Rabies-infested beavers

0:00Hello listeners, welcome back to geopolitical cousins. Sorry for the brief delay and getting content out. Mostly my fault because I had some stuff that I had to deal with last week, which I will not bore you with. We're back on the train. We devoted the whole episode to Canada because it's that important. You can email me at jgobajaglisrepairer.com, any questions, comments, concerns. I think that's the housekeeping we should be back on track next week for our cadence. Okay, see you out there. We're back at it. And it's not like anything's going on in the world is there cousin? Oh no, it's it's nice and calm. In truth, until the basketball season starts, I do have a lot of a lot of time on my head, although I did enjoy watching some World Cup qualifier highlights. I will tell you that. Well, good for you. Canada, a game in Quebec City was was fire as was Serbian. Those were some fine five basketball watching.

1:05Well, I'm glad you I'm glad you started there though, because we we meant to talk about this last week and people have been writing to us asking about it and you were just in Canada. I would also point out, you know, I took a victory lap on the Venezuelan regime change. I I need to take whatever what is I need to eat some humble pie on my prediction that the USMCA would be renegotiated swimmingly after some mellow drama and you know, soap opera relations between the US and Canada. It's not going that way. I mean, I guess it still could like maybe you're going to tell me that we're at stage seven or whatever of Trump's art of the deal. But sure seems like there's a huge a pretty big rupture in US Canada relations. Mark Carney called his negotiators home. We've got tariffs from the United States on Canada. We've got retaliatory tariffs from Canada against the United States. We've got Mark Carney visiting the EU and people talking about oh, is Canada going to be the next country in EU that there's a lot to break apart. So where do you want to begin with this cousin? Because you are you're you have a dog in this fight. You are Canadian citizens. So how do you feel? I am. Yes, I'm a Canadian national. Now, obviously I'm also a nihilist and can

2:09approach this analytically and dispassionately. I guess we I should also offer to eat the humble pie to eat some crow with you. So I'll put my bib right next to yours because I too thought the President Trump could read polls and could see that Americans don't want a trade war. They wanted one in 2016. They did. He got that right. Hillary Clinton got that wrong. He won. He pursued one. That was popular. Americans according to polls did feel that trade was unfair against them in 2015, 2016. But the irony is that he kind of fixed that the support for globalization rose. The support for trade rose amongst both the Democrats and Republicans, by the way, after 2015, 16, 17 because he delivered what the median voter wanted, which was a trade war against China. And that's now what they wanted last year. So Liberation Day was liberating Americans from

3:13from a yoke they actually enjoyed. But fine, you know, maybe he had a bigger vision that were all idiots. And then that hurt him in the polls, even though I could argue that 10%, you know, tariff, also known as consumption tax, may be a responsible way to tax America a little bit more. So let's leave that aside. But that's like kind of recounting what's happened. And so this year, why have a trade war this year? You've already raised tariffs. They were struck down on the Supreme Court. You found a different way to raise them. So I think for the remaining 10, 20 years, I do believe America will continue to tax imports at basically 10%. I think that's like that's going to be here. Supreme Court will eventually say that they eventually did find a piece of legislation that it does allow them to do that. I think the US bond market demands it. I think American citizens are capable of paying it. It's fine. Other countries have VAT. It's fine. Whatever. You know, let's let's buy goss be bygones by why open the can of worms against America's

4:17Northern neighbor. I think that politically this is not going to work. You know, it's not in any way, shape or form popular. And in fact, it is quite dangerous because exports to Canada as percent of total are really, really large for some very important countries. It's about 40% for Michigan. It's a little bit less for Ohio and Wisconsin. West Virginia is bizarrely super dependent on Canada. And then you've got some countries, some states like Montana, Idaho. I mean, a little less relevant, obviously. The Dakota's where it's like 80%. But Montana, Santa Drase is pretty close. Michigan is like beyond close. Ohio, Sherrod Brown's back, baby. The younger, younger Bernie Sanders, you know, by younger, I'd be like 80s, 70s. These are, you know, West Virginia has flirted with blue dog Democrats before. Like why in peril yourself? Oh, I always up there to pretty high main, main, I believe there's an important Senator racing, Maine. These are all states that

5:23depend on Canada. More than Canada depends on US, by the way. So it is, it is an own goal by the Trump administration. But we don't want to talk about that. We don't want to talk about why necessarily we got this wrong or why Trump got this wrong. I think we want to talk about big picture. Right? Like why is Carney striking back? Is it stupid? Is it a bad idea? And who's going to win the trade war? I think that's, and what does it mean? Right? That's what we want to talk about. I think we have to talk about all of it. I think we can't leave any of it, any of it aside. I mean, where do you want to begin? Well, look, I'm liable to go on a rant that will last a long time because I've thought about this a long time. So I actually want to go. Maybe react. What is a podcast besides having a rant that people want to listen to? This is the whole go for it. So you want me to start? Yeah, go. Please. This is new. This is new and approved, Marco, who doesn't interrupt you. I'm literally interruption here right now. Don't listen to the blog boys on the internet who are

6:26mad. I'm opening the door for you. Jacob, would you like to go first? I find. No, you're the Canadian. You should go first. And then I'll rain you in when it's time to rain you in if you're going in too long. Okay. I think that's fair. All right. So first and foremost, for all the American listeners who think like, well, obviously America wins the trade war, um, those are the words that could have been uttered about American war against Vietnam, about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, about US war in Iran, and a slew of other conflicts. When you have two conflict parties in a conflict diet and you're trying to set up a game theory to figure out who's going to win, you cannot just do a simple order of battle. You cannot simply say, well, you know, Russia has this many tank divisions and Ukraine has this many. A very important, that's one of them. By the way, that is one of the things you have to look at, of course, of course. Like Grenada cannot defeat the United States of America in the short military conflict between

7:28the two countries that no matter how much risk tolerance they may have, but risk tolerance is just as important as material power. And when I shop at HEB in Texas, which is a supermarket, when I go and buy some goods, I don't see little American flags next to everything because apparently America is perfectly fine buying Mexican avocados. Like, you know, there's just no popular support for restructuring global trade. There just isn't. Yeah, I understand Steven Miran wrote the very sophisticated 57 page PDF on this. I understand Scott Besson is now behind this and everyone's tried to articulate to these super complicated reasons why the US should narrow its trade balance. But you know what? I don't see the person on the street of America really giving a shit. Now, this is a fact, guys. I'm sorry, backed by polls and backed by my experience as someone who lives in the US and goes to shop at Walmart, Target. Now go to Canada. In Canada, Canadians are like rabies infested beavers right now on this issue.

8:35Okay. You go to a liquor store and you're like, you guys have some bourbon, you get thrown out. It's called Canadian whiskey. There is no bourbon. Okay, there's no Kentucky bourbon to buy in a Canadian liquor store right now. Not zero. And supermarkets have little Canadian flags like next to Canadian products. This is not government mandated. This is what I'm trying to say to you folks listening. There's no government mandate to like put Canadian flags next to products. Canadian consumers are demanding it. And so when I think about risk tolerance, Canadians have far greater risk tolerance, which in a game theoretical kind of a world really matters. In other words, to simplify for those of you who are not like game theory fans, there's a phrase that we have in the English language for this. It's not the size of the dog into fights that matters. It's the size of the fight in the dog. Right. And so you've only been in Texas for like a couple of months and here we go with the

9:38with the folks the aphorisms. I love it. Hey, man, I absolutely, you know, all had no cattle right here. There you go. There you go. I'll have more thrust to podcast. But I think this is really important to understand because now obviously the counter to this is like, whoa, pump the brakes in this buddy. Like if President Trump were to impose 100% tariff on all Canadian products, like hundreds of thousands of Canadians will lose their job. Tell me then how willing they are to encourage this fight. And my answer will be probably even more. Not forever. But my card, he doesn't have to wait forever, baby. He's two years. Like, what are we talking about here? He just needs to wait out Trump. And he's got an ace. Obviously that I think we need to explain, which is fiscal space. Yes, Canadian debt to GDP is a hundred. So it's not great. Canada's got a lot of debt. But from a deficit perspective, it's about 1.7% GDP. And so what Mark Carchney is

