The U.S. Election – Postmortem with Chris Krueger and Rona Ambrose

[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHRIS KREUGER: New York, New Jersey, and Illinois are closer to going red than Texas is to going blue.
PETER HAYNES: We are joined remotely today by Chris Krueger from the Washington Research Group, along with Rona Ambrose, who you guys see on screen. Thanks again, Rona and Chris, for joining us today. As I mentioned, Chris is our geopolitics expert based in Washington, hasn't been very busy lately. And then on the left hand side of my screen, at least, is the Honorable Rona Ambrose, who is a deputy chairwoman for TD Securities, and has been working for us for several years.
So we've got lots to get to. I've been-- my phone, Chris, today, has been on airplane mode all day, so I haven't looked at anything that's happened, although when we were putting these questions together yesterday, there were more knowns than unknowns than I think we would have anticipated before Tuesday. In fact, we've mentioned a few times on stage that we avoided the worst case scenario, which might have been riots in the streets, if there was uncertainty of the outcome.
Can you level set us, Chris, where we are overall, and specifically on any outstanding races? And why is it taking so long for the House-- maybe the House has been determined today, but why is it taking so long for those races to be completed?
CHRIS KREUGER: It's great to be with you all. Sorry I can't be there. I'm in DC, where there's actually no real traffic, I think yet, to Peter's point. I think people were prepared for the worst, hoping for the best. Here's what we know. Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president in 74 days on January 20 at 12:00 PM.
He's also going to come back to Washington with a Republican Senate. That Republican Senate will have at least 52 Republican senators. The ceiling is probably 53. We're still waiting on two races, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Democrats should win Arizona. Pennsylvania is probably going to go to a recount. It's maybe like, 60-40, it goes for the Republicans, but it's going to be really close.
The Senate is super critical because it confirms or denies the cabinet, regulators, judges, the Supreme Court, and the Fed. The House is still up in the air, although it should stay Republican. 218 is the magic number. The Republicans have 211 confirmed, and they're currently up in another 13. If all that holds, it would it be a six-seat margin for the house. Three of those races, though, are inside of 1,600 votes.
The mail-ins in California don't have a deadline until next Tuesday. You've got forward deployed military. You've got very rural districts. You just have a lot of votes. If all holds-- that's largely in line with what they have now-- California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Alaska. Alaska takes a long time to count. So that's where we are. It's not just the majority, but it's the margins that are really going to matter. This is not 2017. Trump did just win a decisive mandate, and the presumption is that the Republican Congress, particularly in the House, which is much more pro-MAGA, will fall into line with the upcoming tax cliffs. But time will tell.
PETER HAYNES: Chris, after the 2020 election, there was all kinds of speculation about election fraud, et cetera, et cetera. And what we read is where did the 20 million votes go for Joe Biden? And then, of course, the conspiracy theorists will argue that something went awry. Has there been any concern over widespread fraud of any sort? I just to put that out there and try and get rid of that as a potential issue.
CHRIS KREUGER: Well, once Trump was certified as the winner, all talk of fraud went away. I'm not sure that's correlation, but I mean, we're still counting. I mean, there are millions of votes still to go in California. It's just, you can use projection on these counties and call them earlier. Some of these House races are going to go to recounts, for sure. I voted in Virginia. It was very easy. Had to show my ID, et cetera. By all accounts, this was a free and fair election.
PETER HAYNES: Great. Rona, as you watch the election night unfold from Calgary, what was your biggest surprise in the outcome?
RONA AMBROSE: Hi Peter, and hi Chris, and hi to everyone that's in the room. Peter always has an awesome conference, and I wish I could be there in person, and will do my best to be there next year. So thanks for all the good work you do, Peter.
I think my biggest surprise was how badly the Democrats did. I thought Trump would win. I felt he had momentum, so I thought he would squeak it out. But the Democrats did very poorly.
It was clearly a repudiation of the Democratic parties and the left wing's obsession with identity politics, which they played out not to their advantage this time. And it was, I think, a clear message that what people want from their political leaders right now is the most basic thing to them, which is money in their pockets. At a time of inflation, when we see everything costing more and hurting people that are at the bottom of the income level the most, they wanted someone that they thought would fight for them to ensure their jobs are protected, and also someone that would value and recognize their aspirations of having more and leaving more for their children.
