Why Conrad Black is breaking with Trump over the Canada-U.S. trade war

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1:02Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Welcome to Hub Dialogues. I'm your host Harrison Lohman, managing editor of the hub. Today, I'm very pleased to be joined by Conrad Black, Lord Black of Cross Harbor, former media baron, author, historian, and one of the most provocative voices in Canadian public life. Conrad once controlled the third largest newspaper empire in the world. He ran the National Post, the Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post, the Chicago Sun Times to name a few. He's also someone who knows Donald Trump intimately, having been his friend for some 30 years. The two are usually very much on the same page. However, as Canada enters week two of our US tariff trade war, things might be changing. Let's see by how much Mr. Black, welcome to Hub Dialogues. How are you today? Thank you, Harrison. Glad to be with you.

2:03Okay, you've known the president for some 30 years now. You've also called the collapse of these trade talks and the, I guess, ensuing trade war or something like a serious and very unnecessary mistake by the Trump administration. In your mind, Conrad, is this the most needless fight you've seen Trump take on? Or is it something else? Harrison, until we've seen which has been requested from third parties, including the official opposition in this country, the final office, we don't know which contending version of events to believe. Now, we have our own views, Canada, and a person. I get the prime minister to benefit of that, but there is something because the Americans claim that they did not alter their conditions at the end. And the claim made by the Canadian government that they did is false. And the president himself has said that the United States has raised no objection

3:05at all to bilingual packaging. And indeed, when you go into American stores, you often find articles for sale with a lot of foreign languages, Chinese and Japanese and Spanish and so on. And the president himself has said that that is a lie by Carnegie. Now, I obviously all paid to get into a thing like this, but I would give our prime minister the benefit of the day, but I'd answer your question this way. If Mr. Carnegie's version is accurate, then I would say that it is the most unnecessary, plural that President Trump has had within the foreigners. He's had some domestically about Snowman's business, but the Americans that I would say were less justified, but that's not a foreign policy matter. If, however, there is some serious doubt about the accuracy of the Carnegie version

4:07than he has made a serious mistake, because if the two sides can't be telling the truth, they're both accusing the other of not telling the truth. So one of them is not telling the truth, and it should be possible to find a which, all we need is for one side or the other to release the relevant fine law offers. And at that point, we can judge it, but on the Canadian version of things, yes, I would say it's an unnecessary dispute for Trump. In fairness, I don't think it's one that is all that costly to win, other than to the very limited extent that he cares what, for an opinion, thanks, because I think the world is actually hoping for Canada, so much of the world got very accustomed to taking some advantage of the US, which is why it was running in 1.3 trillion dollar trade deficit,

5:08and the reduction of those advantages by steady acts of Trump administration, various ways, checking all the NATO and so-called allies and the posterior until end of the bridge, the budgets and so on. If another country actually gets into a contest with the US and wins that there will be a lot of underdog rights to sent in our favor, but on the other hand, the facts and geography are immutable, and we do do more business with the United States than do it itself, so we have to keep an eye on the longer term here. So if you brought this on us, Conn. Of course, if the Carney version isn't accurate, then he's made it terrible. So if he's made that mistake and if he's brought this on us, you've said the US can pay expensively and in politically inconvenient places. Where are these places? Well, you know, Carney's written to the governor of Michigan and the governor of Maine

6:08saying that they'll be targeting tariffs into those states. And, you know, I mean, this is a breakmanship, you know. He really is intervening in an American election, the midterm elections coming up in two months. I don't know that it will be that effect of an intervention, because I see him that inventories will probably patch them through from when our retaliatory tariffs are imposed, what, in a week from today, I guess, to the election in the first week in November. But when you do that, it is a somewhat provocative thing to do with another country to make an intervention like this in an election in another country. And, but, you know, if it's effective and if it does move votes, it could have an influence on the distribution of seats in both houses of the Congress. You know, that some of these are quite close elections. And it's conceivable if they get an impact.

