Munk Dialogue with Andrew Coyne: the Iran-U.S. ceasefire unravels and Alberta pulls ahead while Ontario and Quebec fall behind

Anytime Iran feels like it, they can just basically, uh, um, um, put the gears to Trump, and he's got really nothing he can do in response. He's, he's shot his bolt. He, he, he... They threw everything they could at Iran, uh, and it didn't, uh, it didn't succeed. [gentle music]

Welcome to this Munk dialogue with Andrew Coyne, a regular guest, uh, here at the Munk Debates, and coming to us regularly now on Fridays for the summer. Andrew, great to be in conversation with you.

And to be with you.

A lot to talk about. On the first half of the show, though, let's, uh, dip into international news. It was a busy week with the president at the center of a lot of it. Uh, a NATO summit, uh, with some controversial and tempestuous remarks by POTUS to end off the event in Ankara, Turkey, and then this resumption of tit-for-tat, uh, strikes between Iran and the United States, seemingly the MOU in danger, the ceasefire, uh, flopping. Um, let's break it all down. So first, Andrew, on the NATO summit, um, how would you gauge it? Uh, should we come away with a glass half full in that the President didn't walk away from NATO?

Well, y- yeah. Well, our, our estimation of what constitutes half full is getting, uh, smaller and smaller. Uh, so if a NATO meeting, a NATO meeting, uh, ends in c- uh, doesn't end in complete disaster with the United States pulling out of NATO, um, then that's said to be a success. Um, that is how tenuous things are. So there's a rhythm to these things. The, the first part of the meetings, the... You see this now with every gathering that Trump goes to. The first part of the gathering, uh, people are very hopeful. There's, they, they're sort of business as usual types of meetings. They look like these international gatherings usually do. And then Trump arrives and everything goes to hell. So Trump, you know, the, going into this, the, the, the other leaders tenuously believe they'd cobbled together something that would look like, um, if not progress, at least, uh, uh, k- uh, keeping things going in the sense of we'll spend more on our defense, on the collective defense, uh, if the United States will stay engaged and promise not to violate Article 5 [chuckles] or, or abandon Ukraine, et cetera. Uh, well, okay, they had that sort of basically, um, cobbled together. Then Trump arrives and starts saying he'd like to cut off all trade with Spain. Uh, he still wants Greenland, uh, where we came perilously close to a shooting war. Um, you know, he might pull all of US troops out of Europe. Uh, and so everything was thrown into disarray. Now, at the very end, they're able to issue this communiqué that sends, that says, "We stand four square ironclad commitment for Article 5, and we view Russia as a threat, and we will never abandon Ukraine." Okay. That's great to have a piece of paper saying that.

Mm-hmm.

Um, uh, I, I don't think anybody at this point could have any great confidence, uh, that the United States of America under Donald Trump would live up to its Article 5 obligations. Uh, in fact, I would think that it, it's more l- likely than not that they would not, uh, which is hugely destabilizing at a time when people are seriously war gaming,