As trade talks with the U.S. collapse, prime minister pursues a major—and risky—pivot to Europe; an Ottawa book club plays its part
The result of the monthslong talks: European and Canadian officials are eyeing ways in which Canada could informally lock into Europe’s $21 trillion single market in strategic supply chains such as energy, AI, the critical minerals needed for batteries or semiconductors and, most urgently, defense.
In practice, Canadian goods, services and workers for those industries could eventually move frictionlessly between Europe and America’s northern neighbor, blurring the lines of where the EU’s economic borders end. In conversations with France, whose president, Emmanuel Macron, speaks to Carney often, the idea has even come up to allow Canadians to live and work in Europe visa-free, two officials familiar with those discussions said.
The two sides are talking about laying underwater cables to link Europe and Canada, and jointly constructing data centers, cloud storage and new satellite networks beyond the reach of American tech giants. Carney is pushing to lay the pipelines Canada needs to redirect gas—normally pumped across the U.S. border—to European allies still struggling to replace Russian energy. Icebreakers, in his vision, would clear an Arctic path for Canadian fertilizer to sail east, over the Northwest Passage that lured centuries of explorers into the Polar sea.
The Europeans sure seem giddy about it:
“Wouldn’t it be lovely if Canada was the 28th state of the European Union rather than the 51st state of the United States?” asked Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who speaks regularly with Carney.
Interesting perspective from the US:
“As the U.S. is reducing its role as the global consumer of last resort, it is not clear that either Canada or the EU are ready to take up that mantle to absorb each other’s production,” said a U.S. official.
One of the reasons US is the consumer of last resort is because of the petrodollar empire, as well as the US taste for deficits. I don't see that changing?
A match made in heaven.
I don’t know what you’re seeing where you are @grayruby but I the anti-US/elbows up sentiment in my neck of the woods is worse than the COVID hysteria. It’s lunacy.
The anti-American stance is justified imo, at least in the abstract, since the US government has indeed openly discussed plans for annexation. Under different geographic conditions it would make sense to strengthen ties with other countries. But in this particular time and place, accelerating plans to integrate with EU/PRC trade networks and models of governance is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
What they should do but won't, is conduct a simple strategic retreat. Concede the argument on mass immigration and express admiration for the US as an example of how Canada might also take pride in the continued existence of its own cultural identity, acknowledge communist dictatorship as a shared civilizational enemy, and emphasize the importance of free trade as a means of defending our shared Western values together where the EU has failed. Then all of Trump's anti-Canadian rhetoric would be rendered absurd overnight. Then it would be seen domestically as pointless belligerence against a close friend. Then they would have a deal and they would be a rich country.
But Carney wants to put on a show of standing up to the big bad neo-Hitler. Now the US government won't hesitate to let them collapse into abject poverty, blame it on socialist ideology, and renegotiate the entire dynamic later under far more asymmetric circumstances.
Carney has always been pro EU and pro China. Trump's rhetoric just gave him a slam dunk easy way to increase Canada's ties to those parties without people questioning his motives. Carney is a snake.
It's mutual radicalization. Carney being in charge of Canada means that Americans can cheaply buy out their clay after he destroys the country's infrastructure.
White and black are sworn enemies, but those who move the pieces are friends.
The world, including former allies is tired of the US imperialist bullying.
The US lost the trade war with China and lost the attempt to regime change in Iran.
The US is no longer competitive in trade or military.
The free world is pivoting away from the failed state US petrodollar Zionist puppet empire towards China and the EU and free trade and prosperity in the post petrodollar era.
Canada was already a PRC puppet. For their sake we are coercing them into becoming a US puppet, possibly along with the entire rest of the Western world. Because why not? Fuck the EU.
'French politician says Netanyahu triggered ‘cascade of disastrous events’ in Middle East
Left-wing French politician Jean-Luc Melenchon says Netanyahu has triggered a “cascade of disastrous events” in the Middle East, while also criticising Europe’s acquiescence to the US.
“The victory of the Houthis, Iran’s allies, seizing control of access to the Suez Canal, reshapes far more broadly than just the local balance of power,” Melenchon said on X.
