If you scrape away all the layers of narcissism and bullying and sheer baloney that form most of President Donald Trump's reasons for launching his trade wars with Canada and just about everyone else, you can discern some underlying beliefs about how the world works.
They're very weird beliefs. In fact, his closest ideological counterpart right now is Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea.
Trump's tariff-mania and protectionist attitude comes straight out of the 19th century, and it's wedded to the idea that the United States ought to be totally self-sufficient.
"We don't need their lumber, we have more lumber than they do," he said of Canada recently.
He's said similar things about other resources.
He's also obsessed with bringing back all forms of manufacturing to the U.S.
"We will take other countries' jobs," he said during the election campaign. "We're going to take their factories."
Revitalizing the American manufacturing sector has been a dream on the right and left for ages. During his presidency, Joe Biden made a number of moves designed to boost high-tech and green manufacturing in particular.
But in general, it's been hard. International trade works on the basis of what economists call comparative advantage. That can mean countries with cheaper wages can produce a lot of manufactured goods less expensively. It also means that some areas rich in natural resources, or with useful ports and rail links, can make and export some goods cheaper than anywhere else.
That's why Canada is simply the best source for some things. We just happen to have a lot of potash, and the U.S. doesn't. We can produce aluminum relatively cheaply, because it requires a lot of electricity, and we have hydro power. The B.C. film industry is based on our mild climate, low dollar, and tax incentives. They're all different routes to comparative advantage.
Trump, however, doesn't care. He seems to think America can be totally self-sufficient in all things.
This is called autarky 鈥� and the only country on the planet that still believes in this is North Korea. The idea of radical self-sufficiency is woven into the pseudo-communist ideology of Juche that has governed the Hermit Kingdom for generations.
How's that worked out for them? Well, they've had several dire famines, they have had to rely on international food aid for years at a time, and their search for foreign hard currency has led to them running scams such as .
Also, they're one of the most repressive regimes in the world, which is the only way to keep a lid on things when your quality of life is that bad.
Trump, however, has a secondary strategy: annexation! Grabbing Canada would get him all the potash and aluminum and softwood lumber the U.S. needs. Take over Greenland for its minerals and the Panama Canal to slash shipping costs for U.S. interests, and then, who knows?
Insofar as this amounts to an ideology, it's self-destructive, alienates allies, and ignores reality. It's the impulse of a grasping, greedy child who doesn't want to let anyone else into his treehouse.
