Trump may be gearing up to blame Canada for GOP midterm losses

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The political pendulum appears to be swinging left south of the border, with November’s midterm elections expected to give Democrats a House majority. Depending on how a few toss-up races go, Democrats may also have a credible path to winning control of the Senate.

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Some Republicans, meanwhile, are already wondering how the party might respond to those losses.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has been in a long-running feud with President Donald Trump and is retiring in January rather than defending his seat, pointed to a “risk” that Trump could lash out if the GOP does as poorly as polls suggest during an interview this week on “60 Minutes.”

Tillis fears Trump could attack fellow Republicans or dispute the election results, or both.

But there may be another target for GOP blame: Canada.

Last week, Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro told Canadian lobbyists to “get the hell out of our country” and warned that “if you interfere in our elections in Maine and Michigan, you will pay even more dearly.”

Navarro’s approach? Blame Canada!

We heard a similar accusation last year from Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, who equated Canada’s anti-tariff advertising in the U.S. to electoral meddling and warned of consequences.

So could Canada become a scapegoat for Republican losses? And, even if it does not, would a weakened Trump be any easier on Canada?

“It’s certainly the case that the administration will probably latch onto any sort of external cause to blame bad election results,” said Alfredo Carrillo Obregon, a trade policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington.

“I think it’s not off the table that someone like Peter Navarro could go onto whatever news outlet he gets interviewed at these days and say that Canada is at fault,” he added.

“But I just don’t see that becoming the primary explanation or the primary narrative coming out of the White House.”

Most pundits and trade watchers agree that Trump will likely lash out, but their views vary on how the president will focus that anger. For Canada, most say there’s little good news either way.

Christopher Sands, ​​director of the Center for Canadian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, is not worried about the “gloves coming off” as Trump enters his lame-duck phase.

When asked whether Trump will be less restrained with Canada after the election, Sands said he doesn’t expect major changes in the approach either way.

“I’m not worried because I don’t think (Trump) took the midterms as much of a constraint,” he said.

Sands is more concerned about Canada becoming a target of partisan recrimination.

There is a risk, he said, that “if Democrats do well but are nonetheless seen as the enemy, and Canada is associated with just one party, then it becomes harder to have conversations with Republicans who you’ll need unless the Republicans are completely wiped out.”

“That may be part of what the Trump administration’s hoping — to push Canada into a partisan alliance that it can then condemn Mark Carney with all the Democrats that they don’t like,” Sands explained.

Politicians have an incentive to shift blame for the costs of their policies, says Richard Stern, vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom, referring to the unpopular tariffs.

The U.S. administration has been trying to paint the tariffs as a foreign policy tool that foreigners pay for when they are really “an offensive, aggressive tax that’s been levied on the American people,” he said.

Politicians running for reelection “don’t want to tell voters, ‘I’ve done something terrible to you,’” Stern said. “They want to point the finger overseas and at other people.”

But even if Navarro, Trump, or other leading Republicans try to direct blame north, most experts agree that it’s unlikely to land with the American public.

“I think President Trump lashing out in the face of a loss is … almost a certainty,” said Christopher Hernandez-Roy, acting director and senior fellow at the Americas Program of CSIS in Washington.

“They can … try to blame Canada, but … I don’t see how that’s really gonna get much traction.”

“One thing is lashing out and threatening to do things. Another is actually … creating some sort of a crisis,” he added.

Still, many experts expect Trump to continue being tough on Canada.

I doubt very much the president is going to be in any sort of accommodating mood with Canada

Stephen Nagy, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, says the president will likely stick to his usual playbook.

“I suspect Trump will do what he always does based on Roy Cohn’s rules of winning, taught to a young Donald Trump: centre on relentless aggression, total denial, and never admitting defeat,” he said.

“Based on that, he will say that the vote was against bad candidates, not a vote against himself,” Nagy added, noting that Trump’s lost latitude domestically means he will probably focus increasingly on foreign policy.

Many experts agree that the president’s last two years in office, especially if Republicans lose control of the House, will be focused more on international affairs, and that it’s likely bad news for Ottawa.

“I doubt very much the president is going to be in any sort of accommodating mood with Canada,” said Hernandez-Roy.

“I think the likely scenario is that he’ll continue to put a lot of pressure on Canada… and driving a very hard bargain with Canada, even if, the Congress, now in Democratic hands, would be much more sympathetic to Canada,” he added, noting that the Democrats are unlikely to win enough seats to have a veto-proof majority.

So, even if Trump and other MAGA Republicans can’t make Canada their scapegoat for a GOP midterm collapse, the country may still need to brace itself.

“I would expect the next four, five, six months to be rather difficult for Canada,” said Hernandez-Roy.

But consistent criticism of Ottawa and making demands may continue without a sharp uptick in post-election targeting, too.

Unlike those who think a more Democratic Congress could be friendlier toward Canada but without much effect, leaving Canada subject to a tougher tone from Trump, Inu Manak, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, expects pressure to build on the president to tone things down.

“We will probably see a little bit more moderation in … the tone towards Canada,” she said, noting that while Trump will likely focus more on foreign policy in his final months, he will also be keen to shore up his place in history.

“Presidents tend to focus on foreign policy in their second term,” she said. “But he also has to think about his legacy, and how much time do you want to spend in your last two years berating Canada?”

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