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What's Trump doing? That's a question one must ask.
Sabotaging trade negotiations with Canada at the last minute after the two sides appeared close to an agreement and Trump himself claimed they had a deal?
Trolling Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney by calling him "Governor Carney," as if Canada were already the 51st state?
Renaming Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes, as "Lake America" -- and then signing an executive order to make the change official for federal use?
What next? Renaming Lake Champlain as Lake Trump?
Are there legitimate issues in the relationship between Canada and the United States? Of course. Canada should spend more on defense. Its protected dairy market deserves scrutiny. Disagreements over autos, lumber and other trade issues are real.
But the idea that we should throw out decades of free trade and close economic partnership because of Trump's weird fixation with Canada is absurd.
I say that as someone who voted for Trump three times. I have bitten my tongue and shrugged my shoulders when he became obsessed with other odd things. Much of it was harmless bluster, trolling or the usual Trumpian theater.
This is different. His Canada fixation is damaging actual livelihoods, disrupting integrated supply chains and turning one of America's closest friends against us.
For Michigan, this isn't abstract. Canada buys more Michigan-made goods than any other country. Automakers operate on both sides of the border, with components crossing it repeatedly before a finished vehicle rolls off the assembly line.
I write from Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, where the ingratitude is impossible to ignore.
Gander is a town created around an airport that opened in the 1930s, when Newfoundland was still separate from Canada. During aviation's golden age, aircraft flying between London and New York stopped here to refuel. Longer-range jets ended that role, but Gander remains a refuge when something goes wrong over the North Atlantic.
A few days ago, an Air France Boeing 777 flying from New York to Paris diverted here. Whenever a big airplane unexpectedly arrives, the entire community springs into action. Locals drive stranded passengers to hotels. Food seems to materialize from nowhere. Whatever is needed, somebody provides it.
Maybe that instinct comes from living on an island where, for centuries, people have quite literally washed ashore. I don't know. But the people here -- with their wonderful accents combining England's West Country with the melody of 18th-century Ireland -- are incredible.
The world learned that on Sept. 11, 2001.
After American airspace closed, 38 aircraft carrying about 6,600 passengers and crew landed at Gander. For five days, residents across central Newfoundland housed strangers in schools, churches, living rooms and spare bedrooms. Two passengers who met here later married. Others became lifelong friends with their Newfoundland hosts. The story inspired the musical "Come From Away."
Twenty-five years later, those connections remain. Newfoundlanders want to honor the Americans stranded here and those killed by terrorists on 9/11. Trump is rewarding that friendship with tariffs, insults, and an attempt to erase a Canadian name from a shared lake whose surface lies mostly in Canada.
Yes, lads from Newfoundland fought against us in the War of 1812. They helped capture Detroit and later defended Michilimackinac. But for a century, Americans, Canadians and Newfoundlanders have been friends and allies. We fought -- and died -- together in the Great War, World War II, Korea and Afghanistan. Our economies, families and communities are deeply intertwined.
Calling Lake Ontario "Lake America" will not create a job, lower a price or make the country safer. Nor will calling Carney "governor" make Canada submit.Gander remembers what friendship between nations looks like. It is a shame the White House has forgotten.
Dennis Lennox (@dennislennox) is a travel columnist for The Christian Post and a political commentator, contributing to the Washington Examiner and the Midland Daily News.