Donald Trump Threats Go Beyond Settling Economic Scores – It’s Personal for Canadians

There is nothing quite like putting a person in the most important job in the country who suffers from malignant narcissism. Trump in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election exhibited many of the behaviours that psychiatrists state fit narcissistic disorder syndrome. Even worse, they have labelled his narcissism “malignant” which when placed in a position of unrestrained power leads to “megalomania.”

So in 2024 with the Supreme Court ruling that a President while in office is above the law, the guardrails that can keep Trump from decisions with extreme consequences no longer exist. Trump unleashed is already showing what a malignant narcissist is capable of doing.

What characterizes a malignant narcissist? It is a long list. Can you recognize any of these traits in Trump?

• A belief he is superior to others with disdain for those he considers inferior. (He has stated he likes the uneducated and poor because they are easy to manipulate.)
• A fantasist about his successes who exaggerates his talents and achievements, and who sets unrealistic goals.
• A person who constantly seeks adulation, admiration and praise.
• A belief he is special and therefore can act out with no remorse or accountability.
• A person who fails to recognize others’ feelings, takes advantage of them and is jealous of their successes.
• A person who is easily hurt with fragile and low self-esteem that causes him to overcompensate and appear tough and unemotional.
• A person who is unable to keep healthy relationships, and fails to follow common conventions, social norms and laws because he believes none apply to him.
• A deceitful, impulsive, aggressive, reckless, irresponsible liar.

The definition of malignant narcissism also includes a reference to these behaviours starting before the age of 15. Mary Trump, his niece, has described the Trump family dynamics. She has described her grandfather and Donald’s father, Fred Trump, as a “high-functioning sociopath.” It appears the nut has not fallen far from the tree.

Why Canada and Other Allies Should Be Concerned

On January 23, 2025, via teleconference, Trump spoke to attendees at The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Besides bragging about his unprecedented win and mandate, none of that being true, he claimed that free speech and democracy in America had been restored.

Then he began to attack the European Union which he claimed had treated the United States “very, very unfairly, very badly.” He described the EU policies as “noneconomic or nonmonetary tariffs” that blocked America from doing business in Europe. He claimed the U.S. had “hundreds of billions of dollars of deficits with the EU” and that American high-tech companies like Apple, Google and Facebook were being discriminated against with EU regulators charging them “billions and billions” in fees. This was hardly friendly.

Trump saved more enmity for Canada. He described the trade imbalance of goods and services between the two countries as Canada ripping off the U.S. to the tune of between $200 to $250 billion. This was more than twice as big a number as he had used in previous speeches. He then told the Davos audience about his offer to Canada’s Prime Minister. Here is the quote:

“You can always become a state, and if you’re a state, we won’t have a deficit. we won’t have to tariff you, et cetera.”

Why would he want Canada? His speech indicated that the U.S. doesn’t need cars made in Canada, lumber from Canadian forests, and oil and gas from Canadian producers. Why then would absorbing Canada have any value? Think Manifest Destiny and “Make America Great,” all in one and the image it portrays of the fantasist leading it all.

Trump turned his spleen on Mexico and then others in his Davos speech stating “There’s hardly a nation in the world” that hasn’t taken advantage of the U.S. He is describing the world’s most powerful country with the largest economy as a victim. Talk about fantasy!

Is this tirade for real a Trumpian invention? Should Canada consider this level of vitriol from America as a threat to its existence? Canada has felt American Manifest Destiny before during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Is this latest Trump manifestation an equal threat? Trump has stated he only wants to apply economic pressure on Canada to lay the seeds for a future merger between the two countries with the inconvenient and artificial 49th parallel boundary erased.

Doesn’t Trump know that today, Canada and the U.S. couldn’t be more integrated? The countries have a shared economy beginning with the St. Lawrence Seaway Agreement in 1954 and the Auto Pact in 1965. Both have bound the countries’ economies together.

The Seaway made the Great Lakes a common ground for trade and development. The Auto Pact integrated the Canadian and U.S. automotive industry removing tariffs from parts and equipment coming across the border. Cars built on both sides of the border share parts.

Both agreements have been preserved in NAFTA and the USMCA. Now Trump is upending all of it with a 25% tariff on trade between the countries to be imposed beginning on February 1, 2025, or so he muses.

Is this Trump the bully, the malignant narcissist who acts with no remorse or accountability, or is it evidence of a person who believes he can act outside of common conventions, social norms and laws because they don’t apply to him? What has begun as a war of words may on February 1 unlock a tariff war, and may eventually lead to outright hostilities.

Consider this. The President just pardoned the Oath Keepers and Proud Boy militia members who stormed the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, to stop the transfer of power from a defeated Trump to his successor, Joe Biden.

Now pardoned are these militias a private goon army that Trump can wield against enemies both domestic and foreign? In 1865, it was Irish-born Americans serving in the Union army who called themselves Fenians and raided Canada to try and incite a war to annex British North America before Canada came into existence. In 2025, 160 years later will it be Oath Keepers and Proud Boys playing a similar role, serving their leader Trump and disrupting the peace between Canada and the U.S. that has remained in place since the Treaty of Ghent signed 210 years ago?

As I read the Davos speech, I noticed that Greenland wasn’t mentioned, nor the Panama Canal. Maybe, Trump didn’t want to appear to EU attendees as threatening the sovereignty of one of its members, Denmark. For Canada, however, Trump’s musings about acquiring Greenland either by purchase or force and making “America Great Again” with references to its Manifest Destiny, looks like a first step in creating a single North American nation stretching from the Rio Grande to the North Pole. When you look at the world map, it appears that America would be carrying out a policy of containment against an ally, Canada, rather than against perceived enemies like it has done in the past with the Soviet Union and China.

Trump called climate change a scam and hoax in his speech. He announced he had pulled the U.S. out of UN climate agreements. He called for NATO members to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP, 250% larger than what is currently in place. He told the Davos audience that his win in November was “the most consequential election victory in 129 years.”  He may have been talking about domestic consequences but the entire world will feel these results.

In giving Trump this mandate, the American people have let loose a malignant narcissist and megalomaniac to wield the economic and military clout of the United States on other nations. We have not seen anyone like him since the Western democracies allied to fight the common threat from another megalomaniac in World War II. Unfortunately, in this case, the malignant narcissist and megalomaniac is supposed to be on our side.

From this side of the American border, it is hard to imagine what the next four years will bring. What will be the state of my country, Canada, and the rest of the world with Trump as U.S. President?