Some of Donald Trump’s supporters stopped to take photos of the unexpected sight during his inauguration in downtown Washington, DC.
“Canada congratulates Donald Trump,” said one Sunday, while reading a sign above the Canadian Embassy flanked by giant maple leaf flags on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Do you think Justin Trudeau is there?”
No, the prime minister was not there. But more than 1,500 people could actually attend Canada’s opening day party on Monday.
This year’s event is weird.
The absence of the show on Pennsylvania Avenue due to bad weather is not the only reason this will be an unusual party.
This is the first time since he became the Canadian Ambassador opened in its chosen location by Capitol Hill in 1989 that there are no organized ceremonies to witness live in its traditional party.
Another twist: Partygoers will spend the day awaiting a series of potentially dangerous orders threatened by the star of the day, Trump.
It’s like throwing a party and wondering what’s on the menu.
Rumors abound about what economic sanctions Trump might impose: Less money? A huge tariff with loopholes? Interim payment? The process of finally setting prices? Or he will carry out his most serious threat: a full 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico.
Canada’s ambassador to the United States has said it expects some sort of trade penalty from Trump — and its composition is unclear.
“I hesitate to say, ‘for sure,’ but a lot of people I talk to think there’s some kind of tax action going to be issued,” Kirsten Hillman told CBC News in a recent interview.
“Whether it’s on us, or on others … I don’t know. I hope they’re all wrong. But I think we have to be ready for that.”
Donald Trump will be the first American president to be sworn into office inside the Capitol in a foreign position since Ronald Reagan in 1985. Extreme cold has forced the event indoors for the first time in 40 years.
Prices are considered later in the speech
Trump’s team briefed Republican allies on Capitol Hill on Sunday about more orders coming the next day, and it’s unclear where the trades fit.
A and the hand of the US press reports with Monday’s programs they did not say it prices. Trump only talked about taxes during his speech on Sunday.
At the pre-launch meeting, he went on in detail about other plans for day 1. He talked about the brutal deportations and the historical actions of the frontier, and spent more time on the idea of gender than trade.
He got into the reference at the end, just before the Village People closed his meeting with happy music The YMCA.
“In conclusion,” Trump said, adding promises to cut taxes, end inflation, raise wages and restore thousands of US factories through tariffs and other policies.
That was it. And now the continent is waiting.
Trump’s return is a truly historic moment for Canada-US relations, said Asa McKercher, a St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia studying cross-border relationships.
The incoming president is threatening the most brutal trade practices the continent has seen in more than 90 years, since the Great Depression, and the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff, he said.
Those tariffs in the 1930s shut down Canadian exports: They hit different products at different prices but about 20 percent points and to turn off A lot of Canadian wool, cattle and flax seeds are exported to the US
Trump is also the first major US politician about 115 years making even semi-serious wisecracks about the US takes over Canadasaid McKercher, who is the Steven K. Hudson Research Chair in Canada-US Relations at the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at StFX.
“Donald Trump has gone back a hundred years,” he said. “It’s back to the future, I guess.”
In one way, Trump is the most abrupt break in history, says McKercher, in his cheerful willingness to negotiate with friendly nations. “It is something that has never happened that there is a president who deliberately gives the middle finger to the allies,” he said.
The business leader urges caution
One Canadian business leader said he is trying his best to focus on what is under Canadian control – not beyond that.
“I didn’t waste time worrying about what, where, when, why [Trump’s tariffs will hit],” said Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada.
“That was a better way to sleep every night.”
What Canada can really control, he said, is strengthening its economic policies to create energy and Trump, such as better developing its mining and energy resources.
Hyder also warns Ottawa to be more cautious about launching retaliatory actions that could deepen domestic damage; like, for example, Canada threats imposing an export tax on energy products, which in Canada again re-imported goods from the US
“The last thing you want is for our actions to boomerang in Canada,” he said in an interview Sunday, during a visit to Washington for the inauguration.
We’ll find out on Monday if there’s anything we can retaliate against.
Meanwhile, guests will gather for a party at the Canadian Embassy as they have for each inauguration since 1989.
Invitees included state leaders, members of the federal cabinet and a number of US politicians and business groups, all of whom were welcomed to enjoy light meals, including beaver tail.
The embassy did not disclose the cost of this matter but said that it is being prepared by a number of corporate sponsors.
Going ahead with the event is in the country’s best interest and the right thing to do, regardless of the extraordinary threats looming across the continent, McKercher said.
“It’s weird,” he said of the situation surrounding the team. “But ambassadors live in a strange world.”
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