Canada

Under Trump, there is no G7 – only a G1

President Trump moved through the G7 Summit in Alberta like a blowsy uncle swinging by the house for a drink on Thanksgiving on his way to Vegas. He didn’t accomplish much, but, as always, he was the perpetual pot-stirrer in his real-life As The World Turns. He began yesterday by criticizing the G7 for tossing Russia out of the group, “even though I wasn’t in politics then. I was very loud about it.” Fact check: true. This expulsion was a “mistake,” Trump said, adding, “Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anyone else.” What was Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni rolling her eyes at in a moment soon to become a GIF? Probably that statement. Almost definitely that statement. But that was just the canapé, with the actual meal yet to come.

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WATCH: Trump hints Russia should rejoin G7

As the annual G7 Summit kicks off in Canada, President Trump told reporters that removing President Vladimir Putin from the group was a mistake, and had they not done so, the Kremlin's over two-year war against Ukraine would not have happened. "They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though I wasn’t in politics then. I was very loud about it," Trump said. He reasoned, "You spend so much time talking about Russia, and he’s no longer at the table. So it makes it more complicated – but you wouldn’t have had the war." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared somewhat disengaged next to Trump and gazed off into the distance when Trump said the war would have never happened.

Trump and Carney G7 (Getty)

Palm Beach is stuck in a gridlock

Palm Beach is never happier than when it’s making news – the more unexpected the better. The latest opportunity to pat itself on the back came in the wake of Palm Beach resident Donald J. Trump’s “silly” wheeze (according to the local paper) to make Canada the 51st state. Whereas overall, as a result of President Trump’s speculations, visits to America by Canadians dropped by 2 percent in February – with a whopping 70 percent decline in bookings in March – reservations on flights from north of the 49th parallel to Palm Beach International Airport actually rose by 15 percent. The place remains popular, even for Canadians.

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Mark Carney is ignoring the cartels – and Donald Trump

Donald Trump has declared war on the cartels. The southern border is now patrolled by the military, the wall is rapidly expanding and US intelligence is helping to target crime bosses on Mexican soil. Illegal crossings and drug seizures at key points have dropped by more than 70 percent in the last year.But, contrary to appearances, the cartels have not surrendered – instead, they have pivoted, applying Sun Tzu’s principle: attack your enemy's weaknesses, not his strengths.Led by the blood-soaked and ultra violent Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartel they are exploiting the soft 5,525-mile long northern border with Canada and its sparse surveillance, dense forests, inadequately staffed crossings and neglected checkpoints.

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Biden has learned nothing from his foreign-policy experience

Historically, ex-presidents spend their golden years on the speaking circuit, writing their memoirs or planning for the inauguration of their presidential libraries. What they don’t do is lash out at their successors when they disagree with a policy or decision. Joe Biden, however, has no intention of keeping quiet. A little more than three months after vacating the White House, Biden is unencumbered from conventional decorum and feels free to speak his mind. Last month, he gave his first post-presidency speech in Chicago, where he blasted the Trump administration for taking a sharp hatchet to the federal workforce, including the Social Security Administration.

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Mark Carney rebuffs Trump’s marriage proposal

The White House press conference between President Trump and newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shows that every generation gets the summit it deserves. World War Two had Yalta, the 1970s the Camp David Accords. Barack Obama had a beer with the cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates, Jr. And Trump bragged about the new 24-karat White House gold décor and said, about Canada, “I think we have a lot of things in common.” The half-hour press scrum veered between mutual respect and Trumpian disdain, while Carney struggled to get a word in, flopping his hands in his lap like fish on a deck. He called Trump a “transformational President” and said, “We’re stronger when we’re together.” Trump said, “I have a lot of respect for this man.

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Did Kamala Harris ‘stun’ at the Met Gala?

