Donald Trump’s online reaction to an Ontario ad campaign quoting former president Ronald Reagan on tariffs has ignited a new phase in the Canada-U.S. trade dispute.Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
In 2002, Kenneth and Gabrielle Adelman created the California Coastal Records Project to document erosion of the Pacific coast.
The couple worked as a team: She piloted the helicopter while he shot a photo every 150 metres as they flew along the shoreline, and they posted everything on the project’s no-frills website.
In 2003, the Adelmans shot a fresh instalment of photos, which happened to include Barbra Streisand’s oceanfront Malibu mansion. The singer sued Mr. Adelman for privacy violation, seeking US$10-million in damages, but a judge ultimately dismissed the case and ordered her to pay the amateur photographer’s legal fees.
But the real legacy of Ms. Streisand’s tantrum is the fact that a few obscure photos of her house became tabloid fodder that you can easily gawk at even now. Mike Masnick, founder of the Techdirt blog, coined the now-widely used term “the Streisand effect” to describe the phenomenon in which trying to shut something down makes many, many more people aware of it.
In 2003, environmental activists took aerial photos similar to this one taken in 1998 showing the property of entertainment icon Barbra Streisand in Malibu, Calif. She sued, which made the photos even more popular.Michael Caulfield/The Associated Press
And now, we go live to Donald Trump in a Barbra Streisand wig, screaming at Canada about a 60-second ad in which Ronald Reagan reminds everyone why tariffs are bad.
Late on Thursday night, the President took to social media to declare that tariff negotiations with Canada were cancelled because of our “egregious behavior” in launching a “FAKE” ad. This, curiously, was more than a week after the Ontario government launched the $75-million campaign in the U.S.
The President was up and at ’em again early the next morning, posting at 7:20 a.m. that “CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!!They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY.”
The thing is, no matter how much you abuse caps lock, the Gipper pretty famously loved free trade.
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Mr. Trump still had big feelings to work through. Nine minutes later, he posted, “THE UNITED STATES IS WEALTHY, POWERFUL, AND NATIONALLY SECURE AGAIN, ALL BECAUSE OF TARIFFS!” Two minutes after that, he wrote, “THE STOCK MARKET IS STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE BECAUSE OF TARIFFS!”
The following day, the President was still fired up. He posted that the Ontario ad “was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD.” And because of Canada’s “serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act,” he was upping tariffs across the board by 10 per cent.
Any time Mr. Trump abruptly shoves a stick into someone’s wheels, it’s tempting to see it as a negotiation tactic, and it often is, because Mr. Trump likes to use unpredictability to give himself the upper hand. Competing only on an uneven playing field is how you know he’s a total shark with real confidence in his own superior smarts and skills.
The Government of Ontario released this TV ad that uses a recording of Ronald Reagan to argue against tariffs.
Government of Ontario
But I don’t think this was a ploy to gain leverage just as trade negotiations with Canada were reportedly nearing completion on key sectors. The very stable genius is having a true meltdown.
It feels like the moment in February when he attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office for insufficient bowing and scraping. Or June, when he spat out a heavy-duty expletive because it was apparently an unwelcome surprise to him to discover that enforcing peace between Iran and Israel is challenging.
Mr. Trump is never what you might call balanced or restrained, but most of the time, that’s a weapon he’s choosing to wield. But when he truly loses it, it’s a tell that there’s something he wants and isn’t getting – and there’s not a lot that the universe is withholding from the sultan of Mar-a-Lago at the moment.
So what’s bothering Mr. Trump so much about this ad that he’s punching himself enthusiastically in the face with the Streisand effect as he tries to make everyone else look away?
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Most obviously, there’s the fact that many Republicans still keep a votive candle burning for Mr. Reagan, their patron saint. Mr. Trump has often sought to attach himself to that legacy, including by hanging a portrait of the 40th president next to his desk to begin his new term in the Oval Office.
“Ronald Reagan loved tariffs. He used them sparingly, which he probably – he made a mistake in that,” Mr. Trump said aboard Air Force One on Monday. “I was the biggest fan of Ronald Reagan, but on finance, on trade, it wasn’t his strong suit.”
But while being criticized by an idol from beyond the grave has to sting, I don’t think that’s the true cause of Mr. Trump’s jittery rage right now, either.
The essence of this President – what makes him so dangerous and so mesmerizing, especially in his emboldened and more organized second term – is that none of the rules apply to him, simply because he’s decided they don’t. He’s spent his whole life practising for the malevolent impunity he’s now testing out and expanding every single day.
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But you can’t bend the basic principles of economics to your will, or bamboozle your citizens out of noticing when they’re losing their jobs or choking on the price of their groceries or cars or furniture. Unlike the capitulation of law firms, universities, corporations, other countries or perhaps the rules-based order itself (we shall see), reality cannot be intimidated out of enacting consequences.
That ad narrated in the mild, thoughtful voice of a long-dead president registers like a screaming air raid siren with Mr. Trump because of its quiet insistence that the laws of physics still apply to him.
It’s tempting to wish for every Canadian province and territory to pool resources with the federal government and fill the airwaves with Ronald Reagan reminding Americans, as their lives get harder and more expensive, who did it to them. But that solution belongs to a saner and more satisfying world than this one, in which the mad king holds all the cards.
Instead, the only thing to do is wait. Reality comes for everyone eventually – even him.