America First Is Not a Passing Phase Prime Minister Mark Carney appears to be betting that America First is a temporary departure from the economic order Canada once knew. I respectfully disagree. The tone in Washington may change under a new administration. Canada should not assume the underlying policies will change with it. The mistake is to confuse Donald Trump’s political style with the durability of his economic agenda. A successor can reject his rhetoric while retaining the emphasis on domestic production, investment and American economic interests. Canada cannot afford to build its strategy around the expectation that those priorities will disappear when Trump leaves office. Nor should we confuse a more diplomatic president with a renewed American embrace of globalization. Friendlier language does not necessarily mean more open markets. Washington can be warmer toward its allies while remaining determined to bring investment, manufacturing and supply chains home. Carney himself has supplied the right warning: “Nostalgia is not a strategy.” Yet treating America First as a passing episode risks precisely the nostalgia he cautions against, the belief that Canada can wait out an uncomfortable administration and then resume business as usual. John F. Kennedy offered a useful warning in a 1963 speech in Frankfurt: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” His subject was Atlantic partnership, not economic nationalism, but the warning against looking backward fits Canada’s predicament. Canada must recognize the structural changes underway in the United States and adjust accordingly. Accepting that reality does not mean endorsing every American policy. It means recognizing that our economic strategy must respond to the America that exists, not the one we would prefer. Yes, Canada needs access to the American market. That is precisely why we must strengthen our own position: attract investment, expand productive capacity, remove domestic barriers and make ourselves a more competitive and more valuable, economic partner. The question is not whether the next president will sound like Trump. It is how much of his economic agenda will survive him. Canada should prepare for continuity rather than count on restoration. Nostalgia is not a strategy. Neither is hope. Carney brushes back Trump on trade, Europe and Russia via @politico