I think the most interesting thing that happened is that Trump did so well with minority groups in the US. Even though he was called a Nazi, a racist, a homophobe, that didn't seem to matter to the people that voted for him. And maybe that's a lesson that it's also a signal to politicians to stop trying to profile people into certain groups based on their identity, based on their ethnicity, that in a situation like we have today, which is people feeling really strapped when it comes to putting groceries on the table, that at the end of the day, what they want is somebody-- they want to be able to take care of their kids and their families, put food on the table. And when that is at risk, nothing else matters. And I think that really came through.
I think the thing that's so interesting also is that Trump is still seen as a disruptor, even though he's part of the elite class, and he's already been a president for four years. People still see him as the disruptor. And then he brought along Elon Musk, that's seen as a disruptor, and he brought along RFK Jr, that's seen as a disruptor. He's got this team of disruptors. And I think people want, right now, government to be disrupted because they don't believe it's working for them, and they need more. So those are the interesting things that I gleaned from the US election.
PETER HAYNES: So Chris, the corpse is barely cold. I think it's going to take a long time to complete the autopsy, but I'm curious of your initial thoughts about what went wrong for the Democrats. Was it as simple as Rona has explained, that average Joe is paying more for food? Do you have any perspective on how this played out?
CHRIS KREUGER: I think Rona just-- I mean, she's just knocked it out of the park. That was just about perfect. Would just underscore it with a couple of themes. I'm not sure how much Harris will be blamed. I think, given what she had, basically a 100-day snap election, probably-- I think a lot of the blame is going to go to Joe Biden.
If you want to run back the tape, the sliding doors after the Democrats outperformed in the midterms in 2022, what if he had just kind of dropped the mic and said, OK, have at it? Would Donald Trump have even won the Republican nomination at that point, with DeSantis kind of heading up there? It wasn't just the swing states. It was across the board.
New York, New Jersey, and Illinois are closer to going red than Texas is to going blue, meaning that the margins in New York, Illinois, and New York were tighter than they were in Texas, which is just wild to think about. Top two topics on exit polls were, to Rona's point, number one, inflation, and number two, immigration, specifically the southern border. So not only did Trump win every swing state, he's going to win the popular vote. A Republican hasn't done that in 20 years, since George W. Bush.
PETER HAYNES: OK. Chris, I want to do a what if here, if we can. What if Joe Biden had of announced very early that he was going to just be a one-term president and--
CHRIS KREUGER: By the way, that's what he said he was going to do the first time he ran.
PETER HAYNES: Right. If he had just played it out that way, and he had allowed the Democratic Party to have a proper primary, and then a candidate unaffiliated with the current government, potentially, would have won. Let's assume that. Would this have played out differently in your mind? And secondarily, who might that candidate have been in hindsight?
CHRIS KREUGER: Yeah. Also, I just want to clarify-- I mean, Harris ran a solid campaign with one glaring issue, which I think probably sunk the campaign, and that was when she was on The View. The question was, can you think of one thing you would have done different than Joe Biden? And she said no. And that was-- she didn't separate herself from a deeply unpopular president.
Say what you will about Joe Biden, but he's been under water in the polls since the summer of '21, since-- largely from the Afghanistan withdrawal. So I think he would have had a lot of those big blue state governors, whether it's Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania, JB Pritzker from Illinois, Gavin Newsom from California. I think it would have been a pretty broad and expensive primary, but who knows?
PETER HAYNES: Do you think it would have changed the outcome, or does this appear to be something that was a loss from the start?
CHRIS KREUGER: A hundreds days out, could anyone have won? I don't know. I mean, you would have had to really trash Biden and really find some separation from him. I don't know.
PETER HAYNES: Yeah. OK, Rona, let's talk about Donald Trump a little bit. He's a populist president, as you mentioned earlier. People want change. He has a lot of rhetoric, and we've certainly learned to take him at face value and his word in his first term. So let's put on your Team Canada hat for a moment. Of all of his stated policy goals, what worries you most, and what do you think about the future of USMCA? Is it going to be impacted by Trump and his term?
