Is Trump already a lame duck — or more dangerous to Canada than ever?

WASHINGTON, D.C. — ​​As Canada reels from another round of tariff threats and White House ultimatums, many in Ottawa and the business community are watching Washington for a different reason: U.S. President Donald Trump says he won’t run again in 2028, raising the question of whether his final years in office will finally bring relief — or more turmoil — north of the border.

Some scholars in Washington fear he will challenge the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms. Others say there are increasing signs that the president is already operating like a lame duck. 

With Trump’s last midterm elections looming, the perception is that after this November, other Republicans may increasingly prioritize their own futures over his — a shift that could reshape everything from trade policy and border control to defence cooperation.

Trump got a taste of what a rebellious Congress could be like on Wednesday, when the U.S. House of Representatives voted against his tariffs on Canada, which is a mostly symbolic result that can be vetoed by the president.

But there is no sign that Trump’s behaviour is approaching “lame duck” territory yet. On social media, he reacted furiously to the congressional vote.

“Canada has taken advantage of the United States on Trade for many years,” wrote Trump, on Truth Social. “They are among the worst in the World to deal with, especially as it relates to our Northern Border.”

And in the last few weeks, he has threatened to ground all Canadian-made planes over an FAA certification squabble and impose 100 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports if Canada trades with China. This week, he demanded 50 per cent federal ownership of the Gordie Howe bridge , putting its reopening between Detroit and Windsor, a popular trade corridor, at risk.

In the meantime, as Canada reckons, mentally and economically, with Trump’s tariff war and annexation rhetoric — not to mention his constant demands for more, more, more — it is reasonable that many Canadians, business leaders, and politicians are hoping that Trump’s waning tenure will make things easier for bilateral relations. 

So with the clock ticking down slowly on his presidency, will a lame-duck Trump be better or worse for Canada?

Because Trump already bypasses Congress wherever possible, using executive actions and unilateral decisions to rule, he doesn’t rely on the typical horse-trading that presidents use with members of Congress to see legislation through.

“Trump’s doing things unilaterally anyway,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum.

This, he said, makes Trump “less prone to lame-ness.” 

“All these erratic things that he can do on his own, he will continue.”

Stephen Saideman, director of the Canadian Defence and Security Network and the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, also rejected the notion that Trump would have a traditional lame-duck phase, noting that Congress has failed as a restraint thus far. 

“The president … has just ignored the laws and the allocations and appropriations that Congress has made,” Saideman said. “Why should that stop?”

Still, there are some signs of lame-duck territory.

Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of international affairs at Georgetown, pointed to Trump’s weakening approval ratings — just 27 per cent of Americans said they supported all or most of Trump’s policies in a late January Pew Research Center survey. Kupchan also noted Democratic gains and that some Republicans have begun peeling away, narrowing Trump’s political space at home. This, he said, is a classic setup for presidents to flex abroad.

But on the other hand, lame-duck presidents tend to lose control of the narrative because members of both parties move on, positioning themselves for what comes next. On this point, Kupchan said, Trump is different.

  “I can’t think of any president in modern American history who dominates the narrative like Trump does.”

Unlike previous Republican presidents who left the presidency and their roles within the GOP behind, Holtz-Eakin believes Trump will continue to exert a significant amount of control over the Republican Party well after he leaves the White House. 

While most presidents who lose leverage post-midterms as party members align themselves with the agendas of future leaders, Trump’s base loyalty and fundraising ability, he said, mean he will continue issuing powerful endorsements.

“I think he is going to view himself as the centre of the Republican Party till the day he dies … He has a lot of money and friends with money, and he’ll direct resources to him or candidates.”

For now, though, he and his Republican colleagues need to get through the midterms amid fears that they will be chaotic, if not violent.

Expect election-related trouble, warned Saideman. 

“I’m not expecting the Republicans to cancel the election,” he said, “but I am expecting lots of shenanigans, such as having ICE people hang out at voting polls to try to tilt numbers – maybe some ballot boxes will be stolen.”

“I’m not sure that the election will be democratically held,” he added.

Kupchan also expects mischief. 

“I would be astonished if the midterms come off without claims of fraud and without investigations and without efforts to tamper with the outcome,” he said, but noted how he, unlike Saideman, expects democracy to prevail. 

“It’s not going to go off smoothly. It’s going to be bumpy. I do think that bouts of political violence are likely, but I’m reasonably confident that the midterms will go off as planned.”

Many expect the midterms to be rough for the GOP, but Holtz-Eakin believes it will be a bloodbath for Republicans, thanks to the tariffs and rising prices.

Still, even a bad election day for the GOP won’t rein him in, said Saideman.

The Democrats would likely win the House and might win the Senate, he said, which means “Trump will have to face more friction,” but it won’t help Canada or other countries.

“It certainly won’t restrain him on the international stage, because Congress has never restrained any president really on the international stage all that much.”

In the post-midterm era, he said he expects Trump to be worse for Canada and even “less predictable.”

His last moment of predictability for Canada, said Holtz-Eakin, “is going to be if they choose to renegotiate the USMCA , and I don’t think they’re going to.”

He reasoned that the White House won’t want to formally renegotiate the deal because it would have to go through the U.S. Senate, “and they have shown no interest in having the Senate’s ratification of trade agreements.” 

But he doesn’t see USMCA being abandoned altogether either. 

“I think the most likely outcome is we’ll stick with the USMCA, but we’re going to have a side agreement between the U.S. and Canada to do X, Y, and Z, whatever that might be.”

For filling in those blanks, trade analysts have said for months that Trump wants a common tariff barrier with China, meaning that Canada and Mexico will be expected to mirror Washington’s tariffs against Beijing. There are likely to be demands over the dairy supply management system as well, and most expect the metals tariffs to stick.

Kupchan said he also expects Trump to push for trade deals and to use tariffs as coercive leverage, preferring bilateral bargaining over multilateral frameworks. Still, he doesn’t foresee the dismantling of USMCA either.

“I think that the broad direction of travel will be deal‑making and not more tariffs … he may end up saying, ‘I used these tariffs as a tool of coercive diplomacy, and I’m now getting deals with Mexico, with Canada, with China, with India.’”

Kupchan pointed to a pattern he believes is forming in Trump’s behaviour.

“I interpreted his push for Greenland as more about manifest destiny and Trump’s desire to go down in history as the leader that added the greatest swath of territory to the United States than it was about security and rare earths,” he said.

“This strikes me as someone who is becoming increasingly obsessed with the question of legacy.”

The drive to build a legacy could be why Trump used American power in Venezuela, threatened to take over Greenland, and gathered a flotilla in the Persian Gulf to threaten Iran.

Kupchan also disagreed that the postwar international order is gone.

“I think calling it game over is premature. I don’t think that the West as we know it is dead. I don’t think the transatlantic partnership and NATO are finished.” 

“By pronouncing it game over, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he warned, urging Canadian leaders to continue engaging with Trump.

“Stay in the game. Play the long game,” he advised, noting how the Greenland debacle taught world leaders that it is insufficient to flatter Trump. 

“You have to engage Trump when you can and stand up to Trump when you must.” 

By doing that, he said, the partnerships that Canada and other democracies have built with the U.S. over the past century will survive the Trump era, however he behaves as a lame-duck president.

National Post

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