Heyman issues ‘tsunami warning’ about potential Trump 2.0 effect on Canada

Former U.S. ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman says that a victory for Donald Trump in his country’s presidential election later this year would not herald a repeat of his first four years in office, warning that the presumptive Republican nominee’s rhetoric and campaign promises could create greater challenges for the bilateral relationship. “For the U.S.-Canada relationship, I think if Donald Trump wins re-election, then this is Canada's tsunami warning,” said Heyman in an interview with The Hill Times on May 5. “You can sit on the beach with a tsunami warning, order another pina colada, and just hope it goes well, or you can go to higher ground and prepare yourself. If the tsunami doesn’t come, I'm sure you'll say, ‘Why did I go to higher ground? I lost my time at the beach.’ On the other hand, if it does come, you'll be really thankful you did.” Heyman, who served as ambassador from 2014 to 2017 was appointed by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, has been outspoken in his criticism of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. Ahead of Trump’s potential return to the White House, Heyman has taken this “tsunami warning” message to Canadian company boards, chambers of commerce, and national security conferences. Alongside his campaign for the White House, Trump is also in the headlines as he faces a six-week criminal trial in New York, N.Y., for 34 counts of fraud related to hush money that prosecutors allege was paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election. Trump has also been indicted in Florida, Georgia, and the District of Columbia on charges related to election interference and the mishandling of classified documents. Despite those legal troubles, a Trump victory against incumbent President Joe Biden is far from a remote possibility. Polling aggregate published in The Hill on May 8 showed both Biden and Trump neck and neck nationally at 44.8 per cent each. In a two-way race against Biden, Trump leads in the five states that he won in 2016, but lost in 2020. He also leads in those states when pitted against both Biden and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Donald Trump, pictured at a 'Save America' rally in Florence, Arizona, on Jan. 17, 2022. Photograph courtesy of Flickr/Gage Skidmore Heyman said Canadians should not expect a potential second Trump term in office will be the same as the first Trump presidency. “They think, ‘Well, we got through one, so we'll get through two, and it’ll be okay,’” he said. “Sure, you're going to get through it, but without the appropriate preparation and thinking through what he's proposing, and gaming it out and developing strategies, I think that you may be overwhelmed if all of this happens at once.” Rob Goodman, assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, a former U.S. congressional speechwriter, said a second Trump presidency would be one in which the leader would lean into the more authoritarian tendencies displayed during his first term in office. “Out of power, he's developed a much more detailed agenda with a much more co-operative group to put plans into action much more quickly, say, around things like deportations, that I think are just absolutely going to shock people's consciences,” he said. Policy impacts Rob Goodman said Donald Trump has developed a more detailed agenda during his time out of power, and has more willing participants than during his term as president. Photograph courtesy of Simon & Schuster Canada During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has promised to use the Justice Department to pursue opponents, deport millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, impose 10 per cent across-the-board tariffs on imports, and let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who do not meet defence spending guidelines. Among those NATO member states is Canada, and Trump’s promise is just one of multiple issues this country may have to contend with in the first 100 days of his re-election. On the defence side, Trump is also expected not to commit to further funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia, which has implications for nearby European states, including NATO allies. “If Donald Trump backs away from NATO, what will Canada do as a NATO member on this side of the ocean, and what role will Canada play?” Heyman said. “Canada, I think, has tremendously benefited from being in alliance with the U.S. in the post-World War Two period, regardless of party … so what role will Canada play in a world where the U.S. becomes inward-looking, not outward-looking, more authoritarian, less focused on liberal democracy, and more focused on what's in it for us?” Beyond defence and trade considerations, Trump’s domestic policies could also have a flow-on effect to Canada, Heyman said. