“Good cop/bad cop” does not work on Trump, because all he sees in the good cop is a willing victim.

Just look at his interactions with democratic leaders from countries like Canada, South Korea, Japan, and the U.K., vs. autocrats and dictators like Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un: when the democratic leaders shine his apples and praise him as being “transformative”, he smiles and complements them (to a lesser degree) back, but you can see in the pictures and videos who is in charge. The democratic leaders look like tiny dogs jumping up and down for favourable attention from the big dog.

The U.K. PM was once even caught in a photo kneeling before Trump to pick up his dropped papers. Sad.

Compare that to the dictators and autocrats: even when Trump hits them with tariffs and talks tough when they are separated, they do not back down from him. They hit him back hard without worrying about it hurting them more than it hurts him. There are no fawning praises of his greatness. Therefore, when they are together with Trump in videos and pictures, you can see Trump is the little dog. Even with China, Trump was in awe of Xi when they last met: it was obvious that Xi was not taking any shit from him.

Canada cannot resort to dictatorship or autocracy, but we still need to fight back against him with every tool in our box. Be civil, and do not stoop to his level with public insults, but be tough and show him we will not be pushed around. Otherwise, he will always see us as a willing victim; even if his threatened tariffs are still only threats, he will always have them hanging over our heads if we do not push back, and that uncertainty will always do harm to our economy.