Yesterday I read a news item in which Trump was quoted as saying, “I don’t know why he (Carney) wants to meet.”  It seems a bad way to start a convention of the newly elected Carney, Trump and senior bureaucrats of two of the world’s greatest trading partners. Their meeting is scheduled for today.

Although there is little of Trump to predict other than steadfastness to his current playbook, Carney is obviously taking the strategic step to permit Trump to withdraw from his focus. It is more likely that Carney will sidestep the intransigence and promote instead the new Canadian perspective of world trade.  I have no doubt that in the background Carney has already made overtures to numerous other trading partners including China, Mexico, Britain and Europe. Nor do I imagine that Carney will say much if anything about those alliances.  Carney has already proclaimed with unambiguous import that the old relation with USA is over.

Even if Trump opts to correspond with Carney – and no doubt claim his victory for having done so – my greater suspicion is that Carney will not be readily moveable from what likely has already developed within the Canadian perspective. The economic education of Carney is of course to his indisputable credit.  Although Trump may have qualified advisors, he’s not normally inclined to listen to them; and, if the media is to be trusted, most qualified economists are telling Trump to step back from his trade proposals.

In the end today’s prime ministerial meeting may go down as yet one more banderilla in the neck of the Trump administration. If, as appears to be the universal conclusion from every quarter of the globe, Trump’s economic policies are doomed to failure it may be only a matter of time before the sword is revealed from behind the muleta. The paradox is that it will be a self-inflicted wound.