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, several states have imposed abortion bans. Heyman said that, in the event of a Trump presidential win, and Republican wins in the country’s House of Representatives and Senate, the party may attempt to implement a nationwide abortion ban. “If that's the case, then instead of women running from red states to blue states seeking coverage, they are going to have to seek care elsewhere,” he said. “That strikes me as a significant impact that could eventually hit Canada.” Plans to deport undocumented immigrants could also affect Canada if those affected seek support north of the border, Heyman said. “I would just suggest Canada take this moment seriously because all this could happen at once. Everything that I listed and more could happen all in the first few months of a Trump administration,” he said. “It’s challenging enough to tackle any one of these issues if it actually comes to bear, but how are you going to tackle two, three, four, five, six major impactful events that take place ?” Ahead of this year’s election, the government has launched a “Team Canada” effort to help protect the relationship with the U.S. against any potential shocks. Innovation Minister François Philippe-Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.),International Trade Minister Mary Ng (Markham–Thornhill, Ont.), and Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Kirsten Hillman are leading the efforts. A similar “Team Canada” approach was taken when renegotiating the free trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico in 2018. Short-term or long-term problem? Asked whether this uncertainty and effect on the U.S.-Canada relationship would continue in subsequent elections, Heyman said Trump was “a unique person and a unique personality.” “I truly believe sitting here that even though Donald Trump looks to be the nominee this time and has been the nominee of the Republican Party for three consecutive times, I don't believe it will be a fourth,” he said. “I am optimistic that we will reorient ourselves back to the center in democracy and in the Republican Party in particular, but hope isn't a good strategy. We'll have to work hard at building bridges among those of us who, in the United States, just can't talk to people with different views.” Goodman, however, was not so sure. “This is, in my view, not going to be a passing problem, it's going to be a generational problem, it’s something to take really seriously,” said Goodman. “In my experience working in politics there, I think there were a lot of moments that served as sort of warning signs.” Those warning signs included the backlash to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, also dubbed “Obamacare,” the mainstreaming of “xenophobic and Islamophobic” rhetoric by Trump that was turned into policy through bans on immigration from some Muslim-majority countries, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of an iteration of those policies. “The fact that this was mainstreamed in the U.S., not just with the support of President Trump and the Republican Party, but with the complicity of the Supreme Court, that makes me think that our institutions in the U.S. are sicker than a lot of people give them credit for.” Goodman has written about these observations in the 2023 book Not Here: Why American Democracy is Eroding and How Canada Can Protect Itself which was shortlisted for this year's Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Goodman told The Hill Times that Canada would not necessarily follow the same path as the U.S., but that it would be naïve to expect the direction of American politics to have no influence on its neighbour. “Ultimately, democracies fail from within. I think that if there's a risk to Canadian democracy it will come from a lot of the same factors that provoke risks to democracies elsewhere,” he said, referring to “struggling to grapple with multiculturalism, struggling with the remains of a social safety net and a welfare state that used to be a lot much more a lot more robust, and struggling with the personalized politics, that I think erodes a lot of traditions of parliamentary government.” At the same time, Goodman said Canada benefitted from “stickier” safeguards than those in the U.S. Those included a relative lack of sense of a “real people” that exclude the “other,” a rejection of charisma and founder worship, and memories of a resilient social safety net. “By no means are we exempt from or immune to what's happening,” he said. “There's a reason—or at least I hope there is—that democratic erosion hasn't proceeded so far here as it has in the U.S. and in many other democracies… I was interested in writing this book and investigating what might be some of the reasons for that. If we can identify them, can we help isolate them and build on them?” Another problem lies in what Goodman described as the increased framing of democracy with the politics of the Democratic Party as the Republican Party adopts more authoritarian tendencies. He pointed to the crackdown on college protesters by armed police as an example of incidents in Democratic cities during a Democratic presidential administration that had not received enough scrutiny. “I don't think countries with strong, healthy, robust democracies handle dissent and the way that was handled in the U.S. though ,” he said. “Elections are very important, questions about the future of U.S. democracy are on the ballot, but regardless of what happens in the election… this is not simply going away if enough people show up and vote for the blue team.” sjeffery@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

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Heyman issues ‘tsunami warning’ about potential Trump 2.0 effect on Canada

Obama appointee Bruce Heyman says Canada must prepare for multiple challenges that 'could happen all in the first few months' of a second Trump presidency.

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