10:39now calculating is like, this is amazing. I get to fight this war. I relish President Trump imposing pain on my voters because then they're going to be pissed. And they're going to be behind a very complicated effort to rebuild Canada's infrastructure, which is what the country woefully needs. And so, and he can dip into the deficit and do so without the market blowing up on him without voters saying you're spending like crazy. No, I'm spending on productive infrastructure, whether it's new pipelines to new markets, whether it's new refineries, whether it's expanding hydro power capability, you know, it's all sorts of things. So I think that this is a calculated gamble by Carnegie to have a war because he has some fiscal space. He would like to use it. He would like to use it in kind of long term positive ways. It's good for Canada. And it solves some of the debates that have been tearing Canada apart. We'll talk about secessionism later. But I'm talking particularly like Alberta has all the energy. British Columbia

11:43doesn't want to transport it anywhere. You know, because climate change and it's like, look, guys, the Chinese are going to just be burned coal. So why not give them natural gas? So those debates I can tell you are dying. I mean, Mark Carney as a prime minister of Canada has been prime minister for a year now. I mean, he hasn't uttered the term climate change. I haven't heard him talk about it at all. And it's not just him, British Columbia, run by the NDP, I believe, the Social Democratic Party has been, you know, like, hey, you know, what's more important in climate change right now? The fact that Americans are engaging in a trade war against us. So it is unifying the country in a direction that is very positive because Canada's biggest problem as a country is that its infrastructure is laughable. And that's because you have 40 million people, the population of Spain spread out over the entire Nordranger hemisphere for God's sake. It's enormous. Or largest, it's the largest land border in the world, which I will come

12:45back to later. But yeah, it's a very thin layer of population across the entire northern. There's one highway. There's highway one. Highway one. Like, to those of you who don't know Canada, no, I'm not joking. There's a highway. It's called Highway one. It goes from Victoria, British Columbia, all the way to the Maritimes. And that's the one highway. That's it. It's one. And by the way, there's parts of it that like are impassable. The border between British Columbia and Alberta. Good like driving highway one into winter. Like, I mean, this is, this is a country that has, you know, like, when you think about things we had to worry about in like the 19th century or early 20th century, like, oh, can we go through the mountain pass? Like those, those words are not really used in America, unless you're going to mammoths to ski. You know, but if you had to go from California to Oregon, you're not worried about whether it's snowed in the mountains. In Canada, you do. There was this one incident when the Canada, one of the bridges collapsed in highway one. And all of the food trucks and materials had to be rerouted through the United States of America

13:47using America's interstate systems. Like, these are not ideal solutions. Canada has an immense amount of infrastructure development, but because it's a super progressive liberal place that's very pleasant to live, it has about as much nimbism, not in my backyard as any other country in the Western world. It's difficult to build dirty, naughty things like refineries. Canada has some incredible resources, like a lead smelter that also refines rare earths, by the way, in trail British Columbia. You know, these things are very difficult to upgrade, very difficult to add capability to because they are dirty. And then, so what you need is Donald Trump to do it. And I think, Karney, this is the reason number one. Most people say he's trying to defeat separatists. He is an idiot. No, no, no. What he's trying to do is this. I've got fiscal space. If I just used it, people would be mad at me. I'm blowing out the deficit. If I used it to advance Canada's ability to develop its natural resources, all the liberal

14:51greenies would be against me. But you know what they hate more than fossil fuels? Donald Trump. And so he's unifying the country around this really important infrastructure development, which I don't think Canada's really done since the Quebec sovereignists build the hydropower capabilities of Quebec back into 70s. Robert Barossa and others, although he wasn't like really a nationalist, he was more just a sovereignist. And so some really good things happen when the government says, no, no, no, we're going to be more sovereign. We're going to kind of release the yoke. So that's my first point. The second point is yes, there are threats of Quebec separatism. Parti, Quebec, what? He's likely going to win the Quebec provincial election. Has been talking about the referendum, which is of course idiotic because the support for Quebec independence is the lowest it's ever been. Good. Keep it that way. And that's why Mark Carney has been using this phrase for those of you who are not Canadian. Metre Chienu,

15:52it's a very important French phrase that the Quebec sovereignists used in their silent revolution against the Anglophones. Metre Chienu means masters of our own house. We're not going to let an Anglophone minority be masters of Quebec. That was the silent revolution. And what's funny to me is how Mark Carney has adopted this. And I had some time in Montreal, I'll ask some of my Quebec friends who you know very in terms of their views on sovereignty. And you know, they're kind of like, yeah, that was pretty good. I hate it. And I don't like the fact that he's doing it. He's accent sucks. But you know, I think this is one of the biggest things because we get and I get the occasion whenever we praise Mark Carney and Mark Carney was our number one on our geopolitical leaderboard early this year when we did our geopolitical draft. And I've gotten a few emails that are like, oh, come on, Mark Carney sucks. I don't like Mark Carney. He's one of these globalists who was just trying to blah, blah, blah, blah. But the polling data just doesn't reflect

16:53that. I mean, there's, I have an Angus read poll that I'm looking at that says that 76% of Canadians said that they support their government ending trade negotiations without an agreement with the United States. And I think I told you on this podcast months ago back in January, I was in Manitoba at a speaking and an agricultural event. This is not Mark Carney land. And I didn't hear a bad word about the man. And this is before Davos. This is before, you know, a lot of the fireworks of the last couple of months. I got to think that that has only increased over time. Now to your point about pain tolerance, I think you're exactly right that it's about, you know, who can stay in the fight longer. And maybe Carney doesn't have to stay in the fight more than two months because if we get to the midterms and the Republicans are going to lose in the Senate big because they've made these mistakes in places like Michigan or Maine or Alaska where suddenly all the polls are looking a lot more delicious. If you get the House and the Senate now making laws about what's going to happen or, you know, restricting the ability of the executive to do these things with tariffs, I think that's going to be a bad thing. But to your point, it's nice that today there is 76%

17:55support for Carney. I don't think we should put too fine a point on just how devastating this will be for the Canadian economy in the short one, in the short run. If we get a real escalatory trade war, I mean, the United States is by far Canada's largest trade partner. I had the data right in front of me. 73% of Canadian exports went to the United States to your point about infrastructure. It's not just highways. All of the export infrastructure points to the south. It's to get things across the border into the United States. I'm absurdly high. I think it's close to 98% of Canadian oil exports. Go to the United States because that's where the infrastructure goes. Oh, this is going. This is important. Hold on. You can get to it in a second. I'm just going to say it's going to manifest as a serious growth shock for Canada for Canada over the next couple of years. And it's not just about Carney being able to use fiscal space. He's also alluded to this where he wants Canadian pension funds to invest in Canada. And he wants Canada, Canada's the second largest source of FDI in the United States. He wants all of that investment to come back to Canada and build Canada up. And if he can do

18:56that in five years, he'll be in the hall of fame of our geopolitical draft leadership board. He's doing something that's really hard. It's going to be less impactful from the Osama growth perspective. But I just I really want to emphasize something you said about whatever number the terrorist or percentage of the terrorist end at the Trump administration is raising taxes on the American consumer by doing this. And so what is going to be a growth shock in Canada is going to be a consumer price shock in the United States. And I think you're right that probably the average American citizen gets angrier at this administration before the Canadians get mad at Carney even though the Canadians are going to bear a lot more of the brunt of the pain here in the short run. But if we're playing devil's advocate, I would just point to a you gov poll that came out just earlier this week that showed that now 38% of Republicans view Canada as unfriendly or an enemy of the United States. That number is historically around 5%. Democrats are at 8%. The Republicans have gone

19:58from that 5% 10% range to 38% just over the past two to three years. So don't discount how how much this top down Trumpism propaganda machine can create a movement in the base that actually wants these things. And I would just go back to you know, Weber's definition of charisma is the capacity to get people to vote for things that are not in their self interest. If he can pump up those numbers a little bit more, maybe we're talking about Trump's wizardry and charisma and he'll outlast Carney. But okay, go go where you wanted to go with the oil export infrastructure. No, actually, I want to I want to react to everything you're saying because it's very important. So let's leave the US long term Canada sentiment for for the end because we have to spend like 30 minutes on that. And that's critical and I'm glad you brought that poll. So first of all, 70% of Canadian exports go to the US. You're correct. But 70% of that is impossible to tariff.

