Tom Mulcair: No Golden Dome can protect Canada from Donald Trump

There are few details about what Canada's involvement in U.S. President Trump's 'Golden Dome' plan would entail. Abigail Bimman reports.

Tom Mulcair is a former leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017, and a columnist for CTVNews.ca.

America was the wealthiest and most successful country in world history.

Since his reelection, Donald Trump has been hacking away at the underpinnings of that success.

His delusional confidence in his own musings combined with his complete lack of knowledge about the economy have exposed the United States to a brutal downfall. The objective analysis of the credit rating agencies is now affirming the obvious: America can no longer be trusted to pay its debts as they become due. That is the definition of insolvency.

It’s perhaps not too surprising that a convicted criminal and serial bankrupter sees economic chaos as a formula for success. But the tactics that a conman turned to his own advantage could turn to disaster for America.

Trump has attacked key allies and trading partners, Canada first among them. His tariffs will hurt the economy of the entire world but will also provoke inflation in the U.S., where consumers will wind up paying the price for his 19th century economic nostrums.

The only way to create new wealth is with new knowledge. Thanks to its world-leading higher education system, America has for years been able to attract and retain the best minds from around the globe, creating an immense pool of talent that has fuelled innovation and growth.

Trump has purposefully set out to hobble America’s best universities, like Harvard and Columbia, shooting himself in the foot as he does so.

• Canadian Harvard student says Trump’s international student ban is ‘anxiety-inducing’

He’s expelling the foreign workers that wealthy Americans and companies (like Trump’s own) have relied upon to provide cheap labour and bloat their wealth. He won’t be replacing them anytime soon with new immigrants willing to work at the bottom of the ladder.

He’s begun dismantling healthcare which will punish his own base, first and foremost and he’s reversed environmental protections that will imperil the quality of life of future generations.

A recipe for economic failure, social hardship and environmental devastation. Sustainable development turned on its head.

Quite a result after only four months of total chaos. Imagine four years.

But the biggest folly, and the one where Canada has to show that we can actually have an independent foreign policy, is in the madcap defence scheme that Trump is calling his Golden Dome.

It’s apparently named to sound like Israel’s largely successful Iron Dome but with the chintzy gold-plated combover of Trump. His Dome is going to be beautiful and huge, his two favourite adjectives.

Donald Trump’s Golden Dome could be a shower of gold for the American defence and aerospace industries. It could also be another nail in the coffin for the American economy.

Canada and U.S. strategic allies

Canada’s dealings with the U.S. in matters of defence have been mostly honourable and successful. Although the Americans were years late to the fight in both cases, we soldiered side-by-side during the two world wars.

Canada played a key role in the United Nations action in Korea but stepped back when it came to supporting America’s tragic misadventure in Vietnam.

After participating fully in the Gulf War that followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Canada stayed away from the American invasion of Iraq but participated fully, and paid a heavy price, in the war in Afghanistan.

Like the U.S., Canada also shamefully abandoned many of the Afghans who’d helped us, to the Taliban.

Continental defence

Mark Carney will soon face a real challenge in deciding whether and how to participate in Trump’s Golden Dome.

This week has seen a flurry of mixed messages. Canada is in, was the first from Ottawa. Then Trump said that Canada has asked to be part of it and boasted that, as usual, the U.S would do whatever it could to help defend poor Canada. Sigh…

Carney’s team was soon spinning that this effort had been discussed for years, trying to avoid having the whole thing pinned on their new administration.

Let’s not kid ourselves. For three generations, from JFK’s nuclear tipped Bomarc missiles, to Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or ‘Star Wars’) to Trump’s Golden Dome, Canada and the U.S. have been reliant on each other for obvious strategic and geographic reasons.

The politics have at times been tough but the continued, successful existence of NORAD is emblematic of the fact that both countries have long understood that we have to work together.

The U.S. State Department, reflecting JFK’s fury with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who refused the nuclear component of the Bomarc missiles, went so far as to put out a statement that undermined ‘Dief’ during the next election that was won by Lester B. Pearson.

Tough politics during a tough time. Foreign interference in Canadian elections isn’t a recent invention.

Pierre Trudeau opposed Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ proposal as counterproductive to global peace and disarmament efforts.

Joe Clark, then Brian Mulroney’s Foreign Affairs minister, tried to hew to a nuanced course, saying that Canada would not take part in the weaponization of space, even as Mulroney tried to maintain close ties with Reagan.

Against that historical backdrop, Carney is facing an entirely new beast in Trump. Carney knows that it matters little whether we agree or not. The U.S. will deploy whatever it wants. He is also keenly aware that we’re on the flight path and that if nuclear ballistic missiles are shot down, they’ll likely be shot down over Canada. The U.S. won’t ask for permission.

There are two main issues for Canada at this stage, one is economic, the other is geopolitical.

Ronald Reagan spent U.S.S.R. into oblivion with ‘Star Wars.’ They simply didn’t have the economic strength to keep pace and it led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This iteration, the Golden Dome, could do the same to the teetering U.S. economy and push it over the edge. Canada has a lot of spending to do in defence to compensate for years of neglect under Justin Trudeau. Do we want those investments to be on a fool’s errand with Trump or on equipment to patrol our coasts, defend the Arctic and protect our interests?

Most importantly, in the tradition of Diefenbaker, Pearson, Trudeau and Mulroney, what is Canada’s role in peacemaking and peacekeeping?

Can we continue to be a respected player on the world stage and avoid the folly of King Trump?

This too will pass. Carney’s balance sheet will of course include his strong suits of economy, finance and public administration. It will also reflect whether he was able to continue to ensure our role as fair and trusted arbiter on grave international questions.

Let’s hope and pray that he gives peace a chance.