“Netanyahu has succeeded in triggering a cascade of disastrous events for his country, its allies, and the US empire. The supply blockades thus imposed will cost the Europeans dearly. Such is the reckoning for their unconditional support of Netanyahu’s policies and their submission to Trump.”
Melenchon plans to run for president in next year’s elections and has pledged to withdraw France from NATO if successful. He is a strong critic of Israel and Western foreign policy.'
You have lost the ability to coerce.
You are a failed state struggling to accept your diminished power projection capacity.
Get hysterical- it will only serve to hasten your demise.
Yeah nah.
You don't seem able to understand that the Petrodollar Empire is collapsing.
It is no longer viable.
You have crippling debt, decades of trade and fiscal deficits and no one wants to buy those shitcoin USTs.
Your military can no longer ensure trade and shipping security-
Suez-Hormuz-End of petrodollar.
The petrodollar empire is no longer something that anyone wants to be attached to.
Canada, Spain, the EU and New Zealand are jumping ship because- China won the trade war and USA has run outta Interceptors.
Trump is the emperor with no Interceptors...unable to make more because Xi controls the rare earths supply chain.
China won the trade war- USA lost- get it yet?
Whatchu mean nah?
You think Canada ends up with a viable economy by choosing the EU over the US? Please.
Contrary to the nonsense regurgitated in leftist universities, Capitalist United States is not Nazi Germany. We are much worse. We could easily kill tens of millions of people on the other side of the world in a matter of days for a $1 uptick in the price of gasoline. Be polite.
US ends up isolated and ignored.
Nobody wants your USTs.
You are bankrupt failed state with no trade surplus.
Your vast global terror network is no longer effective in enforcing the petrodollar.
Always polite as a neutral and impartial observer.
If the truth triggers you take a nap and start the process of grieving and acceptance.
You lost the trade war and the war for Hormuz.
You started them both and lost them both.
Trump is The Emperor with no Interceptors.
Xi won't let him make any more.
Yes. It is bad. My wife doesn't even want to tell people she is American. Haha
Does she tell people she's a Texan more often than saying she's American?
That's a common trick for some of us, although I'm not sure how well it works for Texas.
No typically she just lets people rant about the US and doesn't say anything. Jer is right people are hysterical.
The Liberal party is loving this. Carney can get us in bed with China and the EU like he has always wanted and people will clap like seals.
"Wouldn’t it be lovely if Canada was the 28th state of the European Union rather than the 51st state of the United States?" at least 70% of Canadians would support this,.
We'll all have to move to the independent Republic of Alberta.
Yikes
It is good when people stand up to imperialist bullying, surely?
You shouldn't shoot yourself in the foot because you dislike someone else.
The US is doing precisely that by antagonizing trade partners and allies by imposing absurd unilateral demands, breaching international law and existing FTAs while trying to curtail Chinas success in economic growth and development, while also supporting Israels war crimes and Greater Israel expansionary aggression.
The USA cannot compete with China and so is having a hissy fit at everyone- its not anyones fault but the USA and its addiction to the fiat debt petrodollar extraordinary privilege which has spawned a culture of excess consumption and low productivity.
Canada and Spain are doing what nearly all other liberal western democracies want to do and if this gets momentum the USA will be left isolated,high, dry and broke.
The trade agreement in place between Canada and the EU means that they get all the benefits already, and even the "harmonization" downsides that they should have never agreed to, weren't it so that Canuck liberals are even more retarded than their Southern cousins. Further down that path are only worse piles of shit to be found.
This whole era of economic cold wars by "elites" that lost all touch with the reality on the ground is extremely painful for everyone that actually makes a living from other sources than national debt.
It’s an interesting strategy, but I wonder how realistic it is to build that much economic integration with Europe while being geographically tied to the U.S.
The US is dependent upon the world being tied into the petrodollar.
Without the petrodollar the US empire is insolvent.
As a banker Carney understands this.
So does the EU and China who are already conducting trade outside of the USD.
Canada getting closer to Europe because of the problems with the US is a pretty big shift. I didn’t see this coming.
Might be nice
Canadians companies would have an easier time trading with Greece than with their fellow Canadians from different provinces.
This would be good. Canada is severely restricted economically by market size do to their internal bureaucracy.