Quick! Get Justin Trudeau a cute panda and a camera! Must. Turn. Page. Now.
While Justin Trudeau admires Chinese dictatorships, it is now clear THEY don’t admire him. In fact, they don’t respect him or his sunny, way progressive, feel-good demands.
I’m not sure if Team Trudeau was told they would start trade talks on their official visit to China or assumed they would and then arrived in China to a frosty reality that China ain’t buying his charm.
Either way, our PM came home empty-handed. So let the spin begin.
Team Trudeau is calling this second trip to China a success. A success how? What did Canada get other than a few photo ops?
Success for Team Trudeau is “exploratory talks”. What are those? I liken it to that guy at the bar who stares at you for a while, makes you feel special and then starts walking toward you. You get excited he may be into you but then he simply walks on by and out the door.
Trudeau told reporters that the only deal Canada will do with the second most important economy must include progressive commitments on gender, environment and labour.
China’s cool silence spoke volumes. This dictatorship doesn’t need Canada. And they sure as hell don’t need Canada lecturing them on how to run their own affairs. We carry zero leverage.
While the girls gaggle over Trudeau, the big boys in charge aren’t buying his charm. A deal with China is a slight obsession for Team Trudeau even though trade with China is a one-way street. They get far more from us then we get from them. Unless you think lost jobs are a good trade.
If Trudeau was serious about doing what is best for Canada he would get natural gas and oil to market and sell it to them. THAT would be a game changer. Instead, he panders to the enviro-crazies.
One economist I spoke with said when it comes to trade deals Trudeau is a deer caught in the headlights. Blindly naïve.
It’s not the end of the world if we don’t get a trade deal with China— BUT put up against the backdrop of the bungled Trans-Pacific Partnership and the ever crumbling NAFTA. Deals we actually DO really need, it is becoming glaringly obvious trade deals aren’t Trudeau’s thing. And THAT will cost us.
WATCH BELOW:
Liberals can brag all they want about our roaring economy, but it has nothing to do with them or any other politician. Sagging oil prices started to come back. Economists now say GDP is expected to slow. And Interest rates go up. If NAFTA fails and Trudeau can’t diversify trade. No amount of charm will help Trudeau.
Canada is back alright — heading to the back of the line, that is.
Alex Pierson is the host of ON Point with Alex Pierson on Global News Radio 640 Toronto, 900 CHML and 980 CFPL.