. Independence is about the only thing that seems to elicit the sentiment.

Note the contrast with his treatment of European allies, whom he regularly threatens — rhetorically or otherwise — from invading Greenland to dismantling NATO. If Europe ever kicked U.S. troops out of its bases, Trump might actually admire the move. Like someone finally throwing their gaslighting partner’s belongings onto the lawn.

Contrast that with the West’s handpicked Venezuelan opposition figure, Maria Corina Machado, who reportedly rushed to the White House to present Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal after he declined to install her as president following his coup against Nicolas Maduro. Of course he cited her lack of credibility and respect among Venezuelans as his reason for refusing to do so. And she keenly confirmed his assessment.

Balancing national interests between superpowers of the day wasn’t invented by Carney, but rather by the famous conservative World War II resistance leader turned French President, Charles De Gaulle. And it’s not like he was considered a raving commie for France’s rapprochement with the Soviet Union as he embarked on a historic economic revival.

The rest of the West would do well to take a page from Carney’s playbook in what is arguably one of the most Canadian moves ever: quietly asserting sovereignty and exercising independence while actually compelling Trump to respect it as he’s blindsided by a fait accompli.