Trump Whacks Canada
again
By Rolland Kidder July 25,
You
have to think that President Trump must have had a bad trip or unpleasant
vacation in Canada, as I can't think of any other legitimate reason for why he
keeps attacking the country.
This
past week, he announced two major policy decisions/complaints relative to
Canada:
– he
announced a new 50% tariff on many of the goods Canada sells to the United
States; and
– he
blamed the Canadian government for the smoke-filled skies coming from forest
and brush fires in that country.
It is
always interesting to me that our President never seems to accept
responsibility for much of anything ... unless it is good news. News that is
not so good, like smoke in the air, he has to blame on someone else.
His
decision to impose more tariffs on Canada may have stemmed from the Prime
Minister of Canada quoting former President Reagan who was opposed to tariffs
as being counter-productive and detrimental to the economy of the United
States. Locally, the original imposition of tariffs on Canada was one of the
contributing reasons given for the liquidation of the Canadian company that
owned Bush Industries.
When
these new tariffs go into effect, Americans can expect to pay more for many
things, probably the most impacted being paper products and lumber. The price
of plywood and other wood products used in construction will be going up as the
additional cost of tariffs will be passed on to the American consumer.
The
president's attack on Canada as to air quality caused by wildfires, I would
characterize as just plain "weird." He obviously hasn’t looked at a
map of Canada. Had he done so, he would have seen that about two-thirds of the
country has no road access to it. There is no way to get heavy firefighting
equipment there even if you wanted to.
Several
years ago I, along with a couple of friends, had the opportunity to fly a
single engine plane to Alaska. For three days (each way) we flew through
northern Canada and often, for an hour or two, would never even see a road. The
further north you go in Canada, the fewer roads there are. About 90% of the
population of Canada lives within 300 miles of the U.S. border. At latitudes
above that, you are in the bush ... nothing but trees, lakes, rivers and,
finally, the barrenlands.
On
that flight to and from Alaska, we also flew over (or around) about 20 forest
fires that had been started by lightning ... most were in Canada but some were
in Alaska. They burn until they hit a lake, river or the weather changes. If
the President of the United States wants to stop forest fires in the north, he
should appeal to God, our Creator, who gave us this earth – not take a
political shot at the Canadians.
It is
this kind of nonsensical behavior which is making Americans and the greater
world sour on our President. He seems to think that by saying anything that is
on his mind, whether true or false, that he should be listened to.
I love
the United States, my home. I also love Canada ... a good ally and neighbor
with whom we have always had good trade and diplomatic relations up until now.
We
need to get back to working with other countries, instead of trashing them.
This summer, we have been flying the Canadian flag as well as the American flag
from the flagpole on our lawn. We need to remember the friendly relations that
we have normally had with our good neighbor to the north.
Published in the Jamestown
Post-Journal
July 25, 2026
