The United States is now suing Canada along with other countries at the World Trade Organization for retaliating against Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum. In effect, the U.S. is saying their tariffs are justified but ours in retaliation are not because the Trump administration, citing a “national security provision”, says it has to keep foreign imports out of the country in order to build up domestic metal-making capacity so it can make its own steel and aluminum in the event of a war. However, in contradiction, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross admitted during a Senate hearing last month that Canada is not a national security threat and that the tariffs were imposed on our country as leverage in NAFTA talks and would logically go away if there was a revitalized NAFTA. Don’t ask me why but for some reason I’m reminded of Alice in Wonderland when she said “curiouser and curiouser” as I look around at all the nonsense happening south of the border, even more so when the President of the United States effectively dismisses what his own massive intelligence system has told him about Russian interference and treats the Russian President with more deference than NATO allies. To quote Alice again, “It would be nice if something made sense around here”.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.