Please Advise! How Did China Become Our New Best Friend?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Prime Minister Mark Carney is on a trade tour that took him to China and then Qatar. He announced a new deal that will lower tariffs on Canadian canola and other products, while allowing electric cars from China some access to the Canadian auto market.

Are you concerned about doing business with China, Dr. Steve?

Signed,

Crouching Tabby

Dear CT,

Prairie farmers are celebrating the sharp decrease in Chinese canola tariffs, but now they have a new problem — they must thank the prime minister. Some would likely prefer the tariffs. But Prairie farmers are a resilient bunch, and they will surely find some new reason not to vote Liberal. Remember when Justin Trudeau bought Alberta a pipeline?

It makes one wonder about Carney’s resumé. The man is a banker. Can’t he count? His concession on Chinese electric cars risks pissing off vote-rich Ontario while the canola trade-off benefits Saskatchewan, which has more mountain-climbers than Liberals. Well, he’s still new on the job — eventually he’ll learn to run the political numbers instead of the economic ones.

The deal with China represents a remarkable turnaround. During his electoral campaign, Carney called China the number one security threat to our country. Replied Donald Trump: Hold my recycled Peace Prize. Thanks to good old American know-how, the U.S. is number one again. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

The president’s stupendous achievement has been to make an alliance with China look like the prudent choice. Trump’s tariff calculations are the ultimate dim sum.

By contrast, Carney knows that President Xi will not threaten to annex Canada. Nor will Xi demand to be named Brier champion or insist that his name be put in front of Tim Hortons. Whereas Trump will probably tariff Vegreville if we don’t agree to anoint him World’s Largest Pysanka.

But should we really be taking electric cars from authoritarian China? As opposed to, say, electric cars from the child-porn-enabling, Nazi-saluting billionaire whose car dealerships currently dot the landscape?

China is an international bully that represses human rights and imprisons dissenters. But if you are Carney, you have to be thinking, “At least they are not insane.” When the choice is between China and a rabid weasel, you do what you must.

From Beijing, Carney flew on to Qatar, hoping to build some economic bridges there. Qatar is of course the country that gave Trump a $400 million jet, but Canada is a much smaller fish and cannot expect as much. The best Carney will get is likely a few more rows of seats for WestJet. They’ll be able to squeeze them in once they take out the bathrooms.

Critics are saying that deals with China or oligarchies are deals with the devil. But this isn’t Faust. This is a shopping trip to Devil Mart. The current geopolitical world is a satanic Costco.

No demon is bigger than Trump. We already know that he poisons whatever he touches, but it takes an almost supernatural level of malignancy to destroy the Nobel Peace Prize and the Kennedy Center too. As long as he is putting his brand on things, he ought to stick his name on the American Cancer Society. It would fit.

The ultimate irony of Trump’s second term is that the self-proclaimed “Tariff President” is helping knock down trade barriers around the globe. In response to his bullying, countries are cutting new deals with each other and lowering tariffs, seeking ways around the bloated obstacle in the Oval Office. If this gibbering goon makes good on his threat to invade Greenland, the U.S. brand could one day rank alongside MySpace, Radio Shack and Saddam Hussein.

At least Trump’s casinos were only financial failures — under his leadership, America may be forced to declare moral bankruptcy.