Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room.

Ontario’s Conservatives have called an early election, more than a year sooner than would be expected of a party with a majority in the legislature. The reason? Trump’s tariffs, which will have a serious impact on the Canadian economy as a whole, along with Ontario. Here’s Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli talking about the reasoning behind the call, and the importance of Canadian trade for the US economy:

At one point in this clip, Fideli recounts a meeting he had with Newt Gingrich, who explained that what one has to do when dealing with Trump is to find out what he really wants, and give him something that will make him happy. Way to encourage future bullying, Newt.

If this behaviour is how Trump thinks “negotiating” or “diplomacy”, or even just normal human interaction is supposed to work, he’s a sociopath. You don’t start from an “initial position” of threatening to burn down your neighbour’s house when what you’re really after is a cup of sugar, or to borrow their lawn mower. Is that kind of approach likely to encourage friendly relations? Are the neighbours supposed to be so relieved when you don’t actually burn down their houses that they give you more than you originally wanted out of gratitude? In the normal course of events, these neighbours would have you arrested. This is harder to do when the person threatening you with immolation is the chief of police.

What happens when what Trump really wants is Greenland, or the Panama Canal, or Canada?* How do you make him happy then? Better yet, why would you want to? Why should anyone reward such behaviour?

This is not what a normal, adult head of state of a democratic nation does. This is how a tyrant or mob boss acts. Or a child who’s figured out that nobody really cares if he does hold his breath until he turns blue, and has graduated to threatening others, rather than himself, to try to get his way. I imagine Saddam Hussein “mused” about, or “suggested” making Kuwait another province of Iraq before he invaded it. Likewise Putin with Ukraine. For most of the rest of the world, neighbouring states aren’t treated as if they are a cake or pie that you can take at will if you can get away with it.

At some point I hope one of his team sits Trump down and explains to him that ruining the Canadian economy will take the American economy with it. Otherwise trying to keep Trump “happy” is going to end up being very costly. But then he can use the destruction of his own country and our “withholding” of all those things we used to sell to the US that he claims they “don’t need” from us as a pretext for even more drastic action. We’re just more pie, cake, and ice cream to him, and that he deserves all of it.

*Trump has said that as the 51st state, Canada would avoid the tariffs he’s going to impose, recieve a huge tax cut and, laughably, get improved health care. Does he really think that we’re all so jealous and envious of the US that we would jump at the chance to join? No thank you. What an absolute idiot.