The U.S. net national debt has grown steadily to over $30 trillion or 112 % of annual GDP. In comparison, Canada’s net debt is 32% of GDP. Part of the U.S. debt problem is the self-imposed military spend of $820 billion which does as much to inflame military competition as to solve it.
Citizens United is a far-right conservative organization in the United States founded in 1988 that convinced the Reagan administration to eliminate limits on election campaign contributions and opened the door for billionaires and companies to buy their politicians. It was conceived by the Koch brothers, who made a fortune in the fossil fuel industries. The federal government fought that practice in court until in 2010, when the organization won a U.S. Supreme Court case known as Citizens United v. FEC. The Court ruled that corporations and unions could not be prohibited from making independent expenditures in federal elections. It now costs an average of $26 million to elect a U.S. congressman or senator.
As a result, the 813 U.S. billionaires look after themselves very well, but 42 million people (equivalent to the entire population of Canada), or 13% of the people in 21 of 50 U.S. states, are living below the poverty line defined as $26,500 before taxes. Most of those 42 million do not have U.S. employer-paid health insurance that costs an average of $ 23,600 per family per year. Why would Canadians want any part of any of that?
In the 2024 election, Trump promised to continue cutting taxes (for the wealthy) and to improve life for the MAGA class by using tariffs to attract jobs from other countries. However, the benefits of tariffs have been disproven several times in U.S. history, and the trial period is always painful.
Wealthy billionaires and companies continued to buy their Republican politicians, and people close to the poverty line believed Trump would bring them jobs and improve their lives. Republicans won with 1/3rd plus 1.5% of the vote. Democrats got 1/3rd and 1/3rd didn’t vote.
The Trump-Musk strategy is to appoint yes men to key cabinet positions, use Trump’s well-known bullying tactics to disrupt international trade, and use Hitler’s 1939 playbook with a shock and awe blitz of executive orders to disrupt and shrink federal institutions. He issued several daily executive orders to confuse the complex business of international trade and to disrupt the work of 3 million experienced federal employees. He cancelled U.S. participation in the WHO. He says Musk will find billions in waste among the work of 25,000 people working at the Pentagon. Trump, the climate change denier, cancelled U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Accord and plans a mass shutdown of U.S. environmental agencies, even though the southern Republican states are the most vulnerable to the annual billion-dollar extreme weather events.
Will it work? Does he really believe he can conquer the world? This is not Hitler’s 1939. Today, information travels around the world instantly. In just 3 weeks, he has managed to erode the trust and respect of all U.S. allies and international organizations and to embolden U.S. adversaries. His “real estate deal” for Gaza threatens to reignite Middle East conflict and puts U.S. oil supplies from Saudi Arabia at risk. MAGA leader Steve Bannon is already at war with MUSK’s DOGE (Department Of Government Efficiency). The U.S. courts have blocked almost every executive order. He is sure to get serious pushback from experienced career diplomats and military commanders.
My daughter’s small business has already slowed down as customers face economic uncertainty. Friends are racing to buy a car before Trump’s tariffs raise the prices. Canadians, Mexicans, Europeans, and Asians are buying more locally and working to establish more reliable trading partners. On February 10, the Wall Street Journal documented the sharp negative impacts of Trump’s first-term tariffs on US companies.
It’s just a matter of time. No juggler can keep that many balls in the air at one time, especially an overweight 79-year-old who is already looking tired, stressed, and speaking incoherently. And when the balls start to fall, they quickly fall to the ground in mass confusion. U.S. adversaries in Russia, China, and Iran will do their best to take advantage of that situation when it comes.
Hugh Holland
Hugh Holland is a retired engineering and manufacturing executive living in Huntsville, Ontario.
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Graphs like this are probably more ammunition to justify Trump’s massive and stupid cuts. He thinks he can solve the debt to GDP ratio issue over night. I don’t care what he does in the U.S. I am more concerned with what is going on in Canada. According to our government websites our debt to GDP ratio is now up to 42.1 % and growing! 10% of Canadians are living below the poverty line. We will soon probably have an unelected Prime Minister that is endorsed by very rich Canadians. He refuses to abide by conflict of interest guidelines because he is not elected. The liberal’s in the leadership race are talking about how they will handle Trump, so they can deflect from the other very real problems we have in Canada, and why they tanked in the polls. Canada needs to stand united , and the liberals past records show they are not the party to unite Canada. Trudeau may be leaving but he was not alone in the liberal party. Check out the ministers that are supporting Carney. Same s*** different leader.
We continue to refer to the US and Canadian political systems as democracies. That’s a bit of a joke. The word is continually repeated as a ‘feelgood’ thing for the masses – allowing us to think we actually have influence over our lives. We don’t. The reality is that both countries only pay lip service to the concept of democracy. Once in power, these so-called ‘leaders’ follow their own agendas, or rather the agendas of those pulling their strings. The people we elect, our local MPs, never represent us once in office. Instead, they simply do whatever their leader tells them to do. That’s not democracy – that’s dictatorship. Trudeau and his 10 years of lies is a prime example of that. But, whether it’s the Trudeau dictatorship, the Trump dictatorship or the Democratic dictatorship prior to Trump, none of them care what we think once they are in power. They use the illusion of democracy to keep the people from revolting. They want us to keep arguing about which is the better party to support. But until the people wake up, realize how they’re being manipulated by both sides, and force changes to our system of government, all the finger pointing in the world is meaningless.