Thank you very much, Chair.
Let me begin by thanking the committee for inviting me to participate in its examination of the impact of the Trump administration.
It's a particular pleasure to appear alongside my friend Colin Robertson. Given his diplomatic experience and expertise on the Canada-U.S. relationship, he will, I'm sure, provide a far more detailed perspective than the more general views I want to offer this morning.
Rather than trying to address your list of very good questions, I'd like to offer some general observations on the relationship, which I hope will offer a useful frame for answering those questions when the committee comes to write its report. Your nine questions reflect a much broader question: how to frame Canadian policy when a new administration comes to power. This is a quadrennial question for Canadians, and an enduring one.
In normal times we'd look at the administration, we'd look to the past, we'd reflect on the received wisdom of those who've offered perspectives on dealing successfully with the Americans, and we'd try to formulate a strategy for dealing with the new administration. But these are not normal times. As so many of the witnesses who've appeared before you have attested, we are entirely in uncharted territory with this administration. Certainly we can't look to the past for guidance about dealing with this particular president. On the contrary, it's worth stressing just how new, and indeed bizarre, the territory is.
Let me begin with what I think is actually the most important feature of this administration from a policy process perspective. As you know, Americans have designed their system so that an incoming president can be confident that the vast administrative apparatus of the American state works for him and his agenda. But to do this, the new president has 4,000 holes to fill—just like in Blackburn, Lancashire—meaning those senior positions in the state apparatus that must be filled by presidential appointment, both with and without Senate confirmation, non-career senior executive service appointments, and so-called schedule C appointments. But 20 weeks into this administration, the American state under Mr. Trump looks like a sieve. The State Department is filled with holes. Scores of ambassadors need to be nominated. Not a single assistant secretary has been nominated for any of the geographical or functional areas. A similar situation exists in the Department of Defense. Just five of 53 positions have been confirmed. For 41 positions there are no nominees at all. In the trade area there are significant holes both in the Department of Commerce and in other executive agencies. This is bizarre and unprecedented. It's new territory, not just for foreigners like us, but for Americans too.
Layered onto this are other unprecedented features. Consider the following: when was the last time a president's daughter and son-in-law occupied central roles in the administration despite a complete lack of experience in policy-making? When was the last time there was such a yawning disjuncture between the policy statements of the president on the one hand and the pronouncement of his cabinet secretaries on the other? When was the last time we saw an administration whose members are so openly at war with one another, a kind of bizarre cross between the House of Cards and Game of Thrones, with a little bit of The Americansthrown in for good measure.
We've never seen an American president who knows so little about the world or about American foreign policy, but, importantly, who seems so indifferent about that lack of knowledge, so unwilling to actually learn something about American foreign policy. We've never seen an American president who has such a stunted view of world politics, such a lack of understanding about America's historical place in the world, such an unwillingness to maintain the mantle of American global leadership and, indeed, such a willingness to cede that leadership to others in the international system. We've never seen an American president who cares so little for the norms of diplomacy that he does and says just what he wants without any apparent concern for the implications of his words or his actions. In short, what we are seeing, in my view, is completely unprecedented. I recite this well-known litany because these very attributes have huge implications for governments that have to deal with this administration.
First, however, we need to ask whether what we have seen in the last 20 weeks will change. Conrad Black, when he testified before you on May 4, assured you that there will be a settling down, as he put it, and that we will get back to a relatively normal government, even though he admitted that it would be a flamboyant government. Mr. Black knows Mr. Trump; I don't. But I have to say I'm less optimistic than Mr. Black is. This is not a normal government. I see no evidence at all that Mr. Trump will settle into the presidency and become a normal president.
My conclusion, mirroring that of the “Never-Trump” Republicans in the United States, is that there is no better Trump. He will always be the “covfefe” president, tweeting out idiocies and provocations at odd times of the day and night, chucking his insurgent hand grenades around with scant regard for the impact.
Rather, what we are seeing is what we are getting, and will get, in my view, until Mr. Trump tires of being president and quits in a huff, which I think is the most likely end to all of this, or until Republicans in Congress tire of the Faustian bargain they struck with the insurgent forces that seized the Republican party in 2016 in a hostile takeover, and push him out. In other words, we could well see another 190 weeks just like the last 20 and, in my view, even more, beyond 2020 if the Democrats continue to be as tone-deaf to the electorate and lose elections as they have been losing at the federal, state, and local levels for the last number of years.
So how should a rational Canadian government deal with what one of my colleagues, Stephen Saideman of Carleton University, has called the “uncertainty engine” that is Donald Trump?
First, continue to deal in a straightforward way with the president and avoid the temptation to give vent to whatever frustration the administration may inspire. Prime Minister Trudeau has spoken eloquently about the importance of getting along with whomever Americans elect as their president. This, it seems to me, is very sound policy.
At the same time, however, there should be no hesitation about pushing back when Canadian interests are threatened by Trump's ideas, particularly when those ideas are grounded in alternative facts, as so many of them are. When Canada does push back, we should be clear-eyed about how the dysfunctions of this presidency could, and should, be used to Canadian advantage. The shambolic presidency that we have seen so far is likely to persist.
Nonetheless, if one looks carefully at the American political environment, one can see that Mr. Trump actually faces huge obstacles in transforming his ideas into action. These obstacles include the huge holes that will likely continue to exist in those who actually run the American bureaucracy; Mr. Trump's stunning ignorance of the American system of government, of his own system of government; the generally awful relationship between him and the Republicans in Congress; his own limited attention span; his persistent forgetfulness about what he has said; his laziness in refusing to learn about policy, which seems to make his posturing relatively easy to call; and finally, the checks and balances that were so presciently built into the American system of government by their founding fathers. All of these factors will conspire to ensure there will be massive gaps between his ideas on the one hand and actual policy implementation on the other.
Moreover, we should recognize that the White House in general, and the president in particular, are increasingly isolated within the American body politic. Yes, there is his much-vaunted base, but the president's general popularity is around 36%, and the spread between that and his disapproval rating is around 22 points.
This means that Canadian officialdom—members of the federal government, members of Parliament, federal officials together with provincial and municipal officials in this country—have lots of opportunities to press their positions to their American counterparts even within the administration, not necessarily the president himself. This is particularly true, it seems to me, on the legislative side. Never before have interparliamentary links been as important for the pressing of Canadian interests as they are now. In short, this does not mean that Canada can avoid planning for the challenges that the president might throw out there, but it does suggest that we're not entirely without some strong cards to play in defence of our interests.
Thanks, Chair.