RONA AMBROSE: Yes, absolutely. He's made it very clear that he's going to reopen it. I mean, in the last negotiation that I was part of, he made it clear he wanted to have that sunset clause in there for 2026, and we know why. And so look, we barely squeaked out a deal last time. And you could argue Trump won that round. And this round, he's coming back harder. I mean, Mexico, you could argue Mexico is a bigger target than Canada because Mexico is letting China use NAFTA as a way to bring in Chinese auto parts tariff-free through Mexico, which has angered Trump.
And it's-- people like Robert Lighthizer have raised that issue. He's the person who led Trump's trade agenda last time. And I would expect that he would be back again.
And I was at something with him where he said, we learned a lot. And he didn't say, we're going to go in softer. He was making the point that they're going to go in stronger this time. So they'll be difficult to deal with, but that's the way these type of negotiations go. I don't think we can count on having a quote unquote, "special relationship" and given any favoritism, even though we're they're-- the US's largest trading partner.
As Tom Mulcair said recently, he's the former leader of the NDP. He said, Trump has a long list of enemies, and Trudeau is on it. There hasn't been a positive relationship between the two of them. So I think having said all that, I will say this. We do have things the Americans want. We're obviously, their largest trading partner. That relationship goes both ways, and it matters to the United States.
And there are things that they want us to do, and things we have that are outside of NAFTA. They want access to our critical minerals. From a defense point of view specifically, they want us to spend more on defense. And Trump has mused about wanting our water.
Now, on top of that, keep in mind, he's also talked about a potential tariff wall around all of the United States. This is-- we don't know if we will have some sort of exclusion from that through NAFTA. But if there is something that we can't get an exclusion, that's a tend to-- potentially 20% tariff wall around the US, in addition to maybe some of the problematic issues we'll deal with in a new USMCA. So I would just say this. Bottom line, the problem for us really is that our economy is not resilient enough to withstand a shock of tariffs.
Our current approach to energy, trying to shut down our industry while Trump is committing to unleash cheap energy to grow the US economy-- if you look at our tax policy, Trump is saying he wants to take business taxes to 18%, and our combined federal provincial tax rate is 38%. So even just if you look at where he's going and where we've been for the last eight years, it could be a train wreck for us from a domestic economic policy point of view. So our government needs to focus not just on tough negotiations, but we need to also focus on our own domestic policies to make sure that we continue to be more competitive.
PETER HAYNES: Water is considered a good under the USMCA, or at least on NAFTA, and it's unclear, as a good, if there's anything Canada can do to protect itself from having to include water as a potential good under the agreement. And Trump has been musing about solving the water problems by coming to Canada, where we have 20% of the fresh water. How do you think this plays out, then?
RONA AMBROSE: Well, if he does even raise it, I think it would be very controversial. It would be something that Canadians would think, immediately, very emotionally respond to. I think it would resonate politically across the country. You can talk about all kinds of inclusion of certain types, percentage of auto parts, and people's eyes glaze over. But if you started to talk about water, Canadian water, it would become very controversial very quickly.
Now, under the current agreement, water is not covered inside the agreement. It's covered in what's called a side letter. And so right now, basically that means that there are no special rights to the natural resources of any state, only if water is entered into commerce and becomes a good or a product. So there's just-- there's to your point, there's a lot of questions that aren't answered yet because it hasn't been tested. Is the side letter enforceable? What happens if water is determined to be a good or a product? What does that mean?
So we need more clarity. I think what's a little unnerving is that we didn't think we'd be up against answering these questions so quickly. And if Trump is serious about this, we might have to find this-- find out the answers to these questions. And to try and buffer some of the potential negative consequences, we also have to develop some provincial policies around this issue. Or, Peter, I mean, the other thing is this might just be a negotiating tactic.
We learned last time that Trump loves to be a deal maker. He's a deal maker. He inserted himself into the negotiations often. Instead of leaving it to officials, he always knew what was going on. I mean, even the title mattered to him, right? He renamed NAFTA the USMCA, where he put the US first and then Canada. Then we said, well, we're going to call it CUSMA, which is Canada first, and then US, and then Mexico. So it even mattered to him that he had the US first in the name of the agreement. So it could be a negotiating tactic. We really won't know until we hear more from him.
