American demands managed the difficult feat of simultaneously being unacceptable, unclear, and unenforceable. The incoherence isn’t an accident. It’s what happens when ambitious people compete to please the leader of a personalized institution who isn’t mandating a unified vision. US presidents have tangled with Canadian prime ministers before, but none has ever threatened Canadian sovereignty because his administration couldn’t get out of its own way.
The first Trump administration was hardly a well-oiled machine, but it at least aspired to competence. I’ve written two books on Presidential leadership. In the next editions this administration will be the case study for the fallout when a President abdicates his managerial responsibilities and the institutions surrounding him are too weak to compensate.
Negotiating with Canada, which has every reason to accommodate the United States, is diplomacy with training wheels. An administration that fumbles that relationship will fail disastrously at more challenging tasks. And that problem will keep getting worse.
Gautam Mukunda, writing at Bloomberg : The US-Canada Rupture Is a Lesson in Declining Leadership (Archived)