Canada’s pushback grows amid Trump’s global threats (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also. But they're not. I watched your prime minister yesterday, he wasn't so grateful.

[00:00:09] Speaker 2: That was President Trump speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos. And it was just the latest in the war of words between the American president and the Canadian prime minister. Martin Carney called out countries that he thinks are not standing up to the United States.

[00:00:24] Speaker 3: There is a strong tendency for countries to go along, to get along, to accommodate.

[00:00:31] Speaker 4: He said that the old world order was kind of built on a lie, that the rules-based system had become something of a fiction, because the strongest countries had never really stuck to the rules.

[00:00:43] Speaker 2: But if the old world order is done, what's the new one that the Canadian prime minister envisions?

[00:00:49] Speaker 3: The powerful have their power. We have something too, the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.

[00:01:01] Speaker 2: From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC.

[00:01:05] Speaker 4: And I'm Tristan Redman in London. And today on The Global Story, is Canada emerging as a leader of a global resistance to Donald Trump? And does it actually have a plan?

[00:01:21] Speaker 2: We're joined today by the BBC's Chief International Correspondent, Lise Doucette, I would say one of the perhaps most well-known Canadian women in broadcasting. Unless you call Margaret Atwood a broadcaster. We are speaking to you shortly after President Trump finished giving his speech at Davos, the World Economic Forum there in Switzerland. World leaders have been gathering there. I think there was a lot of anticipation around what President Trump would say and what vision he would articulate to the world. What did you hear? What stood out to you?

[00:01:54] Speaker 5: That's a very diplomatic way of saying what the mood was. Anticipation yes, but I would also say anxiety. Here it was, President Trump, who had in his comments, as you followed them, the marking the one year, his one year in power, he doubled down and said, I want Greenland. It's essential for the defense of the United States. And therefore, I have to get it. And he said, oh, I'll be able to do something, make a deal with all these Europeans. Yes, they talk tough, but when they see me, they act differently. So we arrived. And what everyone was waiting to hear was, is he saying, no matter what, I'm getting it with a big hint that he would take it by force.

[00:02:38] Speaker 1: We never asked for anything and we never got anything. We probably won't get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force where we would be, frankly, unstoppable. But I won't do that.

[00:02:55] Speaker 5: He laid that to rest.

[00:02:56] Speaker 1: OK, now everyone's saying, oh, good. That's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force.

[00:03:07] Speaker 5: And I think there must have been a collective sigh and what, by all accounts, was a packed room. But he still isn't backing down.

[00:03:14] Speaker 4: At least he said he wasn't going to take Greenland by force today.

[00:03:18] Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. I'm glad you said so. There's a moment of a sigh of relief and then everyone goes back to being anxious again.

[00:03:24] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I wonder if the sigh of relief might be a little bit preemptive. Greenland has been the main topic on the agenda. A lot of European leaders have been in Davos presenting themselves as opponents of the Donald Trump view of the world. But there's one leader in particular who has stood out, and that is the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney. He made this fairly high profile speech on Tuesday for which he received a standing ovation. What were the bits of that speech that stood out to you?

[00:03:59] Speaker 5: So Mark Carney basically said we have to call it out. We have to call out the reality of a rules-based international order which no longer exists.

[00:04:09] Speaker 3: We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn't mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.

[00:04:16] Speaker 5: I was quite surprised that he then made, he added a caveat and said, well, it never really worked that well, did it? For us not so great powers.

[00:04:24] Speaker 3: We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient.

[00:04:33] Speaker 5: Okay, he's being really, he's being really honest.

[00:04:36] Speaker 3: We participated in the rituals. And we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works.

[00:04:48] Speaker 5: He did call it out as it is. But today the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, did point out that he didn't mention President Trump by name.

[00:04:56] Speaker 4: I have to confess, I heard the hype before I watched the speech. And the hype was sort of suggesting that Mark Carney was kind of the anti-Trump. And then when I watched the speech, it was a lot more nuanced and subtle than that. What was the headline takeaway for you?

