With Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress following American voters’ strong pushback against United States President Donald Trump’s policies, MPs and Senators from Canada should reach out to their Washington counterparts to make a case for a bilateral free trade deal to help make life more affordable for Americans, say politicos.
“There’s a lot of newly elected Democrats in border states—Maine, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota—who have real promise,” said former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy in an interview with The Hill Times.
“They’ve become kind of political stars. It would be really important for Canada to start developing good connections with them and seeing what their agenda is.”
Axworthy said newly elected Michigan Democratic Senator Abdul El-Sayed frequently talks about providing free, universal health care to all Americans as one of his top priorities. To start a relationship with the Senator from a border state, Canadian officials and parliamentarians should reach out to him and offer this country’s experience of providing free health care to Canadians, he said.
The state of Michigan and southern Ontario are the hub of the automotive sector, which has been heavily tariffed by Trump and is a key bone of contention in the trade war between the two countries.
Former Liberal MP Wayne Easter, pictured, says the Carney government should provide all the support it can to members of the Canada-U.S. Inter-parliamentary Group to make a case to their counterparts in Washington D.C., for a better trade deal with Canada. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew MeadeIn an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe show, El-Sayed mentioned ending the trade war with Canada as one of his top-three priorities.
“The first three things we have to do is end this [Iran] war. We need a war powers resolution that brings war-making capacity back to Congress,” said El-Sayed on Nov. 5. “Number 2, ending this tariff regime and war against Canada, but Number 3, stopping the nuclear bomb that’s about to go off in our health-care system with Medicaid cuts.”
In the Nov. 3 midterm elections, the Republicans lost control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Most pundits described it as a “bluenami,” and an “ass-kicking” of Trump’s policies including the Iran war, high cost of living, and the role of tariffs in making it worse, among others. As of Nov. 6, the Democrats had 54 seats in the Senate and the Republicans had 44 seats, with counts still ongoing in two seats. In the House of Representatives election, the Democrats had won 253 seats and the Republicans won 157 seats. There were a number of other seats where the vote-counting was still ongoing.
Former Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who was once chair of the Canada-U.S. Inter-parliamentary Group, said now that the midterm elections are over, the government should provide all the support it can to encourage MPs and Senators in the group to go to Washington, D.C., and other regions of the U.S. to meet with new members of both chambers of Congress and state governors to make the case for greater co-operation between the two countries and highlight the mutual benefits of strengthening their trade relationship. He said that new members from both the U.S. House and Senate can play a critical role in putting pressure on the White House to fix its policy on Canada-U.S. trade relations. Easter said Canada was an indirect factor in the outcome of the midterm elections because Trump’s incendiary attacks and unjustified tariffs contributed to the cost-of-living issues.
“Now that this election is over, the Prime Minister’s Office, Parliament, cabinet ministers should be highly supportive of the Canada-U.S. IPG members of all parties spending a serious amount of time in Washington talking with these new members, getting to know these new members, getting them to understand us because there’s a lot of people that are coming in there [who] have never travelled to Canada, don’t know much about the rest of the world. Now is a real opportunity for the Canada-US IPG team to play a major role in Canada-U.S. relationships, setting the stage for after January when these people come in,” Easter told The Hill Times.
Easter said that the change in which party controls Congress means Canada is in a better place as compared to prior to the election, but that Trump’s executive branch can still do a lot of things in terms of the trade relationship between the two countries.
Nik Nanos, chief data scientist for Nanos Research, said that following last week’s midterm results, it’s clear that cost of living has emerged as a top issue for American voters. Nanos said Canada should make a case to the U.S. administration that a free trade agreement with the U.S. could help alleviate the high cost of living.
“Maybe to engage in a discussion on how a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States can help average people manage the cost of living,” said Nanos. “And for that to be the discussion point to create political licence in Canada, but also political licence in the United States, because I think what’s clear is that being a good neighbour and being an important customer has not created enough political licence, at least in the Trump administration, to have a high level of urgency to have a deal.”
But Nanos said the Canadian side will have to come up with solutions on two key issues. He said if the Democrats want to have a free trade agreement with Canada, the president might oppose it because it could be seen as losing control. Another complicating factor on the U.S. side, he said, is the presence of conflicting and competing viewpoints within the president’s inner circle and his administration of what the trade relationship between Canada and the U.S. should look like.
Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy says Canadian parliamentarians should reach out to their counterparts in border states and see how their agendas could align with each other to help improve the relationship between the two countries. Photograph courtesy of Lloyd Axworthy
“Both the Democrats and the Republicans are going to look at what are the strategies or what can be done to help manage the cost of living, and for that to be the opportunity for Canada to maybe have a different type of conversation with the administration.”
Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, said it’s too early to predict how Trump will react to the midterm election results and what the newly elected members of the House of Representatives and Senate will do when they officially assume control of the Congress.
Bricker said that people have seen Trump react when he’s a winner, but not in the current scenario when his party has lost both legislative chambers and he’s still in charge of the executive branch. At the same time, it remains to be seen how the new Senators and members of the House of Representatives interpret what their mandate is. Bricker pointed out that the Democrats have historically been more protectionist than the Republicans.
“We’ve seen Donald Trump triumphant, but we haven’t seen him bowed, and this is an instance in which he is obviously quite bowed by what happened,” said Bricker. “We haven’t really seen that before. We’re about to see what that’s going to be like over the next two years and how Canada fits into that.”
Trump can block any legislation initiated in the Congress with his veto powers, but the presidential veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, which the Democrats do not have even after winning the midterm elections. Meanwhile, Trump told Politico on Nov. 3 that he’s willing to work with the Democrats and said he doesn’t “want to sit there for two years vetoing everything.” However, he later posted a picture on social media of a red baseball hat emblazoned with the word “VETO” in bold lettering.
Greg Lyle, president of innovative Research, said that because of the checks and balances system in the U.S. political system, Trump will be constrained on a number of things for which he will be dependent on approval from the Congress. If Canada can get some allies in the U.S. Congress, they can make the president do things on the trade front that he would not do ordinarily.
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As an example, if Trump wants Senate approval for any of his top appointments, Senators could use that leverage to make a deal on trade issues, making their support dependent on his willingness to address their demands. Lyle also pointed to the newly elected El-Sayed from Michigan as a potential ally for Canada and could work with Canada on automotive sector issues.
“[Trump is] really in a bit of a bind now, like to get any cabinet appointments through, he has to get them through the Senate,” said Lyle. “The Senate will be in a position to extract deals from him [on] trade, legislation, or policy actions. So, it’s a new world in the United States, and that potentially can be good for us.”
Roy Norton, a former diplomat, said the president and his team appear to be in the process of analyzing the election results and what they mean for future strategy. He said it remains to be seen whether the administration makes any change to tariff policy going forward. If they don’t, it could mean even worse results in the 2028 presidential and congressional elections.
Norton said the congressional Democrats may try to initiate some legislative measures to retake control of tariffs, especially those which are contributing more to the cost of living for American people.
“I think we will see more congressional activity on this front, and that will be helpful to us,” said Norton. “Not because they’re acting in Canada’s interests, but because they’re acting in the interests of American citizens, and they have a recent reminder in the context of the Nov. 3 elections of the fact that Americans are now paying attention, are alert, and care about the burdens that they’re having to bear as a result of President Trump’s tariffs.”
arana@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times