PETER HAYNES: OK, Chris, let's talk about the confirmation process, as that's something that is really important, and important for Canadians in this room, particularly to understand. There's worry that by the time Trump finishes his cabinet appointments that there won't be any adults left in the room this time around. Can you remind our audience about the confirmation process, and who might be the candidates for key cabinet posts?
And I want to say, add to that specifically some of the concerns that there might be out there about RFK Jr. getting health as a mandate, whether or not you think that would happen. And then Rona, I'd be very interested if he does get appointed, given his radical views, how Canada-- you're our former health minister-- how Canada can react to that. So I'll start with you, Chris.
CHRIS KREUGER: White House staff, which is probably going to be announced next week, right, starting with Chief of Staff, that is not subject to Senate confirmation. That's probably where Kennedy goes, just because he can't clear a Senate confirmation process. It's 52 Republican senators, maybe 53. You have a couple centrists to really keep an eye on there-- Susan Collins from Maine, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Thom Tillis from North Carolina.
So there's the committee of jurisdiction. You have your hearing in that. You have to hand over two years worth of tax returns. You've got to do an FBI background check, all your financial disclosures. You have a hearing, public vote in the committee, then you go to the full Senate floor. You need 50 votes plus Vice President-elect JD Vance, if it's a tie, to break that tie to be confirmed. Rona mentioned Robert Lighthizer. I think he remains the odds on favorite to be Treasury Secretary.
In terms of state, you hear Marco Rubio's name mentioned. You hear the senator from Tennessee, whose name escapes me right now. Breaking news, that number is up to 53. David McCormick beat Bobby Casey in Pennsylvania, so 53 Republican senators. Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State, could be at defense, running the Pentagon. Robert O'Brien, former national security advisor, is also said to be at the Pentagon. Attorney General is probably someone in the mold of Eric Schmitt, the Republican Senator from Missouri. I have also heard Mike Lee's name mentioned. He's a Republican Senator from Utah.
The big difference in Trump 2.0 is that all of the White House staff and the people at the agencies really share Trump's vision-- America first, make America great again. They're incredibly competent and know how to implement Trump's vision, right? It's clearly not going to be people like General Kelly and others. It's going to be not brakes, but gas-- all gas, no brake in this administration.
PETER HAYNES: OK. So no risk that RFK is going to get into that health mandate where we then, in Canada, have to worry about how that might impact our country? You don't see that at all?
CHRIS KREUGER: I don't think he can-- he would run Health and Human Services or the FDA. It sounds like he will be in some type of White House position, focused more on his make America healthy again topic. As opposed to vaccines, focusing more on big food, right? Like seeds and big food as opposed to big pharma, if that makes sense.
PETER HAYNES: Yeah. And Chris, the question that will come up a lot and certainly in financial circles is what actual powers does the president have over the Fed Chair, and can he do anything with Powell?
CHRIS KREUGER: Powell, at his press conference, said he was not going to step down. Trump has sort of intimated that he wouldn't do anything. I wouldn't recommend reading the Federal Reserve Act. I'll just give you the CliffsNotes. Like, you can only fire or remove a Fed Chair for cause. And that doesn't mean you didn't cut rates enough. It means a felony. Powell is there until the spring of '26, but it's not our base case or expectation that Trump would attempt to remove Powell, at least in the-- I mean, the real focus in the first 100 days is immigration, deregulation, trade, and tax-- a lot on the plate.
PETER HAYNES: So Rona, you mentioned earlier, and I just want to pick up on this point about Prime Minister Trudeau's relationship with Donald Trump, which first round, I think we all know didn't go particularly well. What advice would you give Prime Minister Trudeau and the Federal Liberals on how to manage this relationship with the Trump and his 2.0 leadership team?
RONA AMBROSE: Yeah. I mean, what I will say is that there are some strong relationships between some of the Canadian Cabinet and people that might be going back into the US Cabinet. So Lighthizer and Chrystia Freeland have a friendship that could help because she'll lead the trade agenda again, and he more than likely will lead the trade agenda. The Prime Minister's Chief of Staff has a relationship with some of the people that were previously in the White House and might be back. And our ambassador in DC, Kirsten Hillman, is extremely effective and has a number of great relationships today, and she had them under the Trump administration as well.
