EXPERT ADVISORY – November 6, 2024 – R0134

The United States, under newly elected president Donald Trump, will have “a direct lever to hold the Canadian economy hostage to its demands” in mandated upcoming trade renegotiations, according to Blayne Haggart.

But the Brock University Associate Professor of Political Science says that Trump’s re-election poses challenges far beyond managing trade relationships and the future of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement.

He calls it “an existential threat” to Canada’s economy and to Canadian society more broadly.

“To be blunt, the fundamental assumptions that have served as the foundations for Canada-U.S. relations — commitment to a rules-based order, human rights and mutual self-restraint — no longer hold,” says Haggart. “We can expect a much more transactional approach to Canada-U.S. politics, with the United States reserving to itself the right to reverse any decision at any time.”

What Haggart sees as a clear shift toward authoritarianism in the U.S. poses “an unprecedented challenge to Canada’s liberal democracy.”

“We’ve never had an authoritarian government on our borders before,” he says. “While government officials are putting forward a calm face, the reality is that the country is not prepared for the next four years, and likely longer.”

For Haggart, another key area of concern is digital regulation in spheres like social media and cryptocurrency, where the president-elect has business interests.

“On social media regulation, Elon Musk’s tanking of Twitter/X for Trump shows that Canada is extremely vulnerable to the U.S. social media and tech companies that dominate our information ecosystem,” says Haggart, co-author of The New Knowledge: Information, Data and the Remaking of Global Power. “It strongly suggests that Canada’s response — via the Online Streaming Act, theOnline News Act and the proposed Online Safety Act — is wholly inadequate to the challenges we now face, and that we need to seriously think about how to make these platforms operate in the interests of Canadians, not of their billionaire U.S. owners.”

Brock University Associate Professor of Political Science Blayne Haggart is available for media interviews on this topic.

For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

*Sarah Ackles, Communications Specialist, Brock University sackles@brocku.ca or 289-241-5483

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