[00:05:10] Speaker 5: His phrase was, this is not a transition. This is a rupture. It's over. And his was also a clarion call to middle powers, which Canada is. It's not a great power. Canada's never had an empire. In fact, it was colonized by both the British and the French. So it doesn't, in President Trump's might is right world, the world of strong men. Canada doesn't count among them. It's depending on which poll you look at, it's the ninth or the 10th biggest economy in the world. And it's basically appealing to other countries, let's say Australia, Germany, Korea, other countries the world over, who also have to defend themselves, who have long looked to great powers to be under their umbrella of protectionists now saying, we have to work together if we're going to try to find a way through this, because the old system doesn't exist and it's never really worked that well anyway. And most of all, because it is so unpredictable. I mean, we live in a time where Mark Carney, the first prime minister to visit China since 2017, goes to China and talks about a predictable relationship with the Chinese. That is where we are at. What did Canada actually get out of that trip? What did they agree to? Well, first symbolically, the fact that Canada is going to China and there have been really sharp tensions between Beijing and Ottawa for many years. Canada accuses China of spying in Canada, of meddling in elections. And last year, at the request of the United States, it imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. In retaliation, China imposed 100% tariffs on the goods that Canada likes to sell to China. So what did they agree? It's a preliminary trade deal, but they have brought down those 100% tariffs. So China will be allowed to sell, I think it's around 49,000 electric vehicles to Canada at a preferential tariff. China will buy Canadian products at a much reduced tariff. They still have to work out the details. But let's look at the numbers. Around 75%, 70 to 75% of Canada's trade goes south of the border. China is Canada's second largest trading partner, but only 5% of trade is with China. So it gives you a sense of the mathematics of it. If Canada wants to try to diversify its trading partners, there's a lot of work to do. In fact, I spoke to a banker when I was in Canada recently and said, even if Canada, you know, Canada's been going to Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Carney is going to be going to visit India this year, we understand. In 20 years, it will still only account for 5 to 10%. It's just so huge living next to the United States and the economies are structured in a way that ties them together. But it did send a message. While Prime Minister Carney was very careful to say we still disagree on key issues, he still brought up issues like human rights. There were still concerns about Chinese meddling in Canada. But on the trade side, he is a predictable trading partner and Mark Carney knows that's what he needs.

[00:08:32] Speaker 4: But he did talk about the need to diversify trading partners and economic links with other countries, particularly when a middle power like Canada is faced with threats. Now Canada is facing a very specific threat, which is this idea that it might become the 51st state of the United States of America. How serious is that threat?

[00:08:54] Speaker 5: When President Trump started musing about Canada, the 51st state, wouldn't Canadians be better off? Canadians thought it was a joke. And then President Trump kept saying it. And even though Canadians kept saying, no, no, thank you, we're much better being Canadians. We are Canadians. We're very different from Americans. Then the Canadians stopped laughing. And they started getting angry, really angry, and they started taking action. I was really struck that when I was home in Canada this summer, you still go to shops and they have on it, made in Canada. I just published a book and on the sticker is on it, a Canadian author by Canadian. They took American whiskey off the shelves. They took American bourbon off the shelves. And there's always been this little strain of being a little bit anti-American because they dominate Canada culturally, economically, financially, security wise in so many ways. Of course, you'd be a little bit resentful of that, but all the while you continue to consume American movies and American news. But that caused not just a rallying around the flag, but it also created the rise and rise of Mark Carney.

[00:10:09] Speaker 4: Yeah, because would he have become prime minister had it not been for that rallying around the flag?

[00:10:14] Speaker 5: Look, again, let's look at the numbers. The Conservative Party, run by someone who was at that time a very successful politician called Pierre Polliev, he and his Conservative Party were ahead in the polls by double digits. The Liberal Party of Canada was set for a humiliating defeat. And then President Trump enters the White House in January last year, and suddenly the numbers start changing. And I remember speaking with people, friends of mine who've been very active in politics in Canada, know politics well in Canada, know Mark Carney. And the gossip was, is he a retail politician? Can he really go out and press the flesh? He was the central banker in Canada. How can he really perform about Pierre Polliev, who is a career politician and who's so fluent in French and in English? Can Mark Carney really take him on? And he did.

[00:11:10] Speaker 4: He wraps himself in the flag, figuratively speaking, and he negotiates cleverly, it sounds like, this threat of the 51st state thing. But we have to ask you, because the 51st state thing might have started off as maybe a joke, a bad joke, who knows? But in the way of Trump, these things start to develop into much more serious things. And we have read this quite extraordinary newspaper report from the Toronto Globe and Mail in the last few days, talking about the Canadian government gaming out the possibility of US invasion. Can you talk us through that? And how surprised were you, as a Canadian, to be reading this report? I mean, astonishing.

