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Canada uneasy about Biden-Trump rematch in US
“Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies,” John F. Kennedy said in a 1961 speech to Canada’s parliament.
Politicians and columnists like to refer to that quote whenever they consider the warm and enduring relationship between Canada and the United States. But Canadians are watching with a mounting sense of dread as Americans set up a potential rerun of the 2020 election, with Donald Trump, 76, facing off against Joe Biden, 80, for a grudge match that promises to be as distasteful as a punchup at a nursing home.
Until Tuesday, it seemed possible that Biden might decide he would prefer to spend more time with his family, or napping, and let someone in their 70s take over. But, no. He’s in.
And this week, Trump started to look like he has a lock on the GOP nomination. Of course, it is still early. By this time in the 2016 cycle, Trump had not even declared, and the Times’ resident poll interpreter was predicting an easy win for Jeb Bush. Lots can happen before the Republicans meet in Milwaukee next July, but I think we all know the arc of history is bending toward the “rough beast” of Mar-a-Lago.
The first big clue was the reaction of Republican voters to his indictment for allegedly funneling hush money to a porn star, which was apparently just the signal that on-the-fence Republicans were waiting for. The second was the continued failure of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to respond effectively to Trump’s putdowns, a familiar pattern from 2016 when Trump ran his hapless rivals through the woodchipper one by one. Desantis is no better at handling the Donald than Sens. Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio and looked weird and rattled when asked about that in Tokyo this week.
So Americans look intent on setting their aging champions against one another again. Canadians can only say good luck, and may the best man win.
But if Canada had a vote, Trump would be out. Canadians prefer Biden by a huge margin, polls show.
PM Justin Trudeau, like most Canadians, will be pulling for Biden. Trudeau doesn’t seem as close to Biden as he was to Barack Obama, but they are progressive allies, and in Ottawa last month he and Biden announced a new border deal that allowed Canada to shut the irregular crossing at Roxham Road. The Inflation Reduction Act remains a worry for northern policymakers, since it may draw jobs and capital south, but in Ottawa, Biden spoke cheerfully about the opportunities for both countries. Trump, in contrast, created huge headaches for Trudeau when he was president with his confrontational approach to trade.
“The last time Trump was elected, it forced Canada to waste three years renegotiating its most important trade agreement,” says vice chairman of Eurasia Group Gerald Butts, who helped Trudeau negotiate that deal as his principal secretary. “And that's just one of many things that cause problems for Canada. In the context of a live shooting match with Russia, the prospect of a Trump presidency is existential for NATO. This ain't dairy policy.”
But could Trump help Trudeau win votes? Since the American election will likely happen before the next Canadian one, there might be an electoral upside for Trudeau. If he can link his Conservative opponent, Pierre Poilievre, to Trump, it could benefit the prime minister at the polls.
But politics isn’t everything.
“Elections are short term, and governments are long,” says Butts. “And it's not good for whoever is the government of Canada if Donald Trump is in the White House.”
It is not just Liberals who fret about Trump, says Janice Stein, founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
“He’s a flamethrower. And that’s obvious now to everybody. So even people in Canada who like the message, and there are more than we think, there has to be some hesitation because he’s so erratic.”
Would Trump put the USMCA at risk? Experts say he’s unlikely to rip up the trade deal he negotiated as it would require him to undermine his own work.
“USMCA is up for review in 2025-2026,” says Stein. “I think it’s unlikely that he would tear it up a second time. And the Inflation Reduction Act is more protectionist than what Trump did.”
But that doesn’t mean the two men would get along. Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute, imagines it would be a difficult relationship and one defined by “a cascade of negative vibrations.”
If things get too heated, it is even possible Trump could turn on Trudeau. “Trump would have no reason not to make him a foil and just say, ‘Well, yeah, look at Justin Trudeau. He thinks he's so smart. But what he did was he tried to pick our pockets, and we're gonna show him. We're gonna get rid of the USMCA, and we're gonna do this and do that,’” says Sands.
