Saunders: Trump’s charm offensive won’t win over Canadians

By Debra J. Saunders / Las Vegas Review-Journal

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney aced the Oval Office Exam during his sit-down with President Trump last Monday.

Washington’s relations with Ottawa have been testy of late.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump delighted his die-hard base to no end with his talk about making Canada America’s “51st state.” It was a classic Trump troll that got spicier every time Trump referred to then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor.”

Canadian voters were not amused. As the Liberal Party standard-bearer, Carney won his country’s top office by challenging Trump’s taunts.

Thus Trump took credit for Carney’s victory over Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre. “I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him (Carney),” Trump told reporters.

Sean Speer, a conservative Canadian commentator living in New York, told me Carney had to appeal to two audiences. One audience is Trump, and “Canada needs a deal.”

(Challenging Trump, as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did in February, would be highly counterproductive.)

The other audience: anti-Trump Canadian voters, many of them boomers. The people who brought Carney to the party.

So Carney had to be cordial, but not too cordial. Not cordial like U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the Labour Party, who presented Trump with an invitation to an “unprecedented” second State visit across the pond.

Speer approved of Carney’s remarks about Trump being a “transformational” figure. Transformational is “a value-neutral term President Trump could interpret in the most positive way,” Speer concluded.

The prime minister stood up for O, Canada when he told Trump, “There are some places that are never for sale.” To wit: Canada, Buckingham Palace and the White House.

Carney also said of his country, “It’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale, ever.”

To which Trump replied, “Never say never.”

But Carney’s right. It will never happen. The very notion is insulting to Canadian voters.

Trump returned Carney’s civility with praise for Canada. “Canada is a very special place to me,” Trump offered. “I know so many people that live in Canada. My parents had relatives that lived in Canada, my mother in particular.”

Wayne Gretzky!

And: “Canada loves us and we love Canada.”

Did Trump endear himself to our neighbors to the north? “No,” the conservative Speer replied, “but I think Mark Carney did.”

What happens next? Trump was so Up with Canada, I wondered if he would ease up on his tariff threats, as he has done before since April 2, aka “Liberation Day.”

If so, Speer replied, “All of this was for nothing.”

Canadian American passenger bookings are down by more than 70 percent through September, according to flight data released by OAG Aviation Worldwide Ltd. Canadian bars are pulling U.S. spirits from their shelves.

“It’s not acceptable. You want to put your tariffs on, go do whatever you want to do,” Chris Haslett, director of operations at Toronto’s Madison Avenue Pub, told USA Today, “but don’t threaten and don’t humiliate people.”

Too late.