20:59Like like the United States of America can put a 400% tariff on Canadian oil. They're going to buy so the impact on Canada's GDP is I don't know Marco. We then as way was now really the first state or whatever it is or eventually maybe you know, eventually yes, you correct maybe in which case, of course, this oil will get out via British Columbia or via Hudson Bay as the world warms up and Alberta will get its oil to the market. It's not going to be stranded forever. But like the point is when when media sites to figure the Canada lives off of America, it's important to understand that Americans are not like out there buying Canadian like, I don't know, consumer electronics. They're mostly buying stuff that Americans have to buy from Canada because it's things that go into their engines and their factories and their homes as electricity. So 70% of Canada's exports to the US are hydro power from Quebec. Like Northeast cannot live without that.

22:03It's natural gas a little bit of it and then mainly oil. So that's why the impact to Canadian GDP Jacob is going to be incredibly smaller than the worst gear scenario. But the 30% of Canadian exports that are not energy, lots of human beings work on those jobs. Yes, the current impact just to be clear, President Trump although his rhetoric towards Canada has gone really mean, he did only tariff in this latest tariff 20% of, no 5% of Canadian exports. 5% of Canadian exports have been touched with the additional tariff. So in a way, Mark Carney, I know Mark Carney has a bigger plan because he's making mounds over more hills. Yes, I know. I mean, you have said this continually on the podcast and I think I think you were dead on, I mean, Mark Carney will be sending Donald Trump a thank you card and a Christmas card at the end of the year because or allowing him to do this because there is no other

23:06universe in which somebody like Mark Carney gets to even attempt something like this, let alone have it look realistic to two analysts like you and me. Now the Canadian government has leaked to the press that Howard Lutnik added all sorts of conditions like French language has to be subverted in some of the regulatory rules, cultural things like things that impacts Canadian sovereignty like America will have a veto of a Canadian free trade negotiations. Like those are ludicrous, but I almost think that like maybe Canada is lying. Well, I mean, to steal to steal a phrase from you, let's double click on that for a second because I'm glad you brought that up as well because I have no trouble believing that Howard Lutnik came in the last minute. I agree. It's crazy shit. I'm sure he did. Also, like they wouldn't let that scuttle the negotiation if they thought they were on good terms. They would be able to push through that. But based on what I've been able to figure out, the one, you know, there's a lot of smoke there. The place where there is fire is Canada's future relationship with other countries in terms of trade and especially China. And it seems like the United States was pushing for some kind of

24:11veto on Canadian trade with China. And then also was not willing to make ironclad commitments about its trade relationship with Canada that it was going to be a moving target and that the Trump administration was going to decide how, you know, based on how things were going, maybe we'll reduce some tariffs or we'll do some things here. And that is a really serious, like there's no way that Canada is going to accept that. That's also, you can imagine, and this is the rejoinder you get from folks who think that the Trump administration has a plan here, which is, well, of course, if this is going to be the North American free trade arena and market, then Canada is not allowed to trade with China. And the United States is overwhelmingly the dominant military economic power in this relationship. So of course, the United States should have this power. And Canada's going to learn the hard way that eventually it's going to have to do what Mexico has done, which is you want terror, how high do you want tariffs on Mexico on China? Great. Like we'll do it 50% or whatever it is that the Mexican government has raised. And I think it's an interesting rejoinder to what we're

25:11talking about. It's the one that's most compelling. I think it goes back to the pain tolerance thing. I think even if you grant that the Trump administration is thinking that strategically, for the record, I don't, but I'm engaging the opposite side of the argument, but let's grant that it is tactically, it's a mistake because it goes back to what we're talking about. Karin, he's going to take that and say, okay, I'm going to build Canadian infrastructure. And I'm going to figure out how to trade with China. And I'm going to figure out how to trade with you all because you treated me this way. And if you look at the broad swath of Canadian US history, like the periods in which the US and Canada had good relations were not the periods where the United States was threatening Canada. Those were, those periods didn't end well for the United States. The war of 1812 being the first one that I would think of. The periods that went well were when the United States was nice and said, hey, we have mutual interests. Maybe we should have NORAD and maybe we should have intelligent sharing. And maybe we should have free trade. And then the Canadians to your point there, the rabies goes away. They're just really nice beavers who just want to trade across the border. It don't want to have to build

26:13all this infrastructure because it's much harder and much more expensive to do so. So yeah, and you don't want Canada necessarily developing infrastructure if you're the US because that infrastructure will move those commodities out of the US. That's the whole point of what you're doing. A couple of things that you said. So when I say Canadians are lying, I'm kind of joking. I have no idea. But the point is it almost doesn't matter what Howard Lutnik said. The fact of the matter is that Mark Carney made a big deal out of tariffs on 5% of Canadian experts. Huge deal. He said he said war with America. And that just smells like he's got bigger plans and he's using this American administration. Daring them to put even greater tariffs on Canada. Because again, he has time on his size and he has fiscal space in the near term. But a couple of things you said that I want to react to. First of all, the maple eight. What is the maple eight? Those are the Canadian pension funds, which are some of the world's largest pension funds. I'm just going to rattle a few of them. Canada, pension plan investment board. It is the pension plan for

27:17basically the government of Canada. About 800 billion AUM, cast a depot, a plus more on the Quebec. This is the sovereign wealth fund of Quebec. By half a trillion. PSP, which is the pension fund for the public sector. 300 billion. British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, 300 billion Ontario teachers, 300 billion. Alberta Investment Management Corporation, the sovereign wealth fund of the petrol state that is Alberta, 200 billion. Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, Omers, 150 and then Healthcare of Ontario, whoop, 130. Together, we're talking something close to two trillion dollars. Mark Carney is very right. Other countries have done the same thing. Australia has asked the future fund of Australia throughout the history to help with infrastructure development. There's nothing wrong with that. But I would not be hyperbolic about it. It doesn't mean that these pension funds

28:19are going to pull their investment from the US. But yeah, they're going to trim it. They're going to increase allocation. They can easily help finance a massive infrastructure development plan in Canada. This is not some... By the way, they'll get some return. This is not going to be wasted. They may not get as much of a return if they had invested in Silicon Valley venture, although I would disagree. I think that some would be interested. Canada is an incredibly wealthy country. Maybe the debt to GDP profile doesn't inspire confidence because it's at around 100%. But the low deficit combined with the firepower of Canada's extremely sophisticated, sovereign, wealth, fund, and pension fund system would actually make Mark Carney's vision possible. He just needs an enemy to do it with. So, yeah, I think that's an important point that you raised. Now, we might as well shift to the other stuff, which is this point of like US-Canada relationship, where is it headed? I think that Canada... Now, this is where I'm going to

29:25lose a lot of our listeners, but this is what I do. I'm just going to say what I think. Canada has no threats. China and Russia cannot... Canada cannot be invaded. It is impossible to invade Canada. This is an impossibility. We'll leave the US aside for a second. Russia cannot invade Canada. Like, functionally, it is impossible to do because you would have to use the Northern routes to do that. Anyone who's driven to Yukon or Northwestern territories knows that there are no roads. These are logging roads. You cannot militarily invade Canada. China... Come on, China has been invaded Taiwan yet. Like, it's going to invade Canada shut up. So, this is impossible. So, let me break down some figures for you. Canada is currently planning to purchase 88 F-35 fighters. F-35 is a fifth-generation stealth fighter designed to fight fucking aliens. Aliens. It is completely and utterly useless for Canada. And anyone who thinks the

30:30Mark Carnie is going hard in the paint, hard in the paint would be telling America to go fuck itself. Because that's a $75 billion cost over the life of the program, which by the way, if you're doing math, is about 3.5% of Canadian GDP. You want to offset the pain of American tariffs? How about canceling the F-35 deal tomorrow and getting something more reasonable, such as the GRIPIN produced by Swedish SAB, which number one is created for Nordic cold climates. Number two was designed by Sweden to fight the guerrilla air campaign against the Soviet Union. What that means is that GRIPIN has an incredibly short takeoff and landing profile, which is perfect for Canada. You can land it anywhere in Canada as long as there's a patch of a road. And you can maintain it in a forest tent. Swedes always try to go camping and shit in their volvos.

