Virtually every week, Donald Trump appears to start a major new conflict or war at home or abroad and the world’s liberals, myself included, fear that Armageddon is nigh and American democracy is imploding.
In the past week alone, Trump has proclaimed an all-out trade war against Canada, hitherto one of America’s closest allies, while at the same time launching “economic D-Day” against Iran. This latter blockade, which he describes as unparalleled in history, could spark immediate conflict with China and Russia, as well as intensifying the world’s energy crisis.
In reality, neither of these latest conflicts is remotely as big as billed by the US president. They are part of the pattern of half-wars which have become the hallmark of Trump’s second term, seriously destabilising the US and its international relations, without triggering a complete collapse of the established order.
Let’s start with Canada. From the rhetoric between Trump and Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, and from much of the media coverage of the past week, you would think that the totality of Canada-US trade had been sabotaged by the latest tariffs, and that this was the prelude to a cold war in all but name between the two countries. In reality, the highest-value US imports from Canada aren’t affected at all. This is because strategically huge and vital energy sectors have been excluded, precisely because they are huge and vital. The US depends heavily on Canadian crude oil and natural gas, and Trump explicitly left both out of last week’s 50 per cent tariff escalation.
Beyond energy, the pre-existing free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada also continues to apply to most trade between these countries. Leaving aside headline-grabbing arguments about alcohol and hockey sticks, Trump’s key target in this trade war is the car industry, with his longstanding refrain that manufacturers should relocate production from Canada in favour of the US.
This is a key industrial strategy issue, but it is a limited, not general, conflict. Of course, Trump’s “51st state” bluster is deeply insulting to Canada, and his economic bullying might well end up inflicting a fair amount of harm. But the essential sovereignty and prosperity of Canada aren’t presently at stake. Nor its essentially peaceful coexistence with the US, even under Trump.
After nearly two years of Trump 2.0, the Canadian half-war conforms to a pattern of the US bullying erstwhile allies in an attempt to secure financial or strategic benefits without completely undermining existing alliances. Sometimes it has worked (Europe is paying more for its US protection); sometimes it hasn’t (Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t surrendered to Vladimir Putin’s demands), but the worst forebodings of liberal internationalists, that Trump’s so-called foreign policy will lead to major global disorder, haven’t been realised.
It has been a similar story at home. Trump’s rhetoric of all-out war on existing US regimes for migration, elections, universities and all things green and woke, has turned into a series of half-wars with more limited objectives, some of which are faring better than others. For all the foreboding to the contrary, November’s upcoming midterm elections look set to be as free and fair as previous ones, and Trump is on course to lose them badly.
Even the US Supreme Court, with its highly partisan Republican majority, has stopped short of becoming a rubber stamp for the president. The Court has significantly curbed some of his attempted measures, such as the assault on birthright citizenship.
Trump’s conflict with Iran is on a wholly different plane, however. This major and protracted military engagement has destabilised world trade and radicalised the regime it was intended to destroy.
But for all the Trumpian threats of escalation, there has been no ground invasion, either directly or by proxy, and therefore nothing approaching the political angst and frenzy—and pressure on international allies—associated with America’s all-out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, let alone Vietnam. It is classic Trump that the “D-Day” he has just announced is nothing of the kind. It is largely non-military and even the supposedly blanket economic sanctions on China, India and other traders with Iran don’t take immediate effect and aren’t specific.
The metaphor of the half-war extends also to the Washington ecosystem under Trump 2.0. Trump’s own rhetoric, and the effusions of lap dogs such as Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller, are shockingly uncouth and frequently violent. But with the stark exception of the January 6th insurrection, there hasn’t been appreciable real violence against political opponents, and even the rhetoric isn’t notably worse than the postwar frenzy of anti-communism, the civil rights and Vietnam protests of the 1960s, or the pro and anti-Nixon vitriol of the 1970s. See? There are still reasons for a liberal to be cheerful.
