[C0LLETTE]

First Canada Tried to Charm Trump. Now It’s Fighting back.
Inside Justin Trudeau’s campaign against the American trade war.
By Guy Lawson
June 9, 2018
…
The optimism Chrystia Freeland (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada) displayed only weeks earlier was now mostly gone. With the United States imposing tariffs and threatening the legally binding Nafta treaty, Freeland believed much larger and more troubling issues had been raised. She was worried that Western nations were forgetting the lessons of history from the 20th century and taking for granted the institutions of a rules-based global order constructed over decades under the leadership of the United States. America’s closest friend and ally and a country that might see America more clearly than it sees itself now offered a dire warning about the perils to liberal democracy in this “fraught” era. Freeland said she had recently come across a “terrifying” quote from Adolf Hitler, explaining his rise to power in Germany in a time of economic uncertainty and grievance. “I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached,” Hitler had said. “Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them. ... I, on the other hand ... reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realized this and followed me.”

She leaned forward, a look of concern in her eyes. “How do you attract voters and public support compared with the flashiness of exciting, chaotic, fact-ignoring populism?” she asked. “The reason Hitler won was because all of the other politicians were giving complicated and difficult explanations about difficult things. Hitler just told people simple things that they wanted to hear.”