7:10Are you surprised, though, Conrad, that one thing that struck me is that for all, you know, sniping now and then when it comes to Democrats, defending Canada, they're not really Americans, average Americans, you know, going out on the streets rallying, angry with how we're being treated. Like, this is not. And I'm sure, you know, you were just on O'Reilly show a few days ago. For the average American, is this even, is this even seen by them at all? Do they spend one second thinking about this each day? The average American, yeah, maybe one second, but not a lot more than that, I don't think. But, you know, they're not accustomed to having Canadian vans, something of concern to them, you know, it doesn't mean they don't like Canada. I think most Canadians do like Canada, and polls all show that they think the President should be kinder to Canada. But are they worried about it? No, they're not worried about it. And the fact is, the United States is terribly in America,

8:10a centric country, and foreign trade as a whole was only about 20% of the GDP, less than half the percent of this country, and the less than half the percent of this country have trade with the US alone. And if you gave the Americans two years to prepare for it, they could end practically all foreign trade, said, for a few vital minerals. And, you know, it's a very self-sufficient place, but, and of course, it's a colossal economy that you remember. Zero Pearson, and your viewers, ten years ago, none of us could set footed doors with it. It's some jack-ass grabbediveness by thewevelopels and saying China was about to pass the United States in the coming. Well, China's at 18 trillion, and the US is at 31 trillion, Europe is at, which I had its claim to is at 17 trillion. Europe and China were basically stagnating, ambitious zero and one percent, and the United States is moving up at 5% a year. I mean, they're just not that inconvenienced by these things.

9:14But I think the average reason of American is slightly perplexed that this very agreeable, cooperated relationship that the Canada and the United States have had for all of the lifetimes of everyone's lives and their parents. I mean, for 200 years, basically, it appears to become compromised. I don't think Americans are happy with that, but I don't think they're worried about it. I mean, Canada's no threat to the US, but on the other hand, they'd rather have good relations with it. 70% plus of Canadians wanted the deal. We don't know what the deal was, but from what they saw, wanted that deal rejected. There seems to be a fair amount of the population that wants, is begging for some sort of fight standing up. They want to stand up against Trump. They don't like Trump. What do you make of the... Is this a coherent Canadian nationality identity appearing as we saw Stephen Marsh talk about in the globe last week? Or is it just simply anti-Americanism that's taking form? No, I think it's a mixture of both. And I wrote in the National Post myself somewhat on these

10:16matters on Saturday. I think it's a matter of both. I mean, Trump is precisely the kind of American foreigners don't like. He's a caricature of the old ugly America. He's deemed to be a braggart and a bully and an obnoxious man. And there are those aspects to the public personality. As an individual, the know is a very churnary person and very amusing. And a loyal friend too. But he is an acquired taste or not as a public personality. And he makes no secret of the fact that he's pursuing the American national interest. He's not prepared to make sacrifices for no reason for anyone else. And the American's foremost allies are not the longest officially allied countries there. The countries that today are most cooperative with the US or that's Argentina, United Arab Emirates, Poland, and this disparate group, South Korea,

11:18until recently. But I think the Canadian view is that they don't like Trump. And so if we have a breason of legitimate grounds to give him a figure to punch in the nose, let's do it. But there is also an element. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with it. I don't personally agree with it. Who I have to transmit to the present. But I understand that. The other side of it is that Canada is still growing into itself in a way. And this is a terribly complicated and controversial thing. And I don't want to be flippant about it. But as I mentioned in the piece I had in the National Post and Saturday, I can remember, I'm concurrently elderly, but I can remember when we were a dominion. And that was really a semi-colonial status. We were an independent country. We were in the League of Nations and then in the United Nations.

12:18And we decided when we went towards, so forth, we printed it around currency. We were a sovereign country, but sort of in an association with the British that influenced us very considerably. Then we were kind of a branch plant country at the United States financially. Every company in the country except the banks and Canadian Pacific, at Brackett, Canada, Limited and Brackett after its name. Then when we went to free trade, Brian Mulroney proved the Canadians could compete. We could live without being a branch plant country. So we don't have the revolutionary tradition of the US here. We didn't just suddenly become an independent country by taking things into our own hands. It came gradually. We didn't have that option. We had a revolution here. The British would be gone and the Americans would have taken the silver. So we had to win our rights by persuading the British to give them to us. And as a result, the tradition in this country is, it's rather different.

13:21And the last phase, in my opinion, is for Canadians finally to recognize that we have to stop trying to justify why we're not Americans and plenty of reasons why we are Americans. And behave as an independent country in a cooperative responsible way, which would be our nature anyway. And do the necessary to become recognized as what we should be, one of the 10 or 12 most important countries in the world. We have a bigger GDP than Russia. I mean, it is a very important country. It's a treasure house in the country of the 41 million well-educated law-abiding, highly motivated people. You said we should catalyze Canada's metamorphosis into one of the world's most important countries, which I note in your list here, shrink the public service slash corporate taxes, better education, up resource extraction, make the country a single market. Talk about our nationality more. Would you add anything more to that list?