31:34F-35 is a ludicrous airplane for Canada. It's ludicrous. It's like if I bought a Lamborghini, not the SUV, but a two-seater, I have three kids. My wife would divorce me instantly. It's like, what are you doing? It is ludicrous. And so anybody in America who says what Canada is free riding on our defense, that's not true. Canada has no defense needs. Its defense needs are 0% of GDP. In a perfect, set-to-risp Arabus world, where all things are equal, Canada should be spending 0% on defense. The only feasible geographical threat against Canada is America. That is the only country that could invade Canada. And because of disparity in population and capability, it would be ludicrous to try to spend money on defending yourself against America, because it's impossible. It's impossible. You cannot defend against an American invasion. You have to subvert that invasion in other ways, like a general strike, like refusing to work,

32:38like appealing to the fact that these are two brothers from the same mother, as the border monument in Vancouver says. So, what's America going to enslave Canada? Okay, I guess you're fascist now. So there's no point in spending a dime, every single cent that Canada has spent since World War II. And it World War II, Canada had a reason to spend on defense, because it was helping United Kingdom prevent an invasion of Canada eventually. But the point is that other than World Wars, Canada should be spending 0% on defense. It cannot fight against its obvious threat, which is the US, and it has no other threats. And so when President Trump and the Republicans say that Canada is, you know, like not doing enough, that is mathematically, geopolitically, absolute horseshit, that is just not true. Every cent of Canadian defense is American defense. Canada is writing checks for American defense, because there is no Canadian defense. Canada is backdoor. This is also where Mark Carnegie did the thing about

33:42French and everything else. But it's actually, you know, you probably saw, I think it was Sean Duffy who said this, you know, different folks in the administration saying that Canada doesn't have an army and hasn't fought with the United States and all these other different things. I mean, Canadian soldiers, more Canadian soldiers per capita died in World War II than American soldiers per half. What about Afghanistan? I'm sorry, what about Afghanistan? I mean, like there have been plenty of conflicts where Canadian soldiers have been dying right. They weren't kind of hard. Soldiers? Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan went, they were like, where do you want us? We want you on the front line. Fuck it. Let's go. Whereas the German and the other NATO countries and find, you know, whatever, I'm not criticizing Europeans, but they kind of stayed guarding the air bases in Kabul. The Canadians went to the front line in Afghanistan. Now, the fact that Canada hasn't gone and helped Trump in the Persian Gulf or straight to Fremuse or, you know, Iraq, Canada was against invasion of Iraq. I mean, it does happen. It happens. But like, by and large, Canada has been one of the closest to mayor. Like besides just the dollars and cents of it,

34:45I mean, Canadians, soldiers have lost their lives in defense of and in pursuit of American geopolitical objectives aside from Norad and aside from protecting American airspace and everything else in the Cold War. And I think one of the biggest mistakes that the Trump administration is not just keeping this at the trade level because Mark Carney doesn't have to do anything to do what you're saying when people say things like that about Canadian soldiers. I just think it cuts a little bit too close. And by the way, I would just point out based on what you said. I mean, first of all, Carney put the F-35 purchase program under review last year. And probably there'll be an announcement in the coming months about what that's going to look like. I would, I mean, I think that he will probably pull out of it. I think that they've committed to a certain number up front, but I don't think that they will go there. And there's a piece in the Globe and Mail today about Gryppin's sob selling Gryppin's to Canada in the future and negotiations that are going back and forth. If Canada needs to your point, like probably still makes sense for them to have an air force that can deal with, you know, Russian incursions or Chinese incursions or protect Canadian airspace,

35:49but you don't have to go to the United States for that. There's no reason that that military industrial complex has to link you to that. And in fact, I mean, there's a huge cottage industry of jobs and investment that goes into Canadian firms doing this. But this is another thing that Canada could do itself if it wanted to. Ten years from now, are we talking about Canada manufacturing its own fighter jets? It could. But I mean, Canada is one of the few countries that has the capability Quebec has an air defense industry. You know, Bombardier could whip up a fighter jet. It would suck. I mean, don't get me wrong. But, you know, it's so funny to me when you when you speak with Americans, including government, they're like, well, that sucks. It's like, yeah, but we are not fighting Iran half a world way. You are. So you need an F-35. But countries like Slovakia or Sweden or Canada, they need something that's, you know, fit for them. And a grip in is much more fit for F-35. Now, I don't want to make this about grip in versus F-35. Let's leave that aside. The nuance that I'm trying to make here is that Canada doesn't owe America anything. And what I mean

36:50by that is that America has to defend Canada. It is its national prerogative. It's its national interest. That there's no way that United States of America can be safe if it's not defending the airspace and the landmass above it. Like that's, and of course, that comes with some subversion of sovereignty for a small country like Canada. Like Canada has to allow the United States of America to have norad presence on its territory. Like America has to have radar installations in Canada. Fine. Like that's, you know, there's certain things Canada and the US have to cooperate, for example, or who's entering Canada and out. Like there was this plan for like a joint outward immigration system or not immigration, but like at least border. Like all those things are subversions of Canadian sovereignty that make sense. However, I do want to go back to this more qualitative point, which is is in the long term US the threat to Canada. And I would say that

37:51Donald Trump is not. I think Donald Trump is transactional, he's sensational, he's hyperbolic, he's running a game show, God bless him. It's obviously creating a lot of vol for my clients. And just keep doing it, Donnie, like it's awesome. And for us, I mean, I've been, I've been, I've been, I mean, do you think we're going to get as much interest as geopolitical analysts when Donald Trump is not creating new geopolitical crises every single week? There is a small part of me that understands that, you know, he's got the shotgun. We've got the briefcase like we're all in the game here, you know, we're all in the game. Okay. The problem is what you said, which is that he is opening, he is widening the goal posts on certain things that are acceptable to say. And I'll tell you a lot of my friends, forget clients, but just friends, you know, like friends, you know, people you know have come up to me, really smart, educated, just don't think about these things often, but like the question they have posed and I'm saying this for the benefit of Canadian listeners. You know, anyone in Canada who thinks that Karni's going too hard, that this is dangerous, just hear me out for the next five minutes. There are people that come to my life really well

38:55meaning good people might be conservative, might be liberal, but like educated who say, but why is Canada independent? But they do have a lot of natural resources. But we will have a water problem in America and they do seem to have a lot of fresh water. But Quebec does produce a lot of hydropower. So the line of questioning, thanks to Donald Trump has now gone from brothers from the same mother as again, as the monument over in Blaine, Washington, border crossing says. Beautiful monument. It's a huge arch. If you've never been there, drive from Seattle to Vancouver, stop by the park at the border. It's a huge like Charles-Élysée gate, but there's no gate, they're open, right? The gates are permanently open. It's one of the, it gives you goosebumps right away. It's a really, really profound, beautiful monument to these two countries that share so much of history, culture, values. Well, that sentiment is gone and the new sentiment that's in is transactional.

39:59Like, wait a minute, but like, are we really going to let 40 million people in Canada kind of decide what price we pay for their natural resources in this world where China and Russia, like shouldn't we assume control? And so I do think that from Canada's perspective, it is very clear that the US is a long-term threat to its sovereignty. It's not China, it's not Russia. It just isn't. They're too far. There's too much ice between them. And so it's obviously the country that you're hugging a locked aborder. Like, 95% of your population lives within 100 miles of the US. Like, what do you, and of course, that's the threat. I also just want to flip the sentiment and shifting. Just, so just to line the plane, if the sentiment in the US is shifting from like brothers of a different mother, kind of quirky Canadians make great comics, you know, like, you know, lumberjack, played shirts, cool maple syrup. If it goes from that, towards like, what, but I mean, they do have a lot of stuff we need, right?