[00:11:59] Speaker 5: You know, and in the same paper today, there's an editorial by the editorial board of the Globe and Mail. And what is the title? Thinking the Unthinkable. Because it did say that it's, they're gaming it, right? So the war game. The war game. Canada's war gaming an invasion, a potential invasion by Americans. Yes. While still emphasizing that military-to-military relations are still good, Canada's still involved in discussions on what they call the Golden Dome, which is an intercontinental missile system to protect against missiles from China and Russia. But they had to look at options. How can Canada stand up against United States? It's what they call in battlefields far, far asymmetric warfare. It's extraordinary that you, they looked at the hit and run attacks used by the Mujahideen, Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union, when I was reporting in Afghanistan then, against the Soviet Empire in the 1980s. They looked at the drones used by Ukraine against a much more formidable enemy, which is Russia. So they use it, all these kind of tactics that a much lesser military power can try to use to overwhelm, to kill, to take on a much bigger military power. So they looked at what were the options for Canada, but had to conclude that with the military might, we're talking about the world's biggest army, it would be overwhelmed within a week and possibly even within two days, Canada would lose.

[00:13:30] Speaker 4: And they would have no plan beyond that?

[00:13:33] Speaker 5: Well, I think it would be, there would be one thing to have a full scale assault across, as I mentioned, the longest undefended border in the world. But Canada is the second largest landmass in the world. So how to, can you subjugate all of Canada to America's will? I don't think so. I think you'd have from sea to sea to sea, you'd have people rising up, you'd have an insurgency. And also don't forget that Canada is a member of NATO. So if a NATO, if they're invaded, oh my God, unthinkably by another NATO member, an attack on one is an attack on all. So would you have Germany sending over the war planes? Would you have France sending boats, warships? They would be honor bound by the terms of the treaty to come to Canada's support. I mean, it's just mind boggling.

[00:14:25] Speaker 2: I want to understand, Lise, how we got to this point where the United States neighbor to its north, there are reports, right, that they are war gaming, you say, a scenario of a possible American invasion. You see the prime minister of Canada going and visiting China, the US's primary rival. You see him speaking up at Davos, maybe not indirect, but certainly rather explicit terms about American power and threats. It seems like there has been this point where the old friendship has broken down. And the reason I'm asking you for how we got to this point is I felt when Mark Carney visited Trump in the Oval Office in the spring, he seemed to kind of deftly push away the idea that Canada is not for sale.

[00:15:08] Speaker 1: It's two places. They get along very well. They like each other a lot.

[00:15:12] Speaker 3: Well, if I may, as you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. That's true. I'm in one right now, you know, Buckingham Palace that you visited as well. And having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign last several months, it's not for sale, won't be for sale.

[00:15:33] Speaker 2: And then we fast forward to October, and there was this moment of tension with the premier of Ontario ran an ad on American TV using clips of the former American president, Ronald Reagan, saying that tariffs weren't the answer. And I recall at that time, the prime minister, Mark Carney, apologized for that ad. And so it felt like he was trying to take a more measured approach with Donald Trump. How did we then get to the point where we are now in this past week?

[00:16:04] Speaker 5: That's a very good encapsulation of the ups and downs as Mark Carney, who is no different from any other world leader who has to go sit in what is undeniably the hot seat of hot seats when you sit next to him in the Oval Office in that chair in front of the world's press. And of course, it's broadcast live around the world. I know some world leaders who refused to visit President Trump because they don't want to sit in that chair or some leaders who said, I'm coming to see you, but you cannot have me sitting in that chair. If you lose, they're going to be watching at home. So the general assessment was that Mark Carney handled that well. He started off by saying, and again, he was one of the few countries that did this, China did it, but the Europeans didn't, retaliatory tariffs. He said, we are going to match you. Dollar for dollar, we're going to slap tariffs on you. But then at a certain point, he had to accept Canada's economy is 10% of the United States economy, and they just couldn't do it. So yes, some of the critics in Canada said, you've caved in, you've lifted some of the tariffs. I've seen some of the interviews Canadian journalists did with him. Mr. Prime Minister, you lifted some of the tariffs. And what did you get in return? And Mark Carney was again, trying to open up a dialogue with President Trump. Because remember, after Rob Ford put that ad on in primetime television. The Premier of Ontario. Yeah. Yeah. As President Trump said, right, it's finished. I'm not talking to you. The negotiations are off. I mean, again, back to the P word, predictability. How do you run a country when the guy next door who has such a stranglehold over your economy keeps changing his mind? So he was trying to create a new atmosphere by offering an olive branch to the President. Didn't really work. This year, there have to be really, really crucial renegotiation of the trade pact between Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Bear in mind that they did negotiate a trade pact during President Trump's first term. And then when he tried to cancel it, because it was a terrible deal, they pointed out, but Mr. President, that is your trade deal. And so that is a very high stakes trade deal for Canada. A lot of the tariffs are not in effect because they're covered under that trade deal. But if that trade deal collapse or the terms of it change, then Canada, again, is going to be affected. I mean, there are some Canadian towns whose the lifeblood of their economy is totally centered on producing certain auto parts for the American market. And if that market collapses, so too does employment in the life of that town. That's how serious it is.

