Canadians have spent the past few days doing something we’re particularly good at: arguing with each other.
Who blew the trade deal? Was it Mark Carney? Did Canada ask for too much? Should we have taken whatever was on the table? Should Carney have walked away?
Those are legitimate questions, and Canadians should be asking them. Yet while many of us are bickering among ourselves, something interesting is happening on the other side of the border.
A lot of Americans appear to be standing with us.
I’ve heard it in conversations with American friends who are as frustrated and bewildered by what’s happening between our countries as many Canadians are. They don’t see Canada as the enemy, they don’t understand why their government is picking this fight, and they’re worried about what it’s doing to a relationship that has worked remarkably well for generations.
Anthony Scaramucci is one of those voices.
For Canadians who don’t know the name, Scaramucci is an American financier and political figure who served briefly as White House communications director during Donald Trump’s first administration. His infamous 11-day tenure earned him a place in American political folklore, but his connections to Trump and Republican politics run much deeper. He later became a prominent Trump critic.
This week, Scaramucci and British journalist Katty Kay devoted a significant part of their podcast, The Rest Is Politics: US, to Canada and the collapse of the trade negotiations.
Scaramucci’s account is fascinating because he says he’s getting information from people still inside the administration, and what he describes sounds remarkably similar to what Carney has been telling Canadians.
According to Scaramucci, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer had a deal. Then Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick became involved and pushed additional demands, including changes involving steel and Canada’s bilingual labelling requirements.
Scaramucci describes Greer’s position rather simply: “We already have the deal.”
Then the Americans changed it.
That caught my attention because Lutnick has already appeared to be a problem in these negotiations. Carney has said Canada was prepared to complete an agreement before the American position changed late in the process. Now we have a former Trump insider describing essentially the same thing from the American side.
Scaramucci also points to Greer’s appearance on CNBC after the negotiations collapsed. Greer said Canada wanted “more.” Scaramucci’s question was obvious: more what?
He says Greer never really answered it.
Carney, meanwhile, has been much more specific about the demands Canada says changed and the reasons his government decided it couldn’t accept them. That doesn’t prove every part of Carney’s account, but it does lend some support to his version of events.
Scaramucci describes something else Carney has repeatedly hinted at: an American negotiating team that wasn’t unified. His account has Greer believing there was a deal, Lutnick subsequently intervening and Trump apparently not immediately understanding exactly what had happened.
Carney made a point during his press conference of saying the Canadian team was unified. Asked specifically about Lutnick, he smiled and largely left the answer there.
Perhaps we have a little more context for that smile now.
None of this requires Canadians to become Mark Carney fanboys. He’s the prime minister and should be held accountable for the decisions his government makes. We should know what Canada offered, what changed, what we refused and why walking away was considered preferable to signing.
We should also be careful about turning our frustration with the Trump administration into frustration with Americans.
Scaramucci makes that distinction himself. He says he loves his country and wants it to succeed economically. He simply doesn’t want to see it bullying its allies, and he describes the current approach as unnecessary and economically illogical.
Many Americans seem to feel the same way.
Just as Americans sometimes misunderstand Canada, Canadians can misunderstand America. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. He isn’t the United States.
While some Canadians are busy blaming other Canadians for this mess, there are Americans looking north and wondering why their government is doing this to us in the first place.
Anthony Scaramucci happens to be one of them.
He also happens to know Donald Trump.