A WEEKEND IN CANADA, A CHANGE OF SCENE

It’s come to this.  Our new best friends are North Korea, China, and (of course) Russia.  Our new enemies are Canada, Germany, France, the UK, and the rest of NATO.

Like it or not, we’re now engaged in trade wars with our historic allies.  Their leaders are smarter than ours, but they’re all democracies and their citizens despise Donald Trump.  Politically, they can’t remain passive while Trump tries to damage their economies, even though they know everyone loses in a trade war. 

Donald Trump loves to complain that his predecessors – President Obama, to be sure, but really every president since the end of World War II – negotiated terrible deals.  As a resident of southern Arizona, I’m a little worried that someone will tell Trump that Franklin Pierce was a Democrat, and he’ll decide to void the Gadsden Purchase.

Or maybe, as Josh Marshall suggests, he’ll give Alaska back to Russia in exchange for the right to build a few Trump hotels in Moscow and St. Petersburg.  If Vladimir Putin has a sense of humor, he’s already thought of that.

In a little over a month, my wife and I are planning to spend a couple of weeks in Canada.  I hope the border is still open by then.