The impact of Trump’s unfinished business with GNU

A material effect on the outcomes of national economic and financial policies

- MUSHTAK PARKER

When you have a supreme disruptor of the global order, then politicians inevitably scurry around canvassing mitigation measures, or implement reprioritisation strategies. Inaction, procrastination and negotiation from a position of weakness simply exacerbates the playbook.

Only Canada’s nascent Prime Minister Mark Carney among world leaders has had the chutzpah to confront the delusional President Donald Trump head-on, stressing that Canada will never become the 51st state of the USA, implying that Ottawa was taking annexation threat seriously, and slamming reciprocal tariffs on its neighbour, its largest trading partner to boot.

Carney, a prominent economist, calling a snap election on April 28 is either a masterstroke if he wins, or a fatal error if he loses. He and his Canadian Pierre Polievre is the Canadian wannabe Trump.

Carney’s Liberal Party was in electoral meltdown following strong voter disenchantment with erstwhile premier Justin Trudeau, who to his credit resigned. Trumps accession to a second term in the White House and his unilateralist diatribe against Canada and a host of other countries especially South Africa was godsent, recreating Carney’s momentum in the run-up to the extent that the Liberals under Carney now have a slight lead in the polls.

That March 2025 was South Africa’s “mensis horribilis” is clear and present – a month in which relations between Pretoria and Washington sink to a nadir following the unceremonious expulsion of ambassador Pandor from Washington. The US allegedly for being “a race-baiting politician who hates America”.

He had accused President Trump of trying to "project white victimhood (in South Africa) as a dog whistle” after the president stressed that white Afrikaners were facing discrimination and expropriation of their land, which was dismissed as blatant lies.