AN OPEN LETTER FROM MARK CARNEY TO DONALD TRUMP
Dear Donald,
All of us in Canada had a belly laugh at your expense when The Wall Street Journal reported a truthful story that we fed to its reporters recently. You look so foolish.
There is an old expression about shooting yourself in the foot my friend, and you have a stump to stand on only. And you should know, the world is well aware. They laughed at you as do we.
The headline in The Journal reads, AMERICA NEEDS CANADIAN ALUMINUM.
In Canada, we have two resources that make us a major world producer of aluminum. We have the ore in the ground, and we have the smelting pots fueled by hydro power.
We’ve had these resources since World War II and the United States has neither. Although you don’t manufacture aluminum in your country, you sure as hell need it for the products that your manufacturers produce such as cars and housing.
Here is what is incredibly stupid on your part. Whatever aluminum is coming into your country from our country you have subjected to a 50% tariff. You need the aluminum so you must import it. You have tried, but you have failed to produce it in your country.
You have whined that Canada has treated the US “very unfairly“ and so you make your citizens and your manufacturers pay a substantial tax for a material the United States desperately needs.
Of course, Canada has not treated the United States unfairly. You fabricated this charge. You are such an oaf.
You’re probably not even aware, although you should be, that over the last year Canada supplied 70% of your aluminum.
You have acted both arbitrarily and capriciously in imposing trade penalties on our country. In self-defense, we have sought new markets in Europe and they will develop quite quickly. That will mean less of our material available for import by the United States from Canada at any cost.
Then what Donald?
And even though you imposed 50% tariffs on our aluminum, and we have sought to protect ourselves as a sovereign nation, you call us a ‘’terrible trade partner.” I suppose that as the bully you are you expect Canada to sit still and take your tariff pummeling on the chin. And smile.
It does not work that way, mon ami.
Canada became an aluminum superpower when Canada and the United States worked side-by-side during World War II to produce this much needed commodity.
And, in shipping it to the United States and to England, Canada lost many merchant marines to German submarines. Then, we were partners.
Now, instead of the loyal friend and partner we once were, we are trade enemies as you have so declared. Trade enemies, you orange arse.
Do you know what we call you in Canada? DUMB DUMB DONALD. Yes, indeed, over the issue of aluminum and other commodities you have shot yourself in the foot when you went after Canada as if it was your enemy.
We wonder whether your cognitive abilities are sound, and we question the level of your IQ.
We do understand that there are some people who need to set up an imaginary enemy to fight with in order to make them feel superior, and we see you as one of those people.
Ironically, you embrace the real enemies of your country, and pick flights with the real friends.. Our hope is that one day a vast majority of your citizens truly understand what you have done to the United States during your short tenure as president.
No doubt historians, when they write of this historic time, will scratch their head and wonder how this could’ve been allowed to happen.
Jim Astrachan is lawyer who represents clients in intellectual property law and litigation, mediation, and business, regulatory, and transactional matters. He’s a Life Fellow of the Baltimore City Bar Foundation, the Maryland Bar Foundation, and the American Bar Foundation.