Share this Story : National Post Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr

Terry Glavin: Canadians are right about Trump, but Trump isn't America

And China isn't our friend

You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.

It was quite the performance, you’d have to admit. After all, Donald J. Trump is nothing if not a showman, and his falsehood-strewn schoolboy encomium to himself Tuesday night, which lasted a full hour and 47 minutes, was quite the spectacle. The State of the Union event was punctuated by frenzied bursts of ovation from Trump’s sycophants in the U.S. Congress. Not quite Pyongyang, but close.

Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.

Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.

Unlimited online access to National Post.

National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.

Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.

Support local journalism.

Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.

Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.

Unlimited online access to National Post.

National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.

Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.

Support local journalism.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

Access articles from across Canada with one account.

Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.

Enjoy additional articles per month.

Get email updates from your favourite authors.

Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.

Access articles from across Canada with one account

Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments

Enjoy additional articles per month

Get email updates from your favourite authors

Sign In or Create an Account

And that is what has become of what was until recently the greatest democracy on Earth, in the 20th year of democracy’s retreat around the world, during the first week of the fifth year of Ukraine’s courageous resistance to Vladimir Putin’s failed war of conquest, Europe’s bloodiest war since the 1940s.

Terry Glavin: Canadians are right about Trump, but Trump isn't America Back to video

This newsletter tackles hot topics with boldness, verve and wit. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)

There was an error, please provide a valid email address.

By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.

The next issue of Platformed will soon be in your inbox.

We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again

Interested in more newsletters? Browse here.

The United States of America, which once led the free world, has been reduced to a presidency that boasts of the profit American arms manufacturers are making from the carnage in Ukraine, that lies about the damage its tariffs are doing to the American economy, and no, the Trump White House has not ended eight wars over the past year.

After having been re-elected partly on the lie that the U.S. had been spending twice as much as Europe on Ukraine’s defence when in fact the opposite was closer to the truth, on Tuesday evening President Trump at least came close to coming clean about it.

“And everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO and they pay us in full,” Trump sneered. “They pay us, totally, in full.”

After having nearly offset 99 per cent of the loss of American military and humanitarian aid allocations for Ukraine since Trump’s re-election, the European Union is facing a renewed crisis in its effort to ensure that Ukraine remains a free country with a functioning government. President Trump’s key ally in Europe, who also happens to be Putin’s key European ally — Hungary’s Viktor Orbán — is sabotaging the effort.

Last December, an EU push to dedicate roughly $200 billion in frozen Russian assets to Ukraine was quashed by the cowardice of then-Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever and the connivings of Trump’s envoy, golfing partner and fellow real estate magnate Steve Witkoff with Russia’s foreign-wealth manager Kirill Dmitriev.

Carson Jerema: Canada too polite to tell Alberta separatists to quit it

Amy Hamm: Poilievre's immigration plan a political winner

Advertisement 1Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.document.addEventListener(`DOMContentLoaded`,function(){let template=document.getElementById(`oop-ad-template`);if(template&&!template.dataset.adInjected){let clone=template.content.cloneNode(!0);template.replaceWith(clone),template.parentElement&&(template.parentElement.dataset.adInjected=`true`)}});

The EU’s makeshift compromise, which granted Prime Minister Orbán a Hungarian exemption from a $105 billion loan to Ukraine, is on the rocks again. While President Trump was telling whoppers about the impact of his tariff obsession on America’s global standing and the American economy and its trade balance sheets, Orbán was in Budapest vowing to detonate the EU loan on the grounds that Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy is making it harder for him to run Hungary’s economy on discount Russian oil.

The EU’s longest serving prime minister, Orban is in a tight race for reelection in April. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio popped in for a visit and stood beside Orban at a press conference, explaining: “We want this country to do well, especially as long as you’re the prime minister and the leader of this country. President Trump is deeply committed to your success, because your success is our success.”

Trump is running out of tariff cards to play ahead of CUSMA review Canada

Trump is running out of tariff cards to play ahead of CUSMA review

Ontario property owner and contractor fined $157K for damaging threatened bird habitat Canada

Ontario property owner and contractor fined $157K for damaging threatened bird habitat

Advertisement 2Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.document.addEventListener(`DOMContentLoaded`,function(){let template=document.getElementById(`oop-ad-template`);if(template&&!template.dataset.adInjected){let clone=template.content.cloneNode(!0);template.replaceWith(clone),template.parentElement&&(template.parentElement.dataset.adInjected=`true`)}});

Why millions of New Englanders may now be eligible for 'proof' they are Canadian citizens Canada

Why millions of New Englanders may now be eligible for 'proof' they are Canadian citizens

John Cleese says he's now avoiding B.C. because of crackdown on gender ideology criticism NP Comment

John Cleese says he's now avoiding B.C. because of crackdown on gender ideology criticism

Danielle Smith's warning about major deficits in upcoming budget are the rule, not the exception, in Alberta Canada

Danielle Smith's warning about major deficits in upcoming budget are the rule, not the exception, in Alberta

And Orbán’s success means Europe will be hamstrung in every effort to defend Ukraine, and to defend Europe, against Moscow’s barbarism.