Met Gala turns @TheDemocrats into @PopCrave Celebrities from the music industry, the NFL and Hollywood joined Kamala Harris at the annual Met Gala fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. In an embarrassing tweet emulating viral celebrity accounts such as @PopCrave, @TheDemocrats (yes, the official social media account for the entire Democratic party) wrote, “Kamala Harris stuns at the Met Gala.” The defeated presidential candidate wore a black and white dress in a possible homage to Cruella de Vil. Despite the online slavering at DNC HQ, Emily Smith notes elsewhere in The Spectator that Harris’s audience might have been on the other coast.

Canada

Why western Canada should join the US

I was born in Saskatchewan and have no intention of returning. It’s the Siberia of Canada, an area bigger than France – where I now live – with the population of Buffalo, New York. It’s sucked dry by Ottawa. Elon Musk was here, and left. And it has winter temperatures of -40 degrees. Alberta has slightly more going for it: skiing, bears. But Albertans aren’t gruntled, either. The last time I was in Calgary I had lunch at the elite Ranchmen’s Club and the chatter was seditious. The talk was of Wexit – the separation of western Canada from the bloodsucking east. Then there’s Plan B. While it’s possible that western Canada could go it alone – seceding from the dominion and declaring independence – it’s hardly the only option.

Foreign governments have themselves to blame for Trump’s movie tariffs

Donald Trump has thrown another trade grenade. His latest idea – a 100 percent tariff on all foreign-made films – is crude, impractical and potentially disastrous for his frenemies in the Hollywood industry that he has suddenly decided to champion. Announcing the tariffs via Truth Social, Trump tried to paint movies produced overseas as a danger: not just to America’s film production industry, but national security too. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!" he thundered. Invoking national security to justify these tariffs is legally shaky. Practically, it’s not clear how you even impose tariffs on a complex, multi-national production like a modern movie. Films shot in Croatia, edited in the UK and funded by America pose an administrative nightmare.

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A White House Correspondents’ Dinner hangover

By now, you have surely got a flavor of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and all the accompanying parties that took place over the weekend. After all, the DC media has nothing to talk about other than itself. The President long ago chose not to attend, and that the intimation was that members of his administration should skip the “MSM” events too. There were fewer celebrities than ever – not least because the White House Correspondents’ Association got rid of the comedian who was set to provide the entertainment. The gargantuan TIME after-party – your correspondent saw the entry tally at over 2,470 when he arrived at 11:30 – smelled like feet due to the Raclette on the rear terrace.

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Activist-academics push to Make America Teetotal Again

What constitutes a safe level of drinking? For some activist-academics there is none – and they are loudly lobbying for alcohol to be treated like tobacco in official US health advice. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are under review and will be updated this year. Currently they recommend moderation: two drinks or less in a day for men and one drink or less in a day for women. Pressure, however, is being applied for a new recommendation: no safe level.But that would fly in the face of decades of evidence that has shown those who drink in moderation live longer than those who do not, mostly because alcohol consumption lowers the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The current guidance from 2020 is roughly where the sweet spot is from a health perspective.

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The case against admitting Canada to the US

Fans of South Park are familiar with the long-running gag involving the show’s portrayal of Canadians as crudely animated, detail-less animated cutouts, perpetually outraged — almost always an overreaction to something America has done. In a rather hilarious instance of life imitating art, President Donald Trump’s assertion that Canada become the 51st state has enraged the notoriously polite society, and age-old suspicions that America has always been poised to overtake their northern neighbors have resurfaced. I get it. When you have an inferiority complex, you can lose your sense of humor.

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Will better-than-expected inflation numbers calm the markets?

Has Donald Trump’s return to the White House triggered a second round of inflation? Not yet, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which revealed this morning that the consumer price index rose to 2.8 percent in February — 0.1 percent less than markets had expected. The rise is being described as "stable," as annualized core inflation (which excludes more volatile prices like food and energy) rose to 3.1 percent — also a smaller rise than expected. While inflation on the year is ticking up slightly, it remains in the ballpark of what has been expected.

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Is Canada doing enough to tame Trump?