14:22Yeah, I think that the pathway to our real distinction in the world is original government. And I think there's I think almost all the practices of a major Western governments have become rather stagnant. There's been a lack of imagination. Last time we had a great deal of imaginative government, this provolender Roosevelt in the 30s. Although there have been freshness of it here and there. But I think there are all kinds of things we could do to reform our tax system, privatize parts of our welfare system. We have the rich country and the amenable population to do it. We don't have a legacy of slavery and the bitterness and heritage from that. And I mean, not because we were so virtuous, but it was never economic to import Africans into this country to harvest tropical crops,

15:26because we didn't have any tropical crops. But if we did that, we were seen as an original distinctive country in a bit of a pathfinder, a pioneer, and certain types of government. The world would be beating a path or a door, and when everyone would be talking about Canada. You said you'd have to have that or we can't live without it. But I think we're still hiding our light under a bush a little bit. And to the extent that this quarrel with Trump enables us to flex our muscles a bit. And show me, for example, I'm sorry to be syncopated here, but I saw the treasury secretary best since on television last night saying what does Canada going to go to war with us with a submarine from the Edmonton Mall? I mean, it was a cranny, frankly, bitchy thing to say. I don't know if I have to put up a book. But Conrad, the president is saying the exact same things. Are you going to be calling it like Ontario? Like there's really barbs going back and forth.

16:27Obviously, initiated by the president. I know, I know, I know. He's the first case. And by the way, I think we could have done the Doug Ford telling the president of the U.S. Texas undercarriage, but I mean, you know, the name calling is disagreeable, but not unexpected. But have you ever seen anything like it in the top of a schoolyard, you know, but but we are not leaders of government. And all the books behind you, when it comes to Canadian-American relations, have you ever seen anything like this? Signs being built next to lakes, people being called clowns, lakes being renamed between Eric and off the shelves. I mean, I've seen it with other countries, you know, when the Chinese were shaking their little red book across the border at the Russians, and that sort of thing. I mean, other countries have engaged in this. Some of the Latin-American countries said that most hilarious. No, Canada in the U.S. I mean, our border has been something the world has admired since the end of the War of 1812. Mm-hmm. We're not this exciting. Tell me this. You've said Trump does not understand these distinctions.

17:29That's like a non-starter for him. Have you talked to him? Have you talked to him about this recently? Yeah, a little bit, yeah. And I told him, I told him, in the I assume you want me to tell you what I told him. Of course. Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, I mean, something, you know, some conversations I have with the really disrespectful if I repeated them, but there's no problem here. But the, I said it was particularly an outrage to comparison to Mexico. The Mexican government was implicated and slave-traffing on a colossal scale, and including the introduction of terribly dangerous quantities of lethal drugs into the U.S. And it had a systematic policy of encouraging American industries, manufacturing to relocate into Mexico 10 miles in the board inside the border. Give them a tax concession. Give them cheap Mexican labor and use the free trade agreement to export unemployment back into the U.S. with products, the Americans formerly manufactured themselves.

18:30We never did anything like that. And he never should have compared us to Mexico. And he should not now be comparing us to the cooperative behavior of Mexico, because the fact is Mexico is going to cooperate really bad things are going to happen. But we didn't do any of that. So he shouldn't be complaining about it. And the only deficit he runs with us is oil that he buys of knockdown price and sells on into profit. And I told him that this was an unreasonable way to treat Canada. And to say that we're the 51st state, I mean, as if we're treated like Delaware or Wyoming. We have 41 million people here. We're a G7 country. And he just shouldn't get into that kind of thing. Now, in fairness to him, he's one of these people who calls it as he sees it. And he doesn't see any significant difference between a Canadian and an American from a Northern U.S. state. It's a settler distinction, then say a New Englander and a person from Mississippi or Alabama.

19:31But he doesn't understand the different psychology of Canadians. And when Justin said that his Canadian economy would collapse if he imposed his tariffs, and he knows that we haven't paid our defense bill since Marini retired, he said, well, look, what are you doing it for? I mean, if you can't stand tariffs, you can't pay for your own defense, you're just like us. Why don't you join us? You know, you'll get a better value dollar. You don't have to worry about defense. We take care of that. There won't be any tariffs. I mean, to him, it was perfectly logical. He didn't mean it to be as insulting as it was until he saw the Canadian reaction. And then he was so annoyed at Justin for what he thought to be Justin's rather cheeky attitude to him when they were both in office. That he does this as a sort of a joke, you say. But Canadians don't take it as a joke because we've always had a sort of complex about what Mr. King described in general. The goal was the overwhelming contiguity of the United States. It's the exact opposite to our Australian Commonwealth brothers.