Just a few hours before Trump’s state of the union address, at the United Nations General Assembly, the U.S. couldn’t even bring itself to vote for an anodyne resolution calling for “a just and lasting peace” in Ukraine. Against every NATO democracy, Israel and 80 other UN member states, the U.S. joined such pillars of liberty as Yemen, Uzbekistan, China, and Congo in abstaining.

Backed by Russia, Belarus and the military dictatorships in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the U.S. made a failed preemptive attempt to water down the already compromised resolution. It fell to the U.S. deputy permanent representative Tammy Bruce to explain that the resolution could distract from ongoing negotiations and foreclose “the full range of diplomatic avenues.” Until last year, Bruce was host of the Fox Nation talk show Get Tammy Bruce.

It is precisely because of vulgarities such as this that roughly six in ten Canadians say the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally, and four in ten say the U.S. isn’t a Canadian ally anymore at all, according to a Politico poll released last week in partnership with the British polling firm Public First. This isn’t just latent anti-Americanism or a distemper of the Liberal party’s faddish “elbows up” variety. Thirty-five per cent of Conservative voters say the U.S. is the world’s greatest threat to peace, ahead of Russia (30 per cent) and China (22 per cent).

This week, a Nanos Research poll found that roughly half of Canadians said they would not rule out the possibility of an American invasion. Three out of four respondents said they were boycotting American products or services, roughly half said they’d cancelled travel plans to the United States, and 44 percent of Canadians – up from five percent back in 2022 – now favour increasing trade with China.

“These are probably the worst numbers in any era where polling was done,” said pollster Nik Nanos.

It certainly doesn’t help that the Carney government has been exploiting Trump’s unpopularity in Canada in order to get away with pursuing the deeper trade ties and political and institutional intimacies with Beijing that the Liberal Party has been hoping to re-establish for years. While the Trump presidency is Vladimir Putin’s last best hope for avoiding defeat in Ukraine, the material, financial and economic support from Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “strategic partner” in Beijing — is what has allowed Putin to keep his war economy from collapsing.

The good news is that Canada’s mainline political parties appear mostly in lockstep in support for Ukraine. Etobicoke Centre MP Member of Parliament Yvan Baker managed to win unanimous support for a resolution in the House of Commons Tuesday that clearly condemned Russia as the aggressor in Ukraine — something the Trump administration has bizarrely refused to acknowledge — and reaffirmed Ottawa’s “unwavering” support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty.

To mark the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine this week, Ottawa announced it was committing a further $2 billion in military assistance to Zelenskyy’s government in Kyiv, including the donation of 400 armoured vehicles, and an additional $20 million for the Ukraine Energy Support Fund. There’s also a strengthened sanctions package that targets 21 individuals, 53 entities and 100 ships from Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a global flotilla operating outside shipping regulations that carry Russian oil to foreign buyers.

It’s also all to the good that while the severe damage Trump has inflicted on the United States’ standing among the world’s democracies may take years to repair, the powers his MAGA coalition wants him to weild are beginning to meet stiff resistance in the U.S. courts and even among Republicans in Congress, and he’s not winning many friends among ordinary Americans, either. His mania for tariffs generally and his animosity towards Canada specifically are not vote winners, and this year’s midterm elections are expected to cool his jets quite dramatically.

Donald Trump may be a lot of things. But he is not America.

Share this Story : National Post Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

Is Amazon having a spring Prime sale in Canada? Here’s what we know so far Here’s what to know about the Big Spring Sale 58 minutes ago Deals

Is Amazon having a spring Prime sale in Canada? Here’s what we know so far

Here’s what to know about the Big Spring Sale

The best lululemon leggings in Canada, according to activity Our top picks for cold weather in Canada, yoga and more 4 hours ago Fashion

The best lululemon leggings in Canada, according to activity

Our top picks for cold weather in Canada, yoga and more

These travel hacks could save you money on your next trip A new report by Expedia reveals some top tips to help maximize your savings in 2026 6 hours ago Travel

These travel hacks could save you money on your next trip

A new report by Expedia reveals some top tips to help maximize your savings in 2026

Advertisement 3Story continues belowThis advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.document.addEventListener(`DOMContentLoaded`,function(){let template=document.getElementById(`oop-ad-template`);if(template&&!template.dataset.adInjected){let clone=template.content.cloneNode(!0);template.replaceWith(clone),template.parentElement&&(template.parentElement.dataset.adInjected=`true`)}});

Canada's best hotels for 2026 have been revealed in a new ranking Toronto dominated this year's list with seven hotels named among the top 25 6 hours ago Travel

Canada's best hotels for 2026 have been revealed in a new ranking

Toronto dominated this year's list with seven hotels named among the top 25

How to spot fake reviews when shopping online in Canada: Expert tips Julie Matthews, a consumer protection expert, reveals ways to shop smarter online 1 day ago Buy Canadian

How to spot fake reviews when shopping online in Canada: Expert tips

Julie Matthews, a consumer protection expert, reveals ways to shop smarter online

© National Post