Whatever might happen between Trudeau and Trump, there are powerful forces in both countries that would act to protect the vital trade relationship. The US is Canada’s best customer, and vice versa. If that is threatened, business and labor would put pressure on governments to sort it out, no matter who is running either country.
Kennedy said our countries are friends, which makes us all feel good, but Henry Kissinger was likely closer to the truth when he said that “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.”
The good news for Canada is that it is in America’s interest to get on with its neighbor.
Biden and Trump set for battle of the ages in 2024 election
Well folks, it’s official: He’s running.
On the fourth anniversary of his 2020 campaign launch, President Joe Biden formally kicked off his long-expected bid for reelection on Tuesday with a video framing the 2024 contest as being about “more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer.”
“Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they’ve had to defend democracy, stand up for our personal freedoms, and stand up for our right to vote and our civil rights,” Biden said in his video message featuring images of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and protests of the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights. “This is ours.”
Biden’s announcement sets up a battle for the ages – and of the ages – with former President Donald Trump, who launched his own candidacy for the Republican nomination last November. Biden’s decision to highlight issues like democracy and freedom, which also formed the centerpiece of his 2020 campaign, signals two things.
First, that he sees Trump as his most likely foe in 2024 (fact check: true). And second, that he intends to make the election yet another referendum on Trump and his “MAGA extremists” (fact check: oy). I’m already tired … and it’s barely even started.
Americans are decidedly unenthusiastic about a Biden-Trump rematch. Polling shows that most voters really don’t want to make either of them president for another four years, viewing both candidates unfavorably.
Only about four in 10 Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, with nearly two-thirds saying the country is on the wrong track. Few voters – including a minority of Democrats and independents – are eager about him running for reelection, citing his age and mental fitness as a major concern. Already America’s oldest president at 80 years old, Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term (the oldest president before him was Ronald Reagan, who left office at 77).
Full disclosure, I recently spent time with Biden and while he’s definitely slowing down physically, mentally he’s still there. But will he still be there at the end of a second term when he’s 86? No knock on the old man, but I’d bet against it. After all, this is one of the hardest, most demanding jobs on earth. You don’t want to give it to someone who is statistically expected to literally expire a year after his term ends.
For his part, Trump is passionately disliked by much of the electorate, even more so than Biden. At 76 he’s too old, too, but age is not as much a liability for him as is his general and moral unfitness for office. At the end of his tenure, his job approval was lower than any other president’s in US history. Looking to 2024, 70% of Americans and nearly half of Republicans (!) don’t want him to run again.
All this makes Biden vs. Trump the most unwanted sequel since National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure.
Yet barring any dramatic surprises, Biden vs. Trump is the contest we’ll see.
While Biden is the opposite of exciting and many voters feel uneasy about his age, he is the incumbent president and has the full support of his party’s establishment. Most Democratic voters correctly recognize that Biden, a known quantity with proven electability and a 1-0 record against Trump, is their best chance of keeping the White House. Unless his health unexpectedly deteriorates, he will most assuredly be the Democratic nominee.
The Republican nomination, by contrast, will be a bit more … contested. But while the first primaries are nearly eight months away and much could change between now and then, Trump is the undisputed frontrunner and more likely than not to be the nominee.
For a while, the Republican establishment darling, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, looked like he could challenge Trump. But his bid is already running into trouble before it’s even official. DeSantis’s inability to parry Trump’s attacks has made him look weak with the base, and he has made several missteps that are turning off some of his biggest donors. His polling has accordingly faded just as Trump seems to be cementing his lead despite (or perhaps thanks to) his legal woes, with the former president now commanding a 28-point lead over DeSantis.
Four other Republicans – former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, talk radio host Larry Elder, and conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – have already entered the fray. Several more, possibly including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former Vice President Mike Pence, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Virginia Gov. Glenn Younkin, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, are said to be preparing to do the same. All of them face long odds of catching up to DeSantis – who at the very least enjoys high national name recognition – let alone Trump.
The fact is that the sheer size of Trump’s voter base – around a third of Republican primary voters, or 10% of the general electorate – and their undying loyalty to him give Trump a floor of support any other GOP hopeful will find nigh impossible to win without. A recent poll found that nearly 30% of Republican voters would support him even if he ran as an independent. In other words, Trump owns the GOP.