20:35They're 10,000 miles from anywhere that's any bit like them. And we have this huge country right to scientists. But so I think there are a lot of misunderstandings there. I just hope we get to the bottom of it fairly soon, whether breaking a lot of furniture doing it. Given how much this is escalated, I'm wondering if you have and you see these tweets online, people saying things like, Oh, Conrad Black is finally breaking with Trump that his faith is declining when it comes to his support for him. What do you make of those assertions? No, I think they're understandable. I don't object on them. I mean, it's seeming that the carny version of the Vance is the correct one. Then I am, this is your ad-brook. But the fact is, I still think that he's been very good present. I mean, he's raised the position of the United States and the world to the highest point, not in terms of people liking it. I mean, in that regard, it's deteriorated.

21:37He doesn't care about that. Never cared a chocolate. What anybody thinks of anything as long as he has enough support in his own country together. But he's raised to the highest point since immediately after World War II. I mean, he's eliminated Syrias, a Russian Chinese allies, eliminated basically Cuba. He's eliminated Venezuela. He's effectively eliminated Iran. He's got a 5% economic growth rate. He's got the country growing economically. But when it comes to Canada, you know what, go look, on this one, he's dropped the ball. But you know, even the greatest leaders in history make mistakes sometimes. In Roosevelt, you know, I wrote a book about Roosevelt. I love his books behind the sign by mine. And, you know, he made the obvious, not many, but a case. I have to raise this old chestnut that, because again, you wrote for us two years, I want you to revisit this one last time. This headline article, Canada has nothing to fear from another Trump presidency.

22:41From you, Trump has no grievance against this country, which he's always liked and enjoyed. Trump does not intend to adjust tariffs with Canada slightly, but not necessarily unilaterally. Canada will come to like Trump as it did Reagan. And then again, you look at polls, 12% of Canadians like Trump, the 51st state stuff, all these tariffs, they continue. What, will that ever come true, do you think? Or will he leave his presidency hated by our fellow citizens? I think I made a mistake. So I made a mistake. But the reason I said that was that I did believe which has come to pass, that the United States would be very prosperous under Trump. And traditionally, when the U.S. is booming economically, it's good for us. That's what I was talking about. And I think that will still come true if we can get this tariff question as old as quickly. I think we will benefit from this big economic growth rate in the United States.

23:45It's inevitably a little bit more of our product. I think Trump is just too offensive of public personality for Canadians for him to be popular in self. But I still think there's a chance that overall, the Trump presidency will be positive for Canada. But I think there is also a chance, going back to something we both said a few minutes ago, that one of the reasons for this will be that because of Trump, Canada will take unto itself the task of advancing that last stage up to the full assumption by Saturday, and making Canada more respected and highly regarded country in the world. Now that's not something that Trump himself has set out to do, but I think that could be a byproduct of his presidency. The bully that comes after you and then you go to the gym and work out. So that you can get started. I mean, look, he's not anti-Canadian. I don't think he likes Karen, and he certainly didn't like Justin, but he's not as if he dislikes Canada,

24:48as a country. He used to come here all the time when he was a younger man. That's where he met his first wife in Montrombo. But don't you think, Conor, if he came to visit you now, people would be lining the streets. He would be not well received if he came for a visit here, which was the custom. Well, first and foremost, that's what Canada is present. I don't think he's going to. I think you're probably right, but I cannot tell you how completely uninterested he is, in what any foreigners and almost half of his own country would think of him. He couldn't care less. I mean, you and I, gentle souls and gentlemen, as we are, Harrison, if we went to a foreign country and saw all sorts of people, who think placards telling us to go home, it might offend us, but I couldn't care less. I mean, he's a strange cat, you know, what you see is much a gap, but he's very effective at what he does. Just before we move to my final section here, what's so strange about him?

25:49What's the, you say he's a strange cat? What's the strangest thing you've come across that's? It was. The command of his very high intelligence and perception. He has an obsessive and in some ways a juvenile ego. There's an in balance in his personality to that extent, and the whole world perceives it. I mean, this, for example, the fetish of his of changing names and putting his name on things. I mean, I agree that the Kennedy Center was probably mismanaged, but the answer isn't to put Trump's name on it. I mean, God damn it, it's the honors president, Kennedy. Wait, but he's going to change the name of the Washington monument. I mean, just leave it, but he gets into things like this, and he does himself an injustice doing it. I mean, once upon a time when he was entering the White House for the first time, he asked me, if I had any advice from him, I said, well, why don't you get your staff to assemble some news film of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy in Ronald Reagan and look at that and see how