[00:19:02] Speaker 2: The question on my mind has been, is Greenland, are the threats to Greenland affecting the different approach that Cardi might be taking in this moment and how he's thinking? Because I have been wondering, why does it seem that his tone and rhetoric has shifted slightly?

[00:19:20] Speaker 5: When you are living in a moment and when you're living in this moment as a leader who is, the people of your country look to you as the person who's going to protect them, and you see that there is a leader who's now saying, I want Greenland and hinting that he could even take it by force, such that that is a shattering of the rules of the world, as imperfect as they are, the world as we know it. It is an assault not just on Greenland if it happened. It is assault on the territorial integrity of Greenland, the sovereignty of Greenland. It runs carriages through the institutions and norms that have underpinned the world for better or worse since the end of the Second World War. And you think if there is a country which is willing to smash those norms, those values, those principles, then what will be next? I could be next, Canada could be next. And I think it is that kind of moment which concentrates minds everywhere.

[00:20:25] Speaker 4: So I have to confess, Lise, when I was listening to the Mark Carney speech that I sort of slightly struggled to stick with the thread of what it was that he was trying to say. He talked a lot about why it was important to build a new world order. The old world order was gone. I didn't come away from it thinking that I had a firm grasp of what it is that he was proposing. And it strikes me that in contrast, Donald Trump very much does propose these solid things. And it's very easy to get a grip with what it is that he's proposing. And right now, his preferred proposal seems to be this idea of this board of peace, which is very different from anything that Mark Carney was suggesting in his speech. Could you explain to us, please, exactly what the board of peace is, as you understand it? Because there seem to be different interpretations.

[00:21:17] Speaker 5: President Trump has been talking about this board of peace ever since he became more involved in trying to find a way out of this grievous war in Gaza, achieve a ceasefire, get Israeli hostages home. And so he began flirting with this idea of a board of peace. And in order to oversee the development of Gaza, who would run Gaza, all of these are incredibly sensitive questions, given Israel's security concerns, the Palestinians' desire to run their own affairs. President Trump would say, oh, well, they want me to head the board of peace, in that kind of false modesty. Fast forward to where we are now and what has been developing recently. After President Trump came up with this peace plan in October, they agreed the first phase of the ceasefire, which more or less ended the war, but not completely. It has, because Palestinians are still dying and not enough food is getting in. But it did bring about a ceasefire. The Israeli hostages came home, all but one, the remains of one. And President Trump has been trying to, he keeps saying, I'm going to tell you what the membership of this board of peace, board of peace. Suddenly the board of peace, the last details we have, which is why your question is so important, not only is President Trump going to be head of this board of peace, he's president for life, even when he ever leaves office. And that board of peace, which initially had a small number of people, he keeps asking more people. So he's asked President Vladimir Putin to join it, he's asked the Belarusian leader to join it. Yes, he's asked Mark Carney, he's asked the Israeli prime minister to join him. And these are to be non-permanent seats. And then came out the absolutely mind-boggling detail that if anyone would like to be a permanent member, like President Trump, all they need to do is pay $1 billion. And they too would be a permanent member. I have to say it's becoming a bit of a farce. Not surprisingly, the French president Emmanuel Macron said he would love to be part of the efforts to bring peace to Gaza, to rebuild Gaza, but he's not going to join the board of peace. Mark Carney, let's see, there was a report today in the Canadian media, he's certainly not going to pay $1 billion. Will he join the board of peace? Prime Minister Netanyahu has said he will join it. And then suddenly people realized that this wasn't just about Gaza, that President Trump was saying that, well, after we resolve Gaza, we can resolve other crises. And then that started raising questions. What does he mean? President Trump was asked yesterday, the question many are asking, are you trying to create an alternative to the United Nations and the United Nations Security Council? And as you say, he's a man of few words and details. And he said, it might be, which is his favorite kind of situation, which is he's keeping everyone guessing.

[00:24:04] Speaker 4: Lise, thank you so much.

[00:24:06] Speaker 5: Thank you, Lise. And as a Canadian, I feel obliged to say, merci beaucoup, c'était vraiment un très grand honneur.

[00:24:11] Speaker 4: C'était un grand plaisir, Lise.

[00:24:13] Speaker 1: Merci beaucoup.

[00:24:14] Speaker 4: The Global Story is also a podcast. If you've enjoyed today's episode, you can find more of them by searching The Global Story on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.