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The percentage of Canadians with a favorable view of the U.S. is now very similar to the percentage with a favorable view of China [both are very low].

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Canadians’ shifting opinion maps onto rhetoric from key government figures. Industry Minister Melanie Joly’s comment that trade discussions with China are “more predictable and stable” than with the U.S. is a good example of missing the forest for the trees.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech, a thinly veiled criticism of President Trump, came days after a new trade deal and smiling photo-op with Xi Jinping. It was another historic miscalculation. Both Joly’s comment and Carney’s speech betray a naive equivocation between China and the U.S.

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Yes, perhaps American democracy is strained, but the resilience of the American political system and people is also very much on display.

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Elections, term limits and push-back from legislatures on the executive are openly despised concepts in the People’s Republic of China. When Xi exercises hostage diplomacy or coercive tariffs against trading partners, which he does routinely, there is no open debate, no democratic backlash, no Chinese media outcry.

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Late this summer, a U.S. appeals court ruled most of Trump’s tariffs illegal. The Supreme Court followed up Friday, ruling that Trump exceeded his authority when imposing tariffs through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law intended to be reserved for national emergencies.

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For Canadians, perhaps the most disturbing part of Trump’s presidency thus far has been its immigration enforcement, including shootings and deaths in custody. The seemingly needless deaths on the streets of Minneapolis, and the subsequent characterization of the victims as “domestic terrorists” by the Trump administration, is inexcusable.

Yet compare the American outcry and mass protests over these crackdowns to the Chinese response to the Uyghur genocide.

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