Opinion: The price of being a chess piece for the United States

The American Trap: My battle to expose America's secret economic war against the rest of the world, a book by Frédéric Pierucci, former senior executive of one of Alstom's power company subsidiaries, is scheduled to be released in March 2020. [Photo: Screenshot of the introduction to the book on Amazon.com]

By Tu Yun

When Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, together with his Western peers, mocked their Big Brother Donald Trump at a reception held at Buckingham Palace for NATO leaders earlier this month, he must have felt for a moment as though he was back at the kind of party he attended 18 years ago when he was still a teacher at a private day school.

If the mockery hadn’t been caught on camera, it wouldn’t have been so awkward for Trudeau just a few days later when he asked the United States to hold off on any final trade deal with China until the two Canadians arrested in China have been released. But will President Trump heed Trudeau’s appeal?

In an interview with the French-language television network TVA, Trudeau said “We’ve said that the United States should not sign a final and complete agreement with China that does not settle the question of Meng Wanzhou and the two Canadians.” The request from Trudeau seems quite logical, although he didn’t state it explicitly: Canada has done the United States a favor by arresting Huawei’s chief financial officer, and now it’s time for Washington to return the favor.

A similar appeal from the prime minister earlier this year met with almost no response from Washington. But what did Trudeau expect? Did he really think President Trump, who has described him as “two-faced”, would hold back on signing a deal with China that’s going to benefit millions of his supporters, in exchange for a couple of Canadians charged of espionage?

Trudeau also claimed that the arrests of the two Canadians by China had ramifications for all countries, and that “countries around the world are continuing to bring up the case.” But it’s hard not to wonder if other countries are thinking that Canada’s decision to arrest Meng Wanzhou itself has serious ramifications. Is Canada still a safe place to visit, even if only for a stopover, if Canadian authorities are willing to detain someone on just a wink from the United States? After all, the American Trap is already well known out there.

Note: Tu Yun is a current affairs analyst for China Plus.