Congratulations to Mark Carney on winning a landslide election to become Prime Minister of Canada!

Prime Minister Carney said he is against tariff trade policies.

U.S. President Donald Trump recently set Canadian export fee levels at 25%.

Mathematically, Canada is in a similar situation as the United States. Canada has a lot of debt. The Canadian debt level is sufficient to necessitate an increase in government revenues. There’s only two ways for Canada to increase revenues. They are domestic taxes or foreign tariffs. Canadian leadership can tolerate being debt ridden or choose one or the other.

Canada may view trade negotiations as “trade peace“ as a result. Trade negotiations can help Canada a lot. Canada imports close to a trillion Canadian dollars worth of goods. So the Canadian government can earn nearly 250 billion Canadian dollars annually from a 25% tariff level. That would both more than balance the Canadian budget and provide enough of a surplus to reduce debt.

Trade negotiations, however, haven’t been characterized cooperatively by the new Canadian administration, which responded punitively with rhetoric and energy sanctions. Consequently, the United States is penalizing Canadian steel companies. This writer hopes and believes an understanding relationship can quickly develop between the two governments.

Canada is closely aligned and enjoys an open trading relationship with the United States. That continues to be true even though the countries are negotiating.

President Trump surfaced an ambitious idea of Canada joining fully with the United States. Canada would probably be welcomed by U.S. Congress as well to join the union. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed the idea but there are a sufficient number of shared interests for the countries to take that possibility seriously in the future. (This writer thinks unity is a great idea. Canada and the U.S. would both gain a lot from opening the borders, and for there to be a free flow of people and trade across them.)

Although loyally following NATO's lead, including on adventures into foreign lands, Canadians love peace and have been a calming - even soothing - influence at the United Nations. They're sometimes the voice of reason. Heads of state of both NATO-aligned and non-aligned countries developed excellent relationships with Prime Minister Trudeau as a result.

According to Russian media in August 2024, Canada sanctioned several very influential people from Belarus. NATO has flaunted a peace treaty with Russia named after the Belarusian capital city, Minsk. So there is currently significant need for improvement in Canadian-Belarusian relations.

There is a very good chance that Ukraine and Russia will be resolving their differences diplomatically and peacefully, because of leadership on peace from U.S. President Donald Trump . That may help improve Canadian-Belarusian relations.

President Trump’s newspaper indicates that there will be an across the board 25% tariff for Canadian goods sold into the United States. This writer believes the Canadian government may appreciate revenue as well, and therefore be happy with negotiations, as long as both governments benefit. Trade negotiations sometimes improve relations between aligned countries.