So I think that needs to be said, even though Trump and Trudeau don't have a positive relationship. I think the most important thing for Trudeau is to really get it right at home, and we don't have it right at home. Because we're looking at our neighbor to the south, which is our biggest trading partner, but also our biggest competitor, moving very quickly into tax changes, changes around energy policy that might release more energy into the US at a cheaper rate while back home, we see taxes going up. We don't have our own house in order to be competitive. So that's, I think, what the most important thing for Trudeau to focus on.
PETER HAYNES: And Rona, one file that we know is going to become contentious is the Canadian contribution to NATO in terms of our percent of GDP that goes to NATO. We are under the 2% threshold. That is a key number. President-elect Trump has made it clear that he wants other countries to step up. What is your expectation for how Canada will react to where we stand relative to what we're expected in NATO in terms of defense spending?
RONA AMBROSE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're not just being called-- we weren't just called out by Trump. We've been called out by other allies as well to not have put enough into our defense budget. It was not a commitment Trudeau ever made. And so I think we need to be clear. When people elected Trudeau, they didn't elect him to rebuild the Canadian forces.
But I would also say that any federal government's responsibility is to keep the forces in ready state, and we are not in ready state. And that is not my opinion. That is the clear indication from our military and people at the top, like the Chief of Defense staff. So no matter who's elected in this country, we have a lot of work to do around rebuilding our forces and making sure that they're at the ready state. Trump could very likely take aim at us, and if that helps that happen, I would say kudos to him, because it needs to happen.
PETER HAYNES: And so Chris, let's talk about the policies in the US. Tariffs seem to be item number one on Trump's agenda, and immigration is item 1A. How are these two key policy platform issues playing out, in your best guess?
CHRIS KREUGER: Short answer, I don't know. I think our message would be that any president's powers in these two areas are pretty unilateral, and they're pretty expansive. We get a lot of pushback that oh, well, Trump would need to go to the Congress for tariffs, or the courts would push back on that. No. The Congress, in the 1960s and the 1970s, largely passed incredibly expansive tariff powers given to the president. Like Section 301, which was all the China tariffs, that's from the 1974 Trade Act.
The 232 tariffs that in the first Trump administration, at least initially, hit both Canada and Mexico on steel and aluminum, that's from the 1962 Trade Act. So these powers are incredibly broad. I think I'd be surprised if Trump used 232 and 301 this time around. They're pretty legalistic. They take a while.
I think the primary tool, or at least the tool that he will threaten with, is IEEPA. That's the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, incredibly expansive. That statute, you could probably Institute the tariffs within a week.
So Trump has said a 10% baseline tariff across the board. He's also said 20%. China is a real focus as well subsequent to that baseline tariff, tripling tariffs from a blended rate of 18% to 61%. With some of these cases, there is this kind of, is this a threat, you know? The art of the deal, et cetera. I think with some of them, and particularly Europe, there's no deal to be had with the US and Europe on trade policy so it's not the-- tariffs aren't a means to an end. I think relative to Europe, the tariffs are the end.
And then on immigration, he believes this was the number one issue for the campaign. This is his signature issue when he first announced his candidacy in 2015, the so-called border wall. So whether or not they are successful in the largest deportation effort in US history, I do think they will at least attempt in January.
PETER HAYNES: So it'll start right away, literally, as soon as he's--
CHRIS KREUGER: Yeah.
PETER HAYNES: --inaugurated. OK. Next question on Ukraine-- what happens to funding to Ukraine?
CHRIS KREUGER: Roman Schweitzer, who's one of my partners in DC with Washington Research Group, he believes there's going to be a ceasefire sooner rather than later. There is probably another package for Ukraine, if only because Ukraine's military is from all the big US defense primes. So pitch to Trump as this is American military hardware, good American jobs, et cetera. But some type of ceasefire seems sooner rather than later.