41:03If that cognitive shift has been planted in our friends Jacob, well educated, well meaning, you know, just like, if there's, if their first reaction is not like, come on man, it's fucking Canada. Leave them alone. If that's not their first, if their first reaction is but, but, you know, if that's their reaction, then absolutely the 40 million Canadians above the border, they got to start getting real about where this ends 20, 30 years from now. Yeah, first, first I'm looking at a picture of the thing that you're talking about. It's a brethren dwelling together in unity, although maybe they should erase that and put brothers from a different mother. I think yours has another one. It does say brothers from a different mother on a different, oh it does, on a different, yeah, I'm not. There's different descriptions. There's different descriptions at the monument. Yeah. But I would just, well, there's a couple things I want to say. The first is, so for those people that you know who are coming to you saying, well, but they have something that we want, I just,

42:05and I'm not going to be pejorative about this. Like, it's neither good nor bad. I'm just saying, that is imperialism in a nutshell. You have something I want. I am strong enough to take it. I will take it. That's, if you want one definite, one sentence definition of imperialism, that is it. And President Trump, and I've said this before, his foreign policy is not unprecedented. His foreign policy is straight out of the early 1900s. He is a US imperialist. He wants to seize assets and territory and things for the United States because he thinks of the United States as an empire and he is the emperor and everything should be controlled by the United States. So, you know, I think imperialism is not the best way to run things. Just from a, do you want your policy to be effective? I don't think that's an effective way for the US to run policy, but that's what it is. I would also just say though, you know, yes, no Russia is not going to invade Canada. China is not going to invade Canada. You know, who else is not going to invade North America? Like, or I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. What I'm trying to say is that neither are they going to invade the United States. The United States is not going to, like Los Angeles is not going to be invaded by the people's

43:09liberation marine commandos. The Russia, the Wagner group is not going to land in Brooklyn and fight its way up into Manhattan and seize New York. It's a good script. We should write that up. We should. Yeah, no, we should. The greatest geopolitical threat for America's history, for the first 164 years of its existence was Canada. And the United States and Canada, you know, of course, Canada was still a British possession at this point, fought the war of 1812 over this. There were some folks who said, I Canada has some nice things and also they can threaten us. We should go get them. And then the White House was burning in Washington at the end of that conflict. And that is why Canada is independent because we tried this once before and we got our butts kicked. Now, we're much more powerful than we were then. I just want to point out that as late as 1935, the US Defense Department is putting together strategic plans and war games about Canada because they are worried about Canada's first existential geopolitical threat to the United States. And it is only in 1940 and 1941 when World War II, you know, the tide changes. Britain,

44:09Britain's future hangs in the balance as Britain even going to survive the Nazi onslaught that the Canadians and the Americans look at each other and say, you know what, we have to be allies. We have more in common than we do with Imperial Japan or with Nazi Germany. And that gets extended in 1948 with the five eyes. It gets extended in 58 with setting up NORAD. This is not where the United States was strong, Army Canada were saying, you must do this. It was, we're looking out at the world. We have shared interests. We have shared culture. We want to be aligned together because that is what is going to make Canada and the United States more secure. And it allows us something that both Russia and China and any other US rival doesn't have, which is we no longer have to worry about this border. The longest land border in the world, neither country has had to worry about since 1940 because we're friends. So yes, you're right. If sentiments are changing that way in the United States, the Canadians need to get real. But if we push the Canadians away from us, if they move just, and I don't mean they move to enemies, if they just go from allies to, you know, pragmatism,

45:11middle of the road on some things they align with us on some things they don't suddenly that border become something that we have to worry about. And all this money we're spending on F-35s and projecting power into the Middle East and everything else that's in the South China Sea, that goes away because now you're the, you know, the homeland is not secure, is not safe. It is a basic geopolitical imperative that the United States has solved in being friendly with Canada. And it never achieved what it wanted to with force or with trade wars. It achieved it by saying, hey, Canada, it's easier for you to make a bunch of money by sending the things that you have to us and we'll make it nice and we'll be friendly and we'll visit each other and we'll have these peace arches and everything else. And let's go do that rather than fight each other. And it's just, it's as disastrous for US geopolitics in the long run, I think as it is for Canadian geopolitics. Well, that's a great point. First of all, you're describing the concept, the underpinning the board game that's what you're describing. The reason you want to secure a continent is to get those extra

46:14armies every term. That's what America gets. Not just that, but Canada pays for those armies. And that's my point. Like spending three and a half percent GDP over the next 10 years on shitty airplanes. Sorry, my bad. Greatest airplanes ever made that Canada does not fucking need is a side of Canada's already paying for this defense. So in risk, you collect those extra armies because you don't have to worry about Canada. Now, somebody listening to this is what would we worry about Canada? Well, if you invade the country, the size of Canada that hates it, that you think belongs to your culture and will welcome you with open arms. You're starting to become delusional like Vladimir Putin. Yes, who also speaks a similar language? Okay, you create in Russia and are much more different than Canadian English and American English. But like, yeah, no, Canadians are not going to become Americans. They don't want to. And this is my point from the beginning of this podcast. Like when you go to Canada, people are pissed. Go to Canada,

47:16go to Canada, go to Canada, go to vacation, ask them what they think. Rent a car in Spokane, Washington, and drive up to British Columbia and see what happens to that car if it has American license plates. By the way, now actually what happened to me when I did that is I just got an two notes on my windscreen that were very mean. But they didn't even key the car, which was like the most Canadian thing ever. But they are going to blow that car up if it's a tank. Like, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Canada will have an insurgency. It will have strikes. It will have pockets. Like Canada is built by blue collar people. Canada is a commodity extract in country. Its history is all about blue collar trades, you know, moving into cities and becoming like Yappis who wear little lemon and drink lattes for sure. But Canada is a country that has a proud military history and invasion of Canada is just going to be annoying. They'll be sabotage. They'll be this, they'll be that. It's not just not going to work. Not to mention the contemplating some form of a military invasion of Canada is a sign of a civil war in America because America would have to

48:21become something it is not. It would have to become a country comfortable with unsheluse. And that's a fascist regime because America cannot democratically annex Canada. It would have to have it would have to give Canadians a choice. And if the Canadian is accepted a choice and actually in a referendum voted to join America, you would have to appropriately give them seats in various legislatures, both the House and the Senate. And the Senate being the key problem because other than Alberta. And I'm going to just entertain American conservative fantasy that Albertans are actually fucking conservative. Because if you poll Albertans on a slew of social issues, they poll like Oregon. So if you're an American Republican listening to this or a MAGA accolade thinking like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's a conservative Canada. Brother, it's conservative the way like Tom Tillis is conservative. Okay. So if Canada was ever going to be

49:24digested democratically, you would invariably change America at that point. So if you are in the MAGA camp, you cannot let that happen. You have to enslave Canadians instead. So we're talking fantasy at this point. We're throwing worlds like Ashloos, we're throwing worlds like an invasion, you know, that's that would be disastrous for the United States of America because now it's permanently stationed in hundreds of thousands of troops. It's subverting Canadian democratic expression. Like what are we talking about here? If we are at that point, Jacob, we're at a point where the United States already had a civil war between like like a like a Spanish style civil war between like conservatives and you know, left and right. And I don't think it's going to get that far, but this is where I start to because I've been trying to entertain the devil's advocate point of view. And there are, I've had people write to me and say, hey, but this is all a broader strategy about fortress America and the North American free trade agreement and the Trump administration

50:26is using its leverage because Canada has to fall in line. And like, like, those people are just not smart. Yeah, well, I mean, they are. It's sort of like that person, it's sort of like that person who comes to you and says, well, they have something we want. Are we going to take it? There's that first. There's second, it betrays a really fast-cil reading of what North American geopolitics looks like. You're just assuming that Canada is going to do whatever the United States want for more than the majority for more than 50% of the history of the American Republic. Canada didn't do whatever the United States wanted. The last, you know, since 1940 has been a really, really nice time. There's a huge peace dividend that we've gotten because we have made the Canadians our brothers. They weren't our brothers. I would say it's not even the peace dividend. It's an actual monetary dividend. Paying 75 billion fucking dollars for fighter jets that have no utility. None for Canada. Zero. You can use a fucking Cessna to do what you ask. What? And you can fly Cessna over

51:32the Northwestern territories and like, you know, monitor Chinese in Russian submarines. The point is that's an example of not something that happened after World War II and I obviously appreciate your example. Or like what happened after 9-11. It's something that's happened right now, right? Well sorry, anyways, I'm just interrupting. No, I don't know. Everybody take a shot. No, no, no, you're good. The last point I just wanted to say is, even if you give the Trump administration the benefit of the debt. And I've been trying to do so because I'm more like, I think this is stupid on its face. So I've been trying to entertain it as, okay, well, what are the real reasons behind this? And the place I end is, you know, all of this, everything that we've talked about up until now, I think it's true. I think it's an interesting conversation. But the real issue here is that what the United States is doing will not work. It is not going to achieve any objective for the United States. And in fact, it is going to do the exact opposite. And at a certain point, it doesn't matter what your strategy is. It doesn't matter what the national security document does. It doesn't matter if Scott Bessent has good intentions. And it doesn't matter

