Welcome to Need to Know, The Hub’s roundup of experts and insiders providing insights into the developments Canadians need to be keeping an eye on.
Today’s weekend edition dives into thought-provoking research from think tanks, academics, and leading policy thinkers in Canada and around the world. Here’s what’s got us thinking this week.
It’s tariff day. As you read this, President Trump may or may not have levied 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on Canada. If he has, Canada is in the midst of a genuine crisis without a sitting Parliament to debate our response. If he hasn’t, then we’re all collectively left in purgatory trying to figure out will he or won’t he, monitoring social media for the latest presidential declaration.
Nevertheless, it’s still unclear whether the rhetoric coming out of Trump and his officials is simply posturing with the goal of making deals, or if they actually believe what they say. If it’s the latter, we should be quite concerned because their rhetoric on Canada is often far from reality.
Trump becomes a “Davos Man”
Despite President Trump’s consistent railing against the World Economic Forum (WEF), an elite talk shop that is the foil of many conspiracy theories, last week he joined the club.
Last Thursday, in a virtual address at the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Trump outlined his administration’s immediate steps in addressing what he described as an economic crisis inherited from his predecessor. Trump blamed Biden’s policies—specifically, $8 trillion in deficit spending, strict energy regulations, and an expansive regulatory agenda—for fueling high inflation and soaring interest rates.
Indefensible
Notable for Canada, NATO was also in his crosshairs.
“[The U.S. is] moving quickly to bring back strength and peace and stability abroad. I’m also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defence spending to 5 percent of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago. It was only at 2 percent, and most nations didn’t pay until I came along,” he said.
“I insisted that they pay, and they did because the United States was really paying the difference at that time and it was unfair to the United States.”
Of all of Trump’s gripes about Canada, his criticisms of Canada’s paltry defence spending are fair. Canada doesn’t meet its NATO spending obligations. Despite commitments from the government that we’ll meet our obligations in the future, how we credibly get there remains unclear.