I think Rona's other point was about 120 days ago, after the calamitous Biden-Trump debate, a lot of Ukrainian special forces, the really elite troops pulled out of the East and did this wild Hail Mary invasion of Russia, right around the Kursk region. And it was-- and at the time, it looked like Trump was going to win 40 states. So if there is a ceasefire, Zelenskyy having some Russian soil to trade off gives him a bit of a better position.
PETER HAYNES: And we'll continue to watch that closely. I'm just going to stop there as we see if the audience, anyone in the audience here-- and there's microphones in the room, and they can just ask their question. Does anyone have any questions for Chris or Rona?
AUDIENCE: A question for Rona. Would love to hear how you think the Trump victory may affect the Canadian election nine months from now. Is it a positive for the Tories, negative, or what's the read through to any of the Canadian election predictions?
RONA AMBROSE: Pierre Poilievre is his own person. Trump is his own person. They're very different in many ways. Canada is a different political landscape. But in as much as it's very clear that the left, in pursuing a certain type of identity politics and focusing on issues that clearly, people weren't that interested in, and that started with the Biden administration, and then moved into Kamala Harris's campaign-- I think it's a message to conservatives that by focusing on the economy and working class people, which is what Pierre Poilievre is squarely focused on, that that's probably the right thing to be doing right now.
In Canada, I would almost argue that some of the issues are even more acute. We have massive issues at food banks. We have a lot of people suffering, feeling like they can't fill up their gas tank, they can't put groceries on the table. So I think that's a message, that focusing on those core basic kitchen table issues, which Pierre Poilievre is focused on, is where every political party should be. And they're not. That is not where Trudeau is. That is not where Jagmeet Singh is, and that is not where the Bloc Québécois is. And so I think that reflection is positive feedback for the Conservatives here in Canada.
PETER HAYNES: Rona, as we think more towards a conservative government, which I think most people in this country understand is likely to happen, what can you tell us about Pierre Poilievre? I know you know him well. And can you tell us who he might think are-- or who you think are key potential cabinet appointments for a Poilievre government?
RONA AMBROSE: Yes. I've known Pierre for many years. He was in my caucus when I was the leader, and I've worked with him for two decades. He's very, very intelligent and very thoughtful. Some people try and suggest that because he's very good at communicating things into short soundbites, that maybe that means that he doesn't have a lot of thought behind his ideas. It's the absolute opposite.
He knows the issues so well, and policy so well, and understands what he's trying to achieve so well that he's able to distill things down into-- call them slogans, call them communication bites, extremely well to get attention from people in Canada. He's focused on the right things, which is the economy. And I think from a cabinet point of view, I won't speculate because that is absolutely up to him. We have any-- we're not near an election at this point. We haven't won yet.
But just like any other political party, when you win, there's a number of people to choose from. There's people-- he has people that are running for him all across the country in every region of Canada that can represent different regions well and bring those issues to the table in a new government-- lots of talented, smart young people that he can choose from, and some experience people that have been around, even back when Harper was there. So I think he'll do fine. But first, we need to have an election, and he needs to be successful before we start talking about what a cabinet would look like.
PETER HAYNES: OK. So how would a prime minister Poilievre manage the complex relationship with President Trump? How do you think that relationship would evolve, Rona?
RONA AMBROSE: I guess one benefit is that there just hasn't been any animosity between the two of them at this stage because they've never worked together. Hopefully, that's helpful. It may not be helpful. Because at the end of the day, Trump is always going to put America first, and I don't think he's going to give us any sort of special-- do any special favors for us. We're going to have to fight for every inch we get at the next USMCA or CUSMA round.
And I guess I would point out right now, our officials in Washington and those working on this are already putting together a list of products that they could retaliate on. If we are hit with tariffs, we will retaliate. We'll retaliate as strongly as we can. We will try and be strategic and choose products and areas of the economy in the US that might hurt Trump politically. We might pick certain areas where there's a Republican Congressman, Senator that all of a sudden has a headache because we've put tariffs on a certain product. Of course we don't have the power of the United States, but we do have power in this type of negotiation.
