President Donald Trump mocked transgender people in front of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose child identifies as nonbinary, during an Oval Office meeting in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that was intended to focus on trade relations but instead became a showcase of Trump’s familiar culture war politics.
The meeting, held in the presence of reporters, aimed to emphasize renewed cooperation between the two countries, which remain deeply economically intertwined. But as The Independent reported, it “devolved into a political rally disguised as a routine press availability.” Trump repeatedly veered off topic to attack Democrats, the media, and transgender people, boasting that under his leadership, “We have strong borders. We have no men in women’s sports. We’re not going to take your child away and change the sex of your child.”
I’m certain the basic ability to do so isn’t the problem. More like, they have us at a disadvantage and he thinks tolerating Trump is the smartest play. Time will tell if that works out at all.
I disagree with this assessment.
I think that Carney was there for trade talks and refused to be side tracked from that and engage in discussions that were unrelated to the goal of improving trade relations between the USA and Canada.
He just sat there, and let Donny boy run his fat mouth, and when they got back on topic he suddenly had something to say.
Honestly, when I’m trying to have a productive conversation about something with someone and they veer off into insanity mid conversation, I usually just let them talk themselves out, then redirect them to the topic when they seem like they’re done, so we can have productive discussions on the matter at hand.
Bluntly, there’s no point arguing with the senile about their insane positions on anything, even if you get them to agree or change their viewpoint, in 15 minutes they’ll forget and go back to their original bullshit.
How is that a disagreement?
You made an assertion about his motivations, and I think his motivations are different.
Did that not come across?
You said he was just letting him be crazy in peace because arguing is pointless, I said he’s tolerating him. I think we both agree it’s for the sake of trying to achieve an acceptable deal for Canada, right?
I’m disappointed in Carney but admittedly don’t have enough info to fully justify feeling that yet. There’s a lot of nuance at that level and it does seem like Carney is shifting our interests to other markets.
My hope is he’s stringing the US along while he makes changes, basically like setting up a place to live and work before ending an abusive relationship. I understand that cutting ties completely would cripple our economy so that’s not an option, just gonna wait for the end of his first year before I really make my opinion.
I was shown this link in another post that clearly shows the trade changes Carney has been working on. It’s well put together: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/2025/canada-international-trade/
Thanks for the link.
I heard a nice line on CBC Power & Politics today - that what we’re feeling right now is the powerlessness Latin American countries have been feling for a long time while being in the US’es crosshair.
Alliance time :>
we’re gonna need to get rid of the open-air mines before doing any alliance
canada always firmly stood with the american imperialists for our own gain, i doubt south america would trust us just now that the US is starting to show us it’s back
South America isn’t a continent of primitivist environmentalists, either.
Typical neolib capitulation- ahem I mean tolerance. That’s worked great for the Americans, I’m sure it’ll work for the Canadians /s
As much as Canadians would like to say fuck off to all things American, cutting ties like that would cripple us economically and potentially result in the destruction of our country. Tanking our economy to spite the States would not only destroy lives, but it would give Danielle Smith more fodder for AB separation, which in turn would result in a broken Canada, and eventually no Canada at all.
At the very least, Carney still needs to “play nice” for the moment, and I’m really hoping once things are in place with other markets he publically tells Trump to pound sand. I’m saving my judgement for the end of his first year. He’s arguably got the hardest road of any PM in decades. That said, I really wish he’d put his elbows back up.
Antagonizing the US has worked great for Cuba after all.
Cuba actually had another friend willing to protect them for decades, even. We don’t have a partner that would definitely always choose us over them.
Appeasement, if you’re nasty
Did America have some sort of 10x larger neighbor I’m not aware of?
They tolerated the bullshit trump did. At least that’s how I read it.
Yeah, but that has nothing to do with my initial comment.
I basically said he’s letting the foreign moron talk until he goes away. Unfortunately, I used the word “tolerate”, and that triggered people’s pre-programmed scripts about authorities allowing the domestic spread of genocide denial or whatever.
Tolerating Nazis has historically never worked.
Domestically? Yes.
Internationally, we’re not Britain letting the Nazis build up, we’re fucking Czechoslovakia just praying they don’t decide to take the Sudetenland. The EU is probably Britain in this analogy, and the Soviets are, like, China.
Also:
Europe pls send help
Right we should piss him off so he can fuck over the rest of our economy before we can transition our supply chains elsewhere. Brilliant.
Or just straight up invade to “save us” from our evil communist government.
I’m convinced they are planning some sort of annexation/invasion anyway. They’ll just find a reason at some point. It can be anything. We have water and plenty of natural resources that would be good for American billionaires to own.
Just look at what Trump requires of Ukraine in order to help them. They’re gonna make some bullshit up, like our resources are critical to their national security, or something like that. It’s good to delay this as much as possible and not antagonize them - maybe they’ll be busy invading Venezuela or Mexico first - but it’s probably going to happen regardless.
They didn’t lose any time. It’s been a while now they’ve complained of drugs entering the US from Canada.
It’s not impossible, but I don’t think this government plans all that much in general. And, they’d need to massage the public discourse for a bit first.
I’m pretty sure the UK GDP was comparable to Germanies pre WW2 if that’s what you are referring to. I agree with your point though. If I was Carney I wouldn’t take it head on, but instead work behind the scenes to better position Canada.
Pre-WWI maybe. Wiemar Germany isn’t know for it’s awesome economy.
Which is why Britain never lost much ground despite letting them build up and prepare for a decade or whatever. And then the Nazis opened another front and got owned.