Biden is the favorite. History shows that as an incumbent with approval ratings in the low 40s, Biden starts with a slightly better than 50/50 chance of reelection. But there are several factors that swing the race further toward him.
For starters, Trump already lost to Biden in 2020 – and that was before he incited the Jan. 6 insurrection and before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. A recent poll found that “preserving democracy” is now the second most important issue for Americans behind the economy, and reproductive rights remain a priority for suburban, young, and college-educated voters. The prospect of a Trump return and the growing salience of abortion, which arguably cost Republicans the House in the 2022 midterms, will give Biden an edge with moderates.
The president also has a legitimate legislative record to run on, including $2 trillion in pandemic relief and billions’ worth of generational investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, clean energy, and semiconductors. And unlike Trump, he doesn’t face an internal party battle. Perhaps most importantly, the economy is chugging along, with the lowest unemployment rate in nearly 60 years and inflation showing signs of easing after two years of being stubbornly high.
Still, Trump can win. Given the distribution of electoral college votes and how polarized the US two-party system is, any Republican candidate has a meaningful chance of winning the election by virtue of being the Republican candidate. Biden has little margin for error or misfortune.
Should the economy tip into recession as the Fed continues to hike interest rates amid persistently high inflation, or should Biden’s health or mental fitness suffer a significant slide, Trump could very well become president again.
Considering the implications of that for American institutions and global stability in the context of an international environment beset with crises, that’s a risk no one should be willing to overlook.
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Two-party reckoning looms in America
US politics faces a unique moment. Both of the major political parties have leaders, but in each case, more than six in 10 Americans don’t want either to run for president in 2024. In the coming months, Democrats and Republicans will each face a reckoning, and the world will be watching closely.
Joe Biden
The president is in a tough spot. His approval numbers are circling the drain. Some 64% of Democratic voters don’t want him to seek reelection. No leader wants to admit failure by declining to run again, and Biden knows that unpopular presidents who opt out of reelection (Democrats Harry Truman in 1952 and Lyndon Johnson in 1968) or face tough challengers from within their own party (Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992) see their parties lose the White House.
If Biden did step aside, who might Democrats choose to replace him? Vice President Kamala Harris has a lower approval rating than Biden, and no Democrat with high political hopes wants to be first to draw daggers on a sitting president.
Donald Trump
Though he’s already announced informally that he will again run for president, many headlines featuring Trump’s name these days detail allegations that he attempted to steal the 2020 presidential election and tried to use violence against elected US officials, including his own vice president, to do it. That’s part of why 61% of Americans don’t want him to run, and half of Republicans want an alternative. The investigation of the Capitol Riot has persuaded even some Republicans that Trump has much to answer for.
Yet, Trump won’t be easier to dislodge from the position of party frontrunner than Biden. He still leads all likely Republican primary opponents by a sizable margin. Even if he gets indicted for alleged crimes related to the 2020 election, he’ll probably press ahead with a candidacy that could boost him politically and protect him legally.
And what happens if Trump runs for president and begins to lose the fight for the Republican nomination? His GOP opponents know that Trump might claim that votes are being stolen from him, and the party knows Trump can threaten at any time to run in 2024 as an independent, crippling the GOP’s chances of beating Biden or any other Democrat.
Three thoughts
There has never been a moment in modern US presidential politics when the parties faced such a significant reckoning simultaneously.
If Biden and Trump are the nominees, there’s no compelling evidence that Democrats disappointed with Biden or Republicans uncomfortable with Trump will stay home on Election Day and miss their chance to vote against the hated other party. In other words, an historically unpopular candidate can still become the next president.
The world is watching. Decision-makers across Europe, in China, inside the Kremlin, and in the Middle East need to know where US politics is headed — and understand they’d better hedge their bets on America’s direction.
This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media, a subsidiary of Eurasia Group that offers balanced, nonpartisan reporting, and analysis of foreign affairs. Subscribe to Signal today.