But if we impose tariffs and they impose tariffs, it hurts businesses on both sides of the border. Tough for Trudeau to ask businesses to take more pain when they're already feeling the pinch of an underperforming, under competitive economy already. So I think what Pierre Poilievre would do different is manage the domestic economy differently, which I think is important when you're up against the biggest economy in the world south of the border, which has lower taxes, which makes us uncompetitive, which we have raised the capital inclusion rate which is a drag on innovators. It's a drag on small businesses. It's a drag on startups.
We are consistently attacking the oil and gas sector. We know that Pierre Poilievre has said he will make energy-- do his best to support the energy industry and eliminate the carbon tax, which again, is a drag on productivity. He will also reduce other taxes, which will help businesses. So he's been very focused on doing what he thinks, if elected, we need to do to get our own domestic economy in order.
That would be helpful because-- up against a Trump administration because our economy would be more resilient and hopefully, more competitive than it is today. But again, we're not close to an election yet, and a lot of work needs to be done. But that's the argument the Conservative Party is making, that we need to become more competitive.
PETER HAYNES: Audience, is there anyone in the room that has a follow-up question?
AUDIENCE: Hi. It's a question for Chris. Could you elaborate on what's the implication for Trump win on Middle East war?
CHRIS KREUGER: I'm sorry, the implications for a Trump win with--
PETER HAYNES: Middle East war.
CHRIS KREUGER: Middle East. I mean, Trump has said his two top foreign policy goals are a ceasefire in Ukraine and a ceasefire in Gaza. I think probably the-- outside of Ukraine, probably the other biggest 180 pivot would be the US' foreign policy towards Iran. Trump was already extremely hawkish, had very hawkish views on Iran, and all of those people I mentioned for the key cabinet posts are arguably even more hawkish on Iran.
I think the Abraham Accords that he finished in the final years are the broad framework. So building on that, hoping to perhaps have Saudi Arabia recognize the state of Israel as a broader reshuffling of the Middle East, and then a pretty tough narrative against China with both tariffs and export controls.
PETER HAYNES: We've had three times as many questions in this discussion as we had all day in all the other panels, so I know why people are here. It's been a long day for you folks that are on the screen, and we've had a great audience, resilience to stick with us to the end of the day. Thank you, everyone. So the question?
AUDIENCE: Any thoughts on Florida Amendment 3, and it failing to pass, and what that means for 280E for cannabis reform on a federal level?
CHRIS KREUGER: I didn't have a cannabis question on my bingo card for a Canadian market structure conference. Um--
[LAUGHTER]
--so I had said at the beginning, what were the two states I was going to watch on election night, or what were we going to watch on election night? And I picked Virginia and Florida because they both close early and they count early. Florida was called before Virginia, which was-- I said nothing would surprise me. That got pretty close to surprising me. Trump just won in Florida on a level we've never-- I mean, Trump won Miami-Dade County.
It was a historic performance there on cannabis. We'll see who the attorney general is. But all of those names I mentioned are pretty tough on that policy. I mean, no one would be tougher than Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Probably makes it more difficult over the next two years to enact major cannabis legislation, including federal legislation. What's more likely would be the rescheduling process that the Biden administration has initiated. That would at least, to your question, provide some 280E tax relief to the state legal cannabis companies.
PETER HAYNES: Chris, just-- we talked prior to the election, a lot of chatter about worst case scenarios. We know we didn't get that, lawsuits, et cetera. But now, there was also a lot of questions about key dates. Are there any key dates that we're worried about now, or are we just going to let this play out for the next whatever, 75 days until the inauguration? Is there anything you're watching between now and then?
CHRIS KREUGER: Maybe it's not underappreciated, but those House races are going to be critical because that's going to-- whether or not Trump will be able to pursue a tax policy that clearly, the markets hope he will move forward on. One date that probably has been buried in all of this, we hit our foreheads on the debt ceiling on January 1. I mean, the hope is that the debt ceiling is resolved, in part, with this tax package. But that's also going to depend when the X date is.
December 17 is when the electors meet in the state capitals to certify. January 3 is when the new Congress convenes. That first speaker vote will be an interesting test case on Republican cohesion. January 6, the new Congress certifies. And then January 20th noon is the inauguration. But I mean, Biden and Trump spoke. Harris conceded. So we're just waiting on a handful of House races in the West.