There’s such a thing as cutting off your nose to spite your face, and the tariff war between Canada and the US is starting to look like a prime example. On Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a 25 percent surcharge on electricity exports to the US, affecting an estimated 1.5 million households and businesses in New York, Michigan, and Minnesota. Trump responded with all-caps outrage, raising the March 12 tariff on steel and aluminum imports from Canada from 25 to 50 percent — a move that would be devastating for Ontario’s auto sector. How, the President asked, could Canada stoop so low as to use electricity — a resource that impacts the daily lives of innocent people — as a bargaining chip and a threat?

Mark Carney is Canada’s new prime minister

It is difficult to overstate how much Donald Trump has changed the dynamics of Canadian politics. When Justin Trudeau resigned on January 6, his Liberal party was on just 16 percent in the polls — 25 points behind Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. Within six weeks, that had narrowed substantially, with Nanos suggesting there was just two points between the two parties. The top issue of national concern? Donald Trump and US relations. Visiting Ottawa in January, I was struck by the remark which one Member of Parliament made to me. “We don’t see America and tariffs as foreign affairs — we see them as actually an extension of our domestic economic policies.

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Canada can do more to address the fentanyl crisis

It was a field day for the Canadian freight industry on Monday. Every truck in the country, stuffed to the gills with product, was racing the clock to the border. The few drivers still available commanded ridiculous prices — up to $12,000 higher than normal. At the stroke of midnight, the 25 percent blanket tariff kicked in. Trucks that had yet to make it across the border hit the brakes and turned around. The party was over; the coaches became pumpkins again, it was time for Cinderella to go home. The whole week before, business owners, brokers and shippers were asking each other: "Have you seen anything official on this? Anything from the Canadian government?" They hadn't.

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Against Canada’s anti-Americanism

You couldn’t have written a better comedy script than the one playing out in the apparently real war that has erupted between America and its usually irrelevant northern cousin. The hockey rink is particularly sacred ground for Canadians, which makes the ego hit doled out by President Donald Trump this week all the more painful.   “I’ll be calling our GREAT American Hockey Team this morning to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada, which with FAR LOWER TAXES AND MUCH STRONGER SECURITY, will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished and very important, Fifty First State,” he posted on Truth Social Thursday morning.   “I will be speaking before the Governors tonight in D.C. and will sadly, therefore, be unable to attend.

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How Trump is revolutionizing Washington

Weeks into his second term, it’s clear President Trump intends to be the most transformative force our politics has seen in a century. He seems equally determined to change the course of the world — and perhaps its map, too. Trump’s enemies can blame themselves for making this possible. They showed him that impeachment is nothing to fear: securing conviction in the Senate is nigh impossible and whatever damage impeachment might do to a president’s reputation has already been inflicted on Trump. Two impeachments and a welter of post-presidential criminal prosecutions and even convictions failed to stain Trump in voters’ eyes. On the contrary, they left him more popular than ever and discredited the institutions his opponents employed as weapons of their “lawfare.

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Europe should be careful in wishing for their own Trump

When I visited Toronto with a UK delegation last winter, conversation focused on the issues of immigration, housing and inflation that were contributing to the unpopularity of Justin Trudeau, who finally announced his resignation as prime minister last month. The prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House was the slumbering python in the chandelier above the conference table: I sensed our hosts preferred not to think about how bad it might turn out to be. Well, now they know. In response to Trump’s declaration of 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, plus 10 percent on imported energy, Trudeau retorted with tariffs on many billions worth of US products.

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How Trump’s Mexico and Canada tariffs could change trade history

President Donald Trump has set Saturday as the deadline to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports. From the Oval Office earlier this week, Trump explained that the move aims to push the US’s neighbors to take swift action to curtail illegal immigration and fentanyl, as well as to address growing trade deficits. The tariffs may or may not include oil, with Trump saying Thursday that determinations were still being made. Following Trump’s tariff feud with Colombian president Gustavo Petro Sunday, with the Trump forcing his Colombian counterpart to welcome deportees, his latest move signifies an expansion of his revamped “FAFO” foreign policy.