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 wish we could do that. The biggest problem with doing so is oil. There is no continuous pipeline from Alberta to eastern Canada that doesn’t move through the States. If the worst happened, the biggest Canadian economies, Ontario and Quebec, would be devastated.
Before that oil was moved through pipelines it was moved by train, I’m sure that could be arranged to bridge some of the demand. Not perfect by any means, but it would help until we could solve the pipeline problem. At this point we need to plan for a “when” scenario.