PETER HAYNES: Rona, a final question for you. The deadline for our election in Canada is a year from now. When do you expect Canadians to go to the polls, and do you think Poilievre can win a conservative majority?
RONA AMBROSE: Well, if we went to the polls tomorrow, he would win a huge majority. The polls have been consistently putting him 20 points ahead. And those are solid polls across all regions, which is other than Quebec. When will the next election be? Well, the next election will be when the NDP stops propping up the Liberals. I guess I would say this. When in the last election, Canadians voted for a minority parliament, they gave Justin Trudeau a minority government.
And what a minority government signals is that we don't have full confidence in you. So we're not giving you a majority government. We're not giving you all the levers of power. But what we've had is a minority government acting as a majority government because they signed a long term support deal, which has now been canceled, but the NDP continues to support them. And for that, the NDP extracted expensive programs that no one voted for.
I do think we need an election because it's time that people have a chance to decide if they want so many of these new programs, so much of this new spending that has been introduced that was never in the election platform in the last election. And that's the reason people decide to give you a minority, because they want you to tread carefully and work with all parties. And that's not what's happened. The Liberals signed a deal, and the NDP has kept them in power.
And the way to do that is by extracting a number of concessions that have been very expensive, that no one voted for. So we'll see if those last the test of time in another election. But I think issues have also changed quite a bit, especially around the economy. People expect the government to be focused on lowering taxes, focused on affordability, and they need to do that. If they don't do that, they will not be competitive in the next election.
PETER HAYNES: A final question for you, Chris-- do you expect the 2.0 administration of Trump to be more disruptive or less disruptive or chaotic than the first one?
CHRIS KREUGER: More, if only because you've got Elon and RFK. I think you're right with all the-- I mean, I think Trump has an incredible political antenna. I think he understands culture very well. He understands power very well. He did not understand federal government power.
So in like, the last four years, I think he was picking-- so now he knows how to move the levers of government to meet his stated goals. So whether you think that's disruptive or not, you'll see a more efficient, and a cabinet that is all lined up and rowing in the same direction. It's dealer's choice on whether you think that's disruptive or positive.
PETER HAYNES: We've got-- Jim's got one more question here, and then we'll wrap it up here.
JIM: OK. Trump was clearly showing his age during the campaign, and he's not going to get any younger going forward. So how do you think increasing cognitive impairment is going to affect his administration?
CHRIS KREUGER: Yeah, you're really saving the softballs for the end of the day.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't know. I mean, yeah. He's 78. He's younger than Biden, but that will make him the second oldest president in American history. I mean, again, you look at what he wants to do in those first 100 days, and any one of those issues is a big one. We'll see. But yeah, I mean, tax policy, deregulation, trade deals, Gaza, Ukraine, immigration, I mean, any one of those would be a challenge.
PETER HAYNES: Well, first of all, thank you very much, Rona and Chris, for taking time here to speak to our audience. On behalf of everyone in the audience, if we can just give round of applause to Rona.
[APPLAUSE]
RONA AMBROSE: Thank you. Thanks, everybody.
CHRIS KREUGER: Thanks.
PETER HAYNES: Thank you for listening to Geopolitics. This TD Securities podcast is for informational purposes. The views described in today's podcast are of the individual's and may or may not represent the view of TD Bank or its subsidiaries, and these views should not be relied upon as investment, tax, or other advice.

This podcast should not be copied, distributed, published or reproduced, in whole or in part. The information contained in this recording was obtained from publicly available sources, has not been independently verified by TD Securities, may not be current, and TD Securities has no obligation to provide any updates or changes. All price references and market forecasts are as of the date of recording. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are not necessarily those of TD Securities and may differ from the views and opinions of other departments or divisions of TD Securities and its affiliates. TD Securities is not providing any financial, economic, legal, accounting, or tax advice or recommendations in this podcast. The information contained in this podcast does not constitute investment advice or an offer to buy or sell securities or any other product and should not be relied upon to evaluate any potential transaction. Neither TD Securities nor any of its affiliates makes any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or any information contained in this podcast and any liability therefore (including in respect of direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage) is expressly disclaimed.