52:35of Donald Trump is some, you know, extraterrestrial genius who has come here to save the United States. If your tactics don't work, who cares what your strategy is? Who cares what your goal is? Because you're not going to be able to get from point A to point B. And this, a trade war with Canada, at this point in the physical cycle, at this point with what you're doing in foreign policy, with everything else that is a raid in front of you, I'm sorry, it's not going to work. And it's going to be counterproductive in the end. So fine, I'll grant all the strategic arguments to those who want to back up the Trump administration. The argument that the Trump administration has to make is, okay, what's your plan here? Like, you think this is going to work? This is not Mexico. They are not just going to say, cool. Like, we'll do whatever you say and move forward. I think it's very similar to Greenland. People who defend Greenland. And President Trump's, like, listen, if you're listening to this and you're just, you know, passingly listen to geopolitics, I'm sorry to be demeaning, but that you just don't understand how the world works. Like, US already has everything it wants from Greenland. This is why the Danes were so confounded.

53:36Like, you want to expand military-basis in Greenland. God bless you, man, if I can do it. Similar with Canada, US already gets everything it wants. Canada's infrastructural stillbornness. Canada is a stillborn sovereign state. You understand what I'm saying? It is. Yeah, I mean, it is. In some sense, it was a colony of the British and then it became a de facto colony of the Americans. They never had a revolution. And I've been joking. I wrote in a little thing to my clients this week. I said, you know what, it took 250 years, but perhaps Donald Trump has brought the American revolution to Ottawa. Like, that might be his biggest legacy here in terms of Canadian history. The revolution is nigh, you know? Caught liver oil. I said it on this podcast before, but listen, Canada is one of the only countries in the world. I may be wrong. I think it's the only one where the provinces of Canada, the political entities, don't have free trade with one another. Why? Because they don't need to. Because they have trade with America. Do you know how great of a deal this is for the United States of America? Like, we're back in Ontario

54:40have more trade barriers than like they do with America, effectively. Not really. But in some ways, they have some like, there's no free trade. There's no infrastructure connecting them. All of a burdens by planes go south. So what are you talking about? And then finally, not you, but like, the people who think that there's something to gain, all there is is to lose. America will lose what Jacob has articulated as this not giving a fuck about the North so that you can go and invade countries around the world. Like, it's sick. It's sick. It's a great deal. We don't have to worry about the neighbor upstairs because it's like a nice lady that make me maple syrup, fucking cake pancakes. So that's great. Number one, number two, this is a country that pays for your defense. It's not the other way around. They would think that is a moron. There are no threats to Canada. There are many threats to America. Every fucking cent of Canadian tax dollars that goes towards defense, goes towards American defense. So this is an incredible deal. And what Trump

55:42has done is he's subverted that. He's subverted it at a cost that could potentially become disastrous 10, 20, 30 years from now. If Americans suddenly start changing their their vibes towards the Northern neighbor and actually start making the Northern neighbor think about maybe consolidating alliances outside of the US. Now a couple of things I want to point. Oh, can I just say one thing on that? I think it's also instructive that this is not just Canada. There's a similar thing happening here, I think, with Japan. And it's not as on and South Korea. And it's not as much on people's minds because it's not as much of a visceral issue and because they're not in the USMCA. But Japan and South Korea are going through the same thing. And they are jumping through the hoops because they don't want a disruptive end of trade or they don't want to trade where with the United States in the short term. But Takaichi and her government have said it over the past month or two. They are also trying to repatriate Japanese capital to Japan. So one of the reasons I'm so confused, it's got best in making the end, something that he wants to deal with because Japan has stated very clearly that Japanese pension funds should invest in Japan again, rather than Japanese capital going out on the mean of the

56:47financial system and everything else. By the way, Jacob, Jacob, just why is all this happening? Why? Is because you messed around and found out, you fucked around and found out. So this idea, you know, like Stephen Miran and Scott Besant almost like preemptively said, hey, don't sell treasures. Okay, fine. Cool. Then maintain the relationships that have underpinned current account recycling into you, current account surplus recycling into American debt. Like, you know, it's not like Japan woke up one day and was like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to be dicks to Americans or the Canada did the same. Nobody did that. It's when America's like, I don't know, close the streets of her moves without thinking about its allies. Starts the word. There's no out of finish it. Is mean putting tariffs, disindead, saying that Canada is the 51st state. That's when these countries are going to stole. So here's where I want to land this. My advice to Mark Carney, first and foremost, one thing I disagree with him is that he wants to invest in Merit and Canadian defense. I think that Canadian defense needs to be on the

57:52table as a negotiating tactic. And I think Mark Carney has to alter the words that are the truth. Every cent of Canadian taxes that is spent in defense is goes towards securing United States of America. And that needs to be a bargaining chip. So I would bargain with a percent of GDP spent in defense. And I would flip the script. Now I understand that he wants to spend on defense because as you said, Jacob, you're articulated well, Canada does have an industry. Canada does have a military industry. So jobs program. But I would tie this towards the reality. Like Canada has no threats. None. I mean, if you want to participate in peacekeeping, then you can buy, check, armed personnel carriers, quite frankly. It doesn't have to build them itself. So that's the first issue. I think he needs to be a lot more aggressive. And the F-35 deal has to be chopped right away. Like there should be like, it's done. They have to contract

58:54actually, I think by 18 of them, you were correct. But much, much more, there needs to be a much more strategic. Why? Why? Because he will then get the US defense department involved. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The Department of War. Department of War. I know. I think that some methromisveld has other things on this mind. But I know we're not talking about what's his name? Peak Hexet. Peak Hexet. I'm talking about generals. I'm talking about people who have gone to war with Canadians and who understand. They're, they're, they're, he's getting rid of generals who disagree with him. I mean, it's becoming an echo chamber at the top. So maybe, maybe you're right, and maybe you won't work. But there's people in the national security of the United States of America who understand what I'm saying. They understand that this notion that America Defense Canada is a fucking laughable propaganda of the United States America. So this needs to go from like, you know, a battle over super market grocery aisles to a to to to speaking to America realistically.

59:55Okay. And in an adult way, like brother, we are defending you. We're spending our money on you already. Quite frankly, one and a half percent of GDP is too fucking much. So so if you want this relationship to continue, what Canada has to land on is something that you are basically saying. It's fuck you, pay me. That's what all these countries eventually are going to turn around to the US and say, oh, you want to put all these barriers in this and this and this. And you still want me to recycle my surplus into as FDI or as portfolio investments into bonds. Fuck you, pay me. And this is why this is so important, Jacob. And why I can't believe we took a 60 minutes to land to this. The world of states, he's like a school yard. Okay. And there's a big bully in his Donald Trump. And he's going around and saying, like, I'm going to increase the lunch money you owe me. And everyone fell in line. China's like the weird kid, you know, it's like good at fucking math,

1:00:57you know, and said, fuck you know, and America's like, fine, whatever. You can go play with him. Nobody wants to, you know, no, what happens is China gives its lunch money to Mexico and says, will you give that to him over there and we're also. But whatever, like China's kind of like a really big kid, but also, you know, I'll just like, whatever, like you don't want to fuck with China, but also it's weird. So America is okay not getting the lunch money from them, but it's bullying everyone else. And the problem in a school yard is that there's a collective action dilemma. Like if all the nerds and weird kids got together, they could be the shit out of the bully. Like be the fucking shit out of him. But it takes somebody to stand the fuck up. And it's the weird kid with kind of a weird French accent that stood up and is telling Trump, you know what? Fuck you, baby. No, no. No, I agree with that. And I was just, there was a pause for effect. Sorry, sorry, I thought it was, I thought it was a pause to hand. I'm a test being. Let me test being. I got a test being. I don't know if that's a verb. I don't know.

