U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on March 7.HAIYUN JIANG/The New York Times News Service
Maybe it’s not about fentanyl and migrants after all.
Maybe it’s really about power. The power to unsettle others. The power to bend people to his will. The power, in short, to exercise power. And to enjoy employing it.
Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again, tariffs are largely off for another month, but Canada and Mexico are still living under the threat of punishing export duties and, with every commercial decision and every domestic choice, feeling the power of the American President.
The drama that began months ago resembles nothing quite so much as a novelistic or television cliffhanger. Indeed, the oxygen of the Trump administration is suspense: Will he or won’t he (fill in the blank – impose tariffs, fire workers, mount an assault on Greenland, kill the Education Department)?
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A 2023 study by a University at Buffalo team headed by Lindsay Hahn in the journal Media Psychology underlined the power of suspense and cliffhangers, dating it to Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop. The novel was originally released in weekly installments in 1840, prompting American readers to rush to the New York dock where the final installment of the story, and the resolution of the fate of the protagonist (“Is Little Nell dead?”), would be delivered by ship.
The Canada-U.S. tariff drama is, of course, the principal preoccupation and governing cliffhanger north of the border, along with fresh worries about Mr. Trump abandoning the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and readjusting long-settled border issues, perhaps unilaterally.
But those tensions are replicated south of the border as well, with federal employees in agencies such as the National Nuclear Safety Administration and the Food and Drug Administration fired and then rehired (the effect: deep anxiety among workers); government buildings put up for sale and then removed from the market (upheaval in local real-estate markets); agencies slated for elimination and then given a reprieve (unpredictability of government functions); government services such as health care for the poor threatened and then declared safe (uncertainty among patients, doctors and hospitals); courts consulted and then implicitly threatened with being ignored (assaults on the rule of law).
The result: rampant uncertainty.
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“Uncertainty is the enemy of economic stability and long-term planning,” said Mark Sniderman, former executive vice-president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. “It is the enemy of business decision-making in households and businesses.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hinted earlier this week at the notion that the fentanyl issue was a pretext. “The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl,” he told reporters, “is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false.” This January, Mexico accounted for more than 16 times as much seized fentanyl as Canada, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.
“There have been so many cases of direct reversals,” said James Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine, Farmington. “Some of that is negotiating tactics. But some of it seems to be inexperience. They don’t have particularly clear plans, and a lot of what they’re talking about goes beyond their campaign promises. Markets don’t like this kind of uncertainty.”
People don’t either.
“Our brains aren’t wired for uncertainty,” said Janet Taylor, a community psychiatrist in Sarasota, Fla. “It takes us to rollercoasters of worst-case scenarios and makes us fearful and anxious. This barrage of news and headlines doesn’t help our mental health.”
One way or another, Mr. Trump is not acting with what Napoleon called an “iron fist in a velvet glove.”
Uncertainty is not new in American politics. Earlier presidents have acted with precedent-breaking, even legally questionable, policies.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus rights of individuals to challenge the legality of their jailing (scholars now disagree about whether he ignored a ruling that his action was unconstitutional) and then issued his Emancipation Proclamation in defiance of constitutional protections of slavery (and his own inaugural-address statement that, “I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so”). So many essential elements of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal were deemed unconstitutional that he tried, but failed, to alter the composition of the Supreme Court.
But Lincoln was known as a man of great compassion, and FDR’s mellifluous voice during his fireside chats took some of the edge off his actions – although both men had fervent opponents immune to their charms. Mr. Trump has the opponents, without that general gentleness.
The President, who misunderstands William McKinley’s views on tariffs, nonetheless likes to compare himself with the 25th president. But it is his successor, Theodore Roosevelt, who might be the better model.
TR, as he was known, threatened to send federal troops to Pennsylvania to reopen anthracite mines closed because of a 1902 strike. A fellow Republican, representative James Watson, asked him, “What about the Constitution of the United States?” Roosevelt grabbed the lawmaker’s shoulders and said, “To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!”
That prompted representative Joseph Cannon, who soon would be speaker of the House of Representatives, to say, “Roosevelt’s got no more respect for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage licence.” In the end, Roosevelt backed down, the strike ended with the appointment of a commission – and TR emerged as a lovable American character.
What questions do you have about tariffs?
The tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump have upended decades of free trade in North America, causing chaos on both sides of the border.
Alongside the chaos come many questions about how this will affect Canadians' lives, and Globe reporters are here to help you navigate those. Perhaps you're curious about how this might impact the sector you work in, or maybe you'd like to know what this means for your mortgage. Tell us what you want to know about these new levies, and we'll do our best to answer. Please submit your questions below or send an email to audience@globeandmail.com with "Tariff Question" in the subject line.