DAVE CHAN/AFP/Getty Images
Once upon a time there was a village menaced by a giant ogre. The villagers met to decide how to respond. “We must give him what he wants,” said one of the villagers. “Then he will go away.”
“No,” said another. “We must respond with purpose and force.”
In the end the villagers tried a little of both approaches. Neither succeeded, because the ogre didn’t really know what he wanted and didn’t respond rationally. So they just had to muddle through. THE END.
Well, no, it’s not much of a fairy tale, is it? But that’s the point. Fairy tales generally have a lesson, the “moral of the story.” In the real world, sometimes there are no lessons.
Just now we are debating how to respond to Donald Trump’s ever-changing threats to this country, especially on the tariff front. The Prime Minister, Mark Carney, is accused of hypocrisy and worse, having promised to stand up to the President on the campaign trail only to offer a series of concessions in office.
What are we to make of these charges? Was he too hawkish during the campaign? But then surely it should be a relief that he is being more dovish now.
Carney changes messaging, says chances are low for tariff-free trade deal with U.S.
Or is the complaint that he is being too dovish now – shelving, for example, a new digital services tax in response to White House threats to end all trade negotiations.
But most of his critics think the DST should never have been introduced in the first place. Perhaps they think he should be taking an even tougher line. Okay: how, specifically? Raise tariffs on imports from the U.S.? Curtail exports of Canadian resources? I didn’t think so.
I know, I know. It’s about the contradiction in his two positions. Very well – how should the contradiction be resolved? In what way should he have been more consistent: hawkishly or dovishly?
The truth is that Mr. Carney has tried both approaches. He imposed retaliatory tariffs of 25 per cent on U.S. autos, on top of earlier tariffs on American steel, aluminum and other goods. He’s also taken a more cooperative line on issues ranging from border security to ballistic missile defence.
His reward? The usual series of conflicting statements from the President, culminating in last week’s threat to impose 35 per cent tariffs across the board, on top of all the other tariffs he has imposed.
Opinion: The market is in denial. Trump wants higher tariffs, and he’s getting them.
As entertaining as it is to watch the famously smooth Mr. Carney flailing about, it is hard to see how any other prime minister would have done any better. Indeed, he is in good company. The whole world is dealing with similar threats.
It is, in fact, impossible to negotiate with Mr. Trump, because a) he does not have any consistent or coherent set of demands, and b) if he did, there is no reason to think he would live up to any undertaking he made in return.
This does not make him a “good” negotiator, at least as that term is usually understood. In his dealings with the dictators he admires, from Vladimir Putin to Xi Jinping to Kim Jong Un, he has shown himself easily flattered, cowed or otherwise rolled.
As for his trade dealings, the vaunted “90 agreements in 90 days,” he has virtually nothing to show for it. Other countries won’t play, realizing he has overplayed his hand abroad and is rapidly running down his political capital at home.
Trade negotiations are odd spectacles at the best of times. Each side is, in effect, holding a gun to its own head, promising to impose punitive tariffs on its own consumers if the other side does not refrain from similarly punishing its own.
Still, there is usually an overarching logic to it, in that the aim of both sides is ultimately freer trade. The dickering over tariffs is merely a means to an end.
Opinion: Trump doesn’t hold all the cards on international trade
With Mr. Trump there is no such assurance. He gives every sign of valuing tariffs for their own sake – though he seems unable to decide why. Is it to raise revenues? Or is it to protect American industry? If the latter – if the tariffs succeed in blocking the flow of imports – they cannot also raise revenues.
It’s possible his attraction to tariffs has another basis: because they place him at the centre of the action. Everyone has to pay attention to him – to be “nice” to him, as he so often puts it.
If so there is not much that anyone can really do with that. There is no “win-win,” as in most negotiations. There is only a problem to be managed, a matter of stalling for time and presenting as small a target as possible, until Mr. Trump grows too old or enfeebled to menace us further.