Trump doesn't care if he loses, as long as Canada also loses
National Post, 15 August 2026
It is hard to see what kind of agreement would be worth making
Canadians are awaiting a potential trade agreement with the Trump administration before the implementation of 50 per cent tariffs next week. The world is waiting for an agreement between Iran the Trump administration on the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile there have been no shortage of recent agreements of significance. The Trump administration concluded a nuclear energy agreement with Saudi Arabia, opening the door to Saudi enrichment of uranium — a necessary, though not sufficient, step toward a nuclear weapons program. After careful overnight thought, U.S. President Donald Trump then effectively cancelled the agreement unless the Saudis joined the Abraham Accords.
The Saudis, for their part, took a pass on the Abraham Accords and surprised everyone last week with the Mecca Accords, a mutual defence pact with Turkey and Pakistan, employing language similar to NATO’s article 5 — an attack on one is considered an attack on all.
An interesting question arises. If in future Iran were to hit a Turkish catering truck in which Trump was hiding, would NATO and Pakistan both declare war on Iran given that Turkey is both a NATO and Mecca member?
The Mecca Accords were preceded last September when Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — which has nuclear weapons — concluded a mutual defence pact between just the two of them. The same month Trump, enraged by an Israeli assassination attempt on Hamas officials in Qatar, signed an executive order declaring that any attack on Qatar would be considered an attack on the United States — a NATO-like guarantee to a non-NATO country.
Trump also announced a peace plan for Gaza, promising Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took several days before rejecting that plan outright.
Agreements aplenty then, announced but not always honoured, awaiting the next agreement to be announced and maybe not honoured.
The world is watching that dynamic regarding Trump and Iran. The former announces an agreement, or a near-agreement, or a desire-for-an-agreement, and the latter insists that they will never be an agreement except on its extortionary terms.
The president huffs and puffs, exasperated that whilst commanding the far mightier military force, he cannot force Iran to capitulate. Meanwhile he takes cover in a catering truck as Iranian threats make not one, but two, Air Force One planes too dangerous to use. The metaphor is illustrative.
The reality is that Iran is willing to penalize itself — sanctions, blockades, bombing — in order to inflict damage on the United States, its Gulf neighbours and the world economy. A negotiation usually seeks to achieve something of a win-win, but Iran is content with a lose-lose; specifically a we-lose-more-as-long-as-you-lose-something.
Coupled with technology that allows a much weaker power to inflict meaningful disruption on a greater power — whether preventing ships from transiting Hormuz or the president abandoning his plane — it makes it difficult to make a lasting agreement.
In the Persian Gulf it is Iran that is willing to penalize itself, resulting in the absurd spectacle of one of the world’s most reviled regimes being able to hold hostage one of the world’s most crucial shipping routes. The lose-lose mentality is making the world more dangerous.
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