New Tactics for Old Neighbors

Scott Gilmore gets it mostly right in his piece "Trade sanctions against America won't work. Sanctioning Trump himself might. Instead of taxing American goods, Canada and the western allies should collectively pressure the only pain point that matters to this President: his family and their assets"

source: cbc.ca

Gilmore recounts the many above board efforts by traditional U.S. allies France, Germany, and Canada which failed (and subjected their leaders to varying amounts of humiliation in typical Trumpian style.)

He points to Ukraine, China, and Qatar who know how to work with Trump with sweetheart financial deals for his family, and asserts that " the western allies understand that if we want the U.S. to do something we must negotiate with the man himself. What we have not grasped yet is, as strange as it sounds, the President of the United States is more concerned about promoting his interests than defending America’s."

Actually, I would argue that the western allies are not so stupid. They all surely recognize, as do most Americans, that Trump cares almost exclusively only about himself and, to a lesser degree, because he knows he is mortal, his immediate family. However, western allies have felt compelled to try traditional means as a first attempt, because resorting to measures likely to be effective against Trump requires a dramatic departure from normal behavior.

And Gilmore correctly says that a Magnitsky Act type of response is required. Makes sense. When he are confronted with an oligarch, hit him in the only place he cares about.

The author continues "Canada’s Special Economic Measures Act and the Foreign Corrupt Officials Act permit us to sanction public officials who are 'complicit in ordering, controlling or otherwise directing acts of corruption'. In the case of Trump, we already have several open examples of this and the various ongoing criminal investigations (of his own government) are expected to produce many more."

So far so good. Then, where does Gilmore fall short? It's in his own self doubt about this modest proposal, by saying "I recognize this column has the stench of bad satire about it. I am sane enough to know this proposal does not sound sane."

No. No. No. No. No. Reporters and columnists - Please stop doubting yourself when you are right. Trump has spent a lifetime turning such self doubt and normal behavior by adversaries (and unless you are part of the inner circle of family and fixers, you are an adversary) to his personal advantage by responding with deeply antisocial behavior.

One problem is that the self doubt is a contributing factor that makes the author stop there with his proposal. Since we are recognizing the power of the personal - What if Canada started to slow walk border crossings by U.S. citizens to and from Canada. This would have an immediate negative impact on corporate travel by white collar Americans, and affluent tourists,  as opposed to the delayed and less direct impact of tariffs. We saw how upset Americans were with the Muslim travel ban at the start of the Trump regime. Imagine how upset corporate America would be with this. Sure, they are happy with the corporate tax cut and the personal tax cut on high incomes, but this could shake some of the complacency around the erroneous view that the problem of Trump is one of style, when it is really a matter of substance.