26:51you can use the office to be above a lot of things that if you get into them, you can't win in terms of public relations because you're about to enter into the greatest office in the world, and you are above a lot of things. So just keep clear of it. But, you know, I mean, that's what President still, you know, I mean, I remember President Eisenhower's last conference, one of the press said, Mr. President, have we been a problem to you? And he said, no, but you know, people are, you know, why don't you say so? You're in a position to be a problem to me. I mean, and they weren't, because Eisenhower never got down into these silly things and name calling and nonsense like that. So, you know, Donald's different, but he's, you know, he's it's a mistake to underestimate him. And whatever happens, he's been a tremendous political force in that country. He's changed the country and I, in my opinion, he's done some outstanding things that had to be done. And he's done

27:53it in the teeth of the most terrible assault on constitutional democracy in that country since the Civil War. Let's, let's end on this. You said that Canada, Canon will reverse his decline. Why are you so sure of that? And do you think Karney will be the one to do it? On the first point, I'm sure of it, or not sure, but confident of it, just because Canadian history is a lot more distinguished than most Canadians realize. I think most Canadians think, well, yes, we've done quite well as a country, but it was easy for us. You know, we, we, we in the heritage English government, the English and French languages. We had a neighbor, which, whether we like the Americans, you know, haven't bothered us much in 200 years. And it's rich country. And so we could attract people from elsewhere. So it wasn't that difficult. Now, the fact is building a country independent of the US where we are has been challenging. And as I said earlier, we couldn't just take our independence, what the Americans did, or they would have overrun us. So we had to persuade the British through, I mean,

28:58with these Gilbert and Sullivan uprisings, we had Papino and Mackenzie, which was a few Florida French Canadian intellectuals imagining that they were downtown Rousseau or something, writing Florida petitions to George's authority, despised the French language anyway. And, William Lyon, Mackenzie, and if you'd drunk in scots up in Northern Toronto. So the, the, the revolts were suppressed. So the Canadians could say, the British, look, we have, you have to do something for us, or there will be a more serious revolt. And you have to do it because we've shown our loyalty because we suppressed those revolts. Well, the Americans didn't have to go through any tightrope walk like that. They just threw the British out that they helped with the French. And by the way, Benjamin Franks and 20 years earlier, having persuaded the British to throw the French out of Canada, he then persuaded the French to help them throw the British out of America and then move the formidable feet of diplomacy. But we didn't, we didn't do any of that.

30:02We had to sort of ask for our rights and then inherit them and build on that. And the United States expanded at a rate such as the world had never known to be possible. And we kept pace with that. Everything was to scale. But our relative population of the United States actually gained rather more than they did. I mean, we went from being about a 15th of the population, we're about a ninth of the population. And we, you know, we don't have the genius for the spectacle and for propaganda that the Americans have. And they've had it from a declaration of independence of the Super Bowl. And Canadians aren't playing point like that. But we had done remarkably well and competitively looks. Not one Canadian in a plows and we can tell you that Canada contributed more generously to a program almost identical to the Marshall Plan after World War II for Europe than the Americans did. Canadians don't know we had any set plan, but we did. We should know our past better not become arrogant, or self-righteous, or

31:06honest, but just to realize that this country has had an awful lot of good government until relatively recently. Now, on your question of whether it's carne, the jury's out with me as with others. I mean, if he's calling it straight on this, and if he really is reformed from his days as an echoed zelah who desperately outlawed fossil fuel and so forth, you know, if he's turned in you, I absolutely could be a terrific leader and a very historic one. But if he's still the same old Davos bureaucrat that he was when he was governor of the Bank of England warning the British that grass would grow in the streets of the city of London if they left Europe, then no, he's going to be one term premise. We're waiting for him to show us. He's been there for 16 months. He hasn't done a great deal, but he hasn't done a lot of bad things out of it. So we just got to wait for him.

32:06Well, I'll have to wait to see if I can bring you back and we'll see if that comes to pass. That is Conrad Moffitt Black, historian author Lord Black of Cross Harbor, and we thank him so much for joining us here on the hub today. Thank you, Harrison. All is a pleasure. Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger than life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night. They're made all season long. Shop Halloween decor now at Wayfair.com. Wayfair every style every home. Premier hosts on Verbo deliver quality vacation rental stays with fast responses and clear

33:08instructions. So you don't have to worry about surprises. I asked our host a question about the house last night and he got back to me super quick. See, that's the Premier host move right there. I'll wish I had a Premier group chat. I asked them where we should have dinner last night and they left me on red. I know you saw it. It says it. Classic group chat move. Don't walk into a surprise. We'll get top-rated Verbo stay with a Premier host. If you know, you Verbo.