You have to hand it to Trump; he sure knows how to troll his opponents. 

Justin Trudeau, the haughty half-Cuban, half-feminine Prime Minister of Canada, flew to Mar-a-Lago to bend the knee to Donald Trump last Friday. They enjoyed a nice dinner at Mar-a-Lago, along with a table full of Trump's friends and advisors. 

I suspect that Trudeau expected a bit more privacy in his bid to avoid tariffs when pleading with Trump. Instead, Trudeau endured the full Trump humiliation ritual. A public dinner with no privacy, no invitation to stay at Mar-a-Lago, and we just found out that he joked that Canada wasn't much of a country. 

During the dinner with Trudeau, Trump reportedly joked that Canada could become the 51st U.S. state if its economy couldn’t survive without exploiting the U.S. for $100 billion annually. He added that Trudeau could then serve as the state’s governor.

pic.twitter.com/j1bdcjvzlc

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 3, 2024

If this strikes you as impolitic, know that Justin Trudeau deserves every bit of the humiliation he was treated to. He has done his best to make fun of, humiliate, and denigrate Donald Trump in public ways. Turnabout is fair play. 

Trudeau mocks Trump while he's out of the room like an annoying toddler in kindergarten.

He behaves very differently when Trump is there, acting as if he is shy over an unrequited crush.pic.twitter.com/ixGdYMg70G

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) December 4, 2019

One of the glorious things about a second Trump term will be the pushback against the arrogance of the transnational elite, who have been kicking ordinary Americans around for far too long. Our European allies look down their noses at us as they simultaneously rely on our security shield and economic vitality. They make demands while contributing little to the common weal. 

Thanks for dinner last night, President Trump. I look forward to the work we can do together, again. pic.twitter.com/lAWFMTtQt7

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) November 30, 2024

Canada under Trudeau has been especially awful. The soy-boy Justin Trudeau struts around the world stage as if he is some sort of policy genius and moral leader when in fact he is a petty tyrant who most likely has more supporters here in the United States than in his home country. 

This is what Donald Trump's meeting with Justin Trudeau sounded like pic.twitter.com/X6XPCTUoJ4

— Shawn Farash (@Shawn_Farash) December 3, 2024

Americans of a certain class will be appalled at the mistreatment of Trudeau at the hands of the Bad Orange Man, and I would tend to agree if Trudeau had been anything but an arrogant prig and nearly useless ally. But the fact is that Obama and Biden did much to give the impression that the United States was a pushover whose first instinct is to KowTow to our adversaries and allies alike. 

Trump will remind them all that the US is the big dog on the block, and the tail won't be wagging the dog. 

Trump's dig at Trudeau is also a reminder to his political enemies at home, who, for some reason, idolize Canada, that the resource-rich country is able to thrive so easily because the United States has its back. We are the source of its economic success and its military security, not the other way around. 

Trudeau is right that Canada's economy would crumble without the US. 

Of course, a free trade regime based on fair rules is good for everybody. A thriving trading relationship with Canada is good for us if the rules are fair. Countries that strive to be autarchies (wholly self-contained) miss out on the benefits of a larger economy, a more diverse division of labor, and access to more resources. Trade wars do tend to make everybody poorer. 

But the US has the largest economy in the world, and the costs of trade restrictions are asymmetric. Access to US markets is a tool we can deploy to get political advantage, and Trump knows that. 

In fact, he demonstrated that just now: Trudeau came to bend the knee, got insulted to his face, and thanked Trump for the honor.