Canada’s Trump Strategy: Go Around Him

TORONTO — As President Trump disrupts alliances across the map, nearly every level of government in Canada has taken on new duties in a quietly audacious campaign to cajole, contain and if necessary coerce the Americans.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s strategy for managing Mr. Trump is unlike anything tried by another ally. And he has largely succeeded where even experienced leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany have fallen short.

More than perhaps any other country, Canada relies on the United States, which accounts for 70 percent of its trade. Its sizable manufacturing industry is tightly integrated with American production, meaning even a slight hardening of the border or prolonged trade negotiations could put its economy at risk.

Laid in the first days after Mr. Trump’s election win, the plan even enlists Brian Mulroney, a former Conservative prime minister and political nemesis of Mr. Trudeau’s father, who had also been prime minister. Mr. Mulroney knows Mr. Trump and his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, from social circuits in southern Florida, where all three keep vacation homes.
In the weeks before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Trudeau reorganized his government to focus on his now uncertain ally.

Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Friday published a scathing column in response to President Trump’s Twitter attack on the pair just 24 hours earlier. The Washington Post piece, with the headline “Donald Trump Is Not Well,” denies the commander in chief’s claim that Brzezinski had a “face-lift” and chronicles a changing Trump, who, before the campaign, “was a flawed character but one who still seemed capable of keeping his worst instincts in check.” Trump on Thursday tweeted at the pair, calling Brzezinski “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and doling out the nickname “Psycho Joe” to Scarborough. He claimed that Brzezinski was  “bleeding badly from a face-lift” one night at Mar-a-Lago. The co-hosts, who are engaged to be married, wrote Friday that they were “neither shocked nor insulted by the president’s personal attack.” They avoided saying that Trump was not mentally able to carry out his duties as president—which would be a legal reason for him to be removed from office—but concluded that “the man is not mentally equipped to continue watching our show.”