1:02:04I've just just listened to danger of forced caught, bestsons and how are you like Nick and all these guys is that South Korea is watching. The Japan is watching. Saudi Arabia is watching. Apparently, the Norwegian pension fund is fucking watching. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, they're fucking watching. Huh? Was that interesting this morning? Hmm? How'd you like that shit? Yeah, we're going to go down. Everyone's watching. And if they all come together, you fucked. Because they might be nerds, they might be weird, they might not have F 35s, you know, they may not have died enough in Afghanistan, Iraq. But if they all fucking get together and say, fuck you pay me, now you're going to end up with a worse deal than you had before you got elected. Disappearantly deal that Stephen Miran wrote about how the rest of the world is effectively like raping America. Like that was a pretty good fucking deal. They got current to concert pulses. They invested in treasuries. And listen, last year, everybody kind of said, fine, yeah, 10% Terry. Hey, brother, I hear you. You know what? You probably should

1:03:05tear it a little bit, you know? Everyone was cool. But now, now you're still going to the same well, expecting the same more tax. You're going to tax that well a little bit more. You already took more lunch money from the rest of the world in 2025 and they took it. They took it. Now you're asking for more. Now you're in danger and you're in danger because little Canada stood up in the middle of the school yard and said, fuck you. And the bully's like, wait, what? And is that seen in every fucking movie we've watched all those movies when the one kid stands up to the bully? You know, and you know, this is Biff America's Biff from back of the future guys. And you're going to be fucking washing Michael G Fox's car 20 years later. If you don't understand how actually epically dangerous this moment is to the United States of America right now. This is this is it. There needs to be a deal with Canada and a better be a fucking deal that makes Canadians, you know, swim in their maple syrup for the rest of their lifetime because now they've tasted what have

1:04:08they tasted? They've tasted the fear and the limits of American power. So this is a fuck you pay me moment now. And if the rest of the world gets on the strain, suddenly there's collective action collective action, not collective action dilemma. And this was always the premise of the United States strategist. They even said it. The world has a collective action problem. It cannot bind together and negotiate against us. So we'll pick them off one by one. Yeah, until one country that is extremely value adjacent tells you to go fuck yourself. Well, you think South Korea is not going to do that? Like no, we can handle North by ourselves. And by the way, you just said Kim Drungun is better than we are. So fuck you, baby. Japan, as you said, a lot of other countries. And by the way, there's no better example of multiple arid in this. By the way, the fact that the United States asked Canada to put a veto on its trade agreements and Canada said no, you know what the US had during the Cold War? It had a veto. We can't have the trade relationships. If Canada made a deal with the Soviet Union, the US would have abrogated that. So it is a very,

1:05:13very dangerous moment. I think that I gave the Trump administration a lot of credit for managing to raise some revenue through tariffs. Hey, again, 2025, not a disaster. But now they're flirting with a revolt because they're taking too much lunch money from the nerd friends. Yeah, well, and the way I want to close it, it's not just fear that the Canadians are tasting. I think they're tasting revolution and nationalism and freedom and sovereignty and all these things that they really haven't tasted before because they haven't had to. But to your point, I mean, the United States, you know, it's asserting itself in Mexico. It's asserting itself in Venezuela. It's going to be buddies with El Salvador and control central America. But it's basically limiting its power to its backyard. It's going to be a little imperial power in North America. And if you're going to do that, the most important country to have relations with is Canada. That is the country that you need to secure so that you can continue to do all these things. If you're breaking those relations with Canada, it's going to be very difficult for US geopolitics. And the question I wanted to end with

1:06:14you on, because this is out there in the media. And I know that Karni has been going back and forth. I mean, yes, there's a version of this that is Canadian, nationalism, revolution, blah, blah, blah. There's also a version of this, which is Canada part of the EU in 10 years. I don't think that's a crazy idea to consider. Remember Canada for most of its history was a British colony. So why not Canada rejoining Europe? And Canada has lots of things that Europe needs, Europe has lots of things that Canada needs. They've been left at the altar by the United States. But if they ignore the United States, then they can make better deals with China and better deals with Russia and some of these other places that they have to deal with. Do you think it's completely unrealistic? Because I look at it right now and it's like the odds are increasing with each passing day. It makes an awful lot of sense for Canada to do that, not least because it's going to blunt some of the negative consequences of a true trade spat with the United States. I mean, I don't think the US is stupid. So if the US continues down the path of just basically becoming something other than

1:07:19Western liberal democracy, then yes, then that might happen. But what you're describing is a world in which there's a civil war in the US, maybe not with guns, but effectively. And in many ways it is. I mean, one of the things that distinguishes US and Canada in this conflict is that a social democratic premier of British Columbia gave it EB and Premier Ford, who is definitely conservative. He's not liberal. You know, the guy who has a lot of real estate on his ass. A lot of real estate. A lot of real estate. I love that quote. So you've got super left wing climate conscious, progressive liberal governor or Premier and Ford, who's conservative and populist. They're both back in Carnegie. That's not happening in America. Going back to the point that Canadians are clearly like, you know, like, so yeah, I think that there is sort of a like, Canada represents something to Americans as well. And for a lot of MAGA of people, the problem they have with Canada

1:08:22really is values, I would say. I think a lot of this talk of math, like, oh, they don't pay enough or they tear off us or Quebec dairy farmers or, you know, whatever, singing French songs, whatever the fuck bullshit. I think fundamentally it's like, look, there's this progressive liberal place up north that has like healthcare and it's universal. And it doesn't work that great in every province, but somehow Canadians live longer than Americans. So, you know, all of that just urges them and they need to get over it. The MAGA company needs to get over what Canada is because it is an ally of America first and foremost. And if they don't, if American adherence to the America first ideology can't get over the fact that they have a great ally who yes, like socialized medicine, then they've got a problem with their own fellow citizens in America. Like, that's why this conflict is so epic. It's epic because Canada could stand up to the bully and then solve the

1:09:27collective action dilemma. If Scott Bess is listening to this and I know members of the Treasury are, please explain this. This is a very important moment. You either now have to squash this, kid. And if you don't, like, holy shit what's going to happen? So, that's the number one. And you can't squash it because they're rabid and they're ready for war. So, that's the first. The second thing is that if you can't just let it be with an ally who's a little bit different, you're setting yourself up for a civil war inside of America because if Canada is a problem because it's different, there are parts of America that are different. And that is the other issue because I actually don't think the math and geography and the geopolitical explanations are the reason that this fight is happening. It's a value driven fight. And that's why what I would say is this is a very epic issue. And it's epic issue not because what's going to happen to Canada or America trade. It's an epic issue because of what's going to happen to the Western Alliance structure and what's going to happen domestically in America. Like, why not just let Canadians be Canadians like fuck it, whatever.

1:10:30Like, they're good allies. Like, they leave them be, make a deal with them, shut the fuck up and let them spend three and a half percent of their GDP on stupid fighter jets. They don't eat. Like, that seems to me like a great deal for America. Now, one last thing I will say is I've been quoting the the peace arch inscriptions incorrectly. Brothers of a different mother makes no sense. So, there's three inscriptions and I want to end on this at least for me. I mean, obviously, we can talk more. But my last point is like, I want everyone to listen to these. Okay. Because this is what really explains the security that you Jacob have talked about. American Canada resolved their differences, which they've had for 160 years. And it's been incredibly beneficial to both. And then they built a peace arch. And the peace arch has three inscriptions on it. There's three. The most famous one is on the Canadian side and it's referencing Psalm 133 from the Bible.

