The case of famed free trade opponent Maude Barlow helps illustrate the contrasting reaction to Donald Trump’s tariff threats from Canada and Mexico. Even though it’s more dependent on US trade, Mexico has offered some resistance to the returning narcissistic bully president.
Recently Donald Trump posted about imposing 25% tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican goods if they failed to curb the flow of migrants and drugs crossing their borders with the USA. Immediately, Canada’s politicians fell over backwards to placate the incoming US president. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose brother was a high-profile crack addict, said he was “insulted” Canada was lumped in with Mexico as a miscreant. For his part, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre announced a “Canada First” policy amounting to whatever Trump wants and Prime Minister Trudeau traveled to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring.
Despite over 80% of its exports going to the US, Mexico’s response was far more dignified. President Claudia Sheinbaum said fentanyl was principally a US problem and that US guns flowing into Mexico were responsible for significant violence inn her country. Most importantly, she suggested Mexico would respond to any US tariffs with similar measures.
The stark contrast in how Mexico and Canada have responded to Trump reflects a political culture steeped in western chauvinism and NATO geopolitics even on the self-described “left”. A prominent campaigner against the first free trade agreement with the US and chair of the Council of Canadians for three decades, Maude Barlow personifies this political dynamic.
In the mid to late 1980s Barlow argued forcefully that free trade would make Canada even more dependent on the US. She argued that throwing all of Canada’s economic eggs in the US basket would subordinate Canadian politics to the US.
And the Trump tariff threat and politicians’ reaction proves she was right back then. Thirty-five years after the first trade accord with the US, Barlow herself seems little concerned with the most deleterious impacts of Canadian dependence such as pushing to increase military spending to please Washington or fearing to apply Canada’s legal obligation to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu under International Criminal Court order because Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is threatening to “crush” Canada’s economy if Ottawa did so.
Instead, Barlow has focused on how Donald Trump may undermine the belligerent NATO alliance, racist Five Eyes intelligence sharing arrangement and the US bid to contain China. She recently reposted: “As of now, NATO is effectively over. Why would any of our allies share intelligence with us when the head of National Intelligence is effectively in bed with Putin.” In a similar vein Barlow retweeted: “From now on, US allies may need to reconsider sharing intelligence with the US. With Tulsi [Gabbard] in charge, sharing intel is like sending it directly to the Kremlin. Canada is part of the Five Eyes and I don’t want us sharing any intelligence with the States if these are the sorts of people we’ll be sharing it with. Hell, kick them out of Five Eyes altogether if it comes to this.” In another post, she suggested Trump may be a Chinese puppet, retweeting “Trump is Musk’s client. Musk is Putin’s client. Putin is Xi’s client.”
Barlow regularly retweets neocons like David Frum, Garry Kasparov and Andrew Coyne. As part of her western chauvinism, the longtime Council of Canadians chair recently commemorated the “brave Canadians” who fought in Afghanistan and claimed Canadian soldiers “have sacrificed so much for our Canadian peace and freedoms” by joining US-led wars in Libya, Iraq, Korea and elsewhere.
It is hard to imagine a prominent figure on the Mexican left aggressively advocating for the US empire and NATO. In fact, it’s fascinating to contrast Canada and Mexico’s foreign policies. Mexico recently joined South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and it doesn’t list Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. It is not part of the Core Group of foreign ambassadors that have been dictating Haiti’s affairs for 20 years and Mexican officials have criticized NATO policies on Ukraine. Mexico hasn’t had troops in Latvia, Ukraine or Iraq and it didn’t bomb Libya or send 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. As a percentage of GDP and in real dollars, Mexico’s military spending is half of Canada’s.
Across Canada’s political spectrum western chauvinism prevails. Most of the so-called “left” promotes a pro-NATO, pro US Empire, white supremacist program of international affairs.
Ironically, people who once proclaimed themselves Canadian nationalists have morphed into promoters of American empire who attack the most right-wing US president in history as not being sufficiently pro-American. Who could have predicted how subordinated to American interest Canadians across the political spectrum would become?
Oh, yes. There was Maude Barlow.
Funny how that worked out.
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