1:11:33Brethren dwelling together in unity. On the American side is the inscription, children of a common mother, which obviously makes more sense than the way I remembered it. The mother means, of course. Yeah. And then inside the arch, and this is the one that really gives your goosebumps. May these gates never be closed. You know, and they're being closed right now. They're being closed. And that is, you know, it's bad for Canada for sure. But it's extremely bad for America. Yeah. I think what I would close on is just that, because you know, you talked about civil war inside the United States, not with guns, but you know, tearing at the social fabric of the United States. But I think also in the midterms, I mean, I assume that you, Gov. Paul gave me some pause. But you referenced it. And I think from a US domestic political perspective, this is also really important. Because if you get a, a, a blue wave that is not just the house, but is also the

1:12:36Senate. And if the Republicans are losing five, six, seven Senate seats in places like Michigan, in places like Maine, because of what's happening here, it looks less like a civil war. And more like you're just gif wrapping the next four to eight years to the Democrats with hefty majorities. And if Canada can get Mexico to play ball here at all, and now the border states start having to deal with this because the United States is also being pretty heavy handed with Mexico. I mean, you could imagine how much more serious that's going to get. And just, I mean, get ready, get ready for the left if they continue to push on this. And if you start seeing that shift in those border states, and maybe it's not civil war, maybe it's just, hey, this mega populism thing, it'll be like the Tea Party. It was a last gasp until it was steamrolled by somebody from the other side. And so don't worry so much about the other things. Worry about, you know, tariffs or taxes and, you know, income taxes and everything else that the left one's fun or also taxes. So it's going to look a little bit different, but you are just rolling out the red carpet for the left. And I don't know if the left is smart enough to walk through the door. Like, maybe

1:13:38the left will look at this and maybe they'll get all anti-Canadian. I have no idea. But I just don't think from a domestic political perspective in the borders, in the border states that rely on Canadian trade, you're just, it's a death knell for the Republicans. You won't get elected there for multiple cycles if this happens. I mean, I think at this point that's, that's also my view. You know, 28 is done deal. I mean, I'm open to be. November. I don't even look. I'm not even looking at November of this year. That's, I think, Polymarket has it at 51 percent. Democratic sweep. I laugh at that forecast. It is like 95 percent. I think it's 55 percent, 60 percent Democratic sweep again in 28. That is what we should actually be focusing on. I don't think Canada is that big of a deal for that. I think that's almost going to have for sure happen. But where I maybe would not challenge you, but just add to

1:14:39what you're saying is like, when you say, well, maybe the market thing was like the tea party. Well, I don't think that will be proven correct. I mean, I think there's going to be a return, you know, and that's fine. You know, that's fine. Like, you want the pendulum to swing back and forth. The problem is when it's swinging like uncontrollably. And that's, that's where America needs to kind of land the plane just to use my favorite analogy for the 17 time. It needs to really figure out what is it that our sacred cause. I love the energy that comes from the market camp on this idea that there, you know, you have to kind of examine every sacred cow. Why do we have to have a Bretton wood system? Why do we have to have publicization? Why do we have to have support for Saudi Arabia in the Middle East? Like, find an examinant. But some cows are sacred because they underpin the greatness of America. So not everything that the American elites did in the 50s and 60s. By

1:15:40the way, American elites from the 50s and 60s that all fought in the fucking war. So, you know, if you're 20 something, you know, national security advisor in the White House, and the only war you fought was like your bigger brother over the fucking PlayStation controller, like pump the brakes and being a fucking geopolitical genius. The people in the 50s and 60s and 70s were not morons. Okay, the infrastructure America created after World War II did not somehow enslave America to the globalized elites. It was done for American national interests. And so there are certain sacred cows that probably should be left alone. One of them being the inscriptions I just read off of the peace arch. Well, and to your point, like eventually the pendulum will swing is Canada still there when the pendulum does swing. And in two years when a US president calls up Mark Harney, whoever is premier and says, Hey, can we, can we walk this back? That was a fever dream. Like, we had an issue here. Can we go back to the way things were before? I don't know. Does he

1:16:40say, yes, that sounds good? Or does he say, we're way too far down this road? Y'all had your chance. Like, we are preparing for, it's nice that you guys are saying nice things now. But two years ago, you were saying mean things. And I have to prepare for the possibility that two years hence, people will be saying mean things again. So no, we can negotiate. We can talk about these things. The price will be higher because that will be the fuck you pay me moment. The second thing is, there is going to be irreversible damage. How? Because infrastructure is kind of irreversible. I mean, the Canada is not going to rip up a pipeline and goes to the Pacific. They could have taken crude to the US. So there's going to be ways in which what's happening now is permanent. But I will say this. So all the countries on the planet that are going to say, hey, you know, I get it. That was a midlife crisis. You came back home. I still love you. It will be the country with those inscriptions on the peace arch. The problem for America is more like what happens with the South Korea, the Japan, the Saudi Arabia, the Poland's, the Sweden's. The countries that have been

1:17:42ardent American allies around the world. So, you know, like, Canada will come back, obviously. It's in its interest, obviously. Like, it's a country that, you know, shares the border with the US. It's great to go to vacation. Canada's fucking called in March, bro. You know, there's only so many people who can like fit into Victoria, British Columbia to huddle around like so. So, so good. Five air height. So they can go to Spain or Portugal or Greece. Or Caribbean. I'm not sure. Like, Europe's near. Like Canada has a close relationship. Has been closer with Europe. It's further closer with the United States. I mean, we'll find so we'll start doing the concord again. Like, we have planes that can do this, this trip fast. Like, I mean, oh, I don't know. Listen, I can look through, a little cruise through Greenland. Like, have a little cruise through the Greenland and down. But that's great. You know, this is where I will modify my hardcore realism and focus on materiality. I mean, I, I concede to the culture matters. And I don't think that Canada will say no to an embrace of the US two years from now. The problem is,

1:18:44it's going to be at a higher cost for the US. That's what I'm saying. You know, like, hey, listen, I know where we're asked, holes. Can we, can we renegotiate the F 35 deal? So that would be interesting. It's like, yes, but you pay for half of it. You know, we're going to get, you know, like, F 35's half price. Like, fuck yeah, let's go. You know, or more to the point, all of it will be the manufacturer, like you will manufacture X amount of it in Canada with made in Canada, like products and you'll help build the factories and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, like, that's, that's it. But I don't think Canada, Jacob will ever say no, which is, which goes back to the whole point of why this is stupid. This is a great deal. America's winning in this deal. Canada's infrastructure has been still born because Canadians have been too complacent and lazy because they've had access to America's markets. And so it is just nonsensical, you know, like to do this in the first place. All right. Well, I love that I love that we close on the Nile,

1:19:45saying, may these gates never close. So I don't think we can do better than that. Anything else you want to tell the listeners before we get out of here, cousin? No, that's it. I think this was great. All right. I know I know listeners, I know you want to hear about Kauai and I know you want to hear about Mark Walter and the Lakers. We will get there. But Canada was more important. So we will got this one first and we'll, we'll get back on the horse next week. Hey, by the way, can I, can I just say one thing if I can complain to two topics? Of course, please. Nothing tells more how America is getting a better side of this deal. And should therefore just be thankful for nice Canadians than the fact that they managed to shove Kauai Leonard back to Toronto. And all my, all my friends who are Toronto Raptors fans back in Canada, by the way, they're all drinking the Kool-Aid Jacob. They've all drank it. They're like, but, but, but, but, but, you know, if he plays, he's a top 10. I'm like, guys, he missed three regular seasons worth of games in the last seven. This is the worst deal I've seen since Lucodonchich. It's so stupid. And yet there you

1:20:48go, the nice Canadians taking Kauai Leonard back. You know, it's just so that unless, unless the NBA vetoes the deal, I mean, that's still potentially possible. No, I think they're going to let it go because, you know, it would be unfair to Toronto because they're apparently the Toronto Raptors are so stupid. They think this is a good deal and they want Kauai. So, anyways, my point to you is like, if you want a nice analogy that closes everything in a metaphor, Canada is the Toronto Raptors. America is the LA Clippers and they were naughty and kind of like illegal and assholes. And now they're shoving this like trade down Canada's throat. It could be as they're like sick. This is amazing. No, it's not. That's terrible. I got to tweak the metaphor just a bit. The US is not the Clippers in this metaphor. The US is Uncle Dennis. They wanted money for free. And you know, the Gravy Traveller's book I for a long time. Who's Pablo? He's China. He's China. He's

1:21:51manipulating the algorithm of TikTok to reveal he's certain truth that gets everything unraveled. You know, kind of like all the data center gates. They might be Chinese probably. Yeah, you could say you could say Pablo's a Chinese or a Russian bot, except that it's all true. Like he has the receipts. He didn't like it's not. He's the upsteed list. He's the upsteed list. Yeah, he's the yeah, there you go. He's I mean, it's real. He's you know, yeah, it's good stuff. We will get that. We have a lot more. Don't get us canceled. Oh, please, I've been trying to get us canceled. It would be great for our careers of if one of us got canceled. I'm willing to follow my store. Please cancel me. Although I have something to get to us to tell you about that after I turn the mic off. But okay, we'll leave it there.