| “If you look, if you go back, I don’t think you could find anything I was wrong about,” President Donald Trump said this week. Yet Canada’s leader reiterated this week that his country is not for sale. Trump has started to urge Americans to buy less as he defends tariffs that are hurting the economy, and he had to pull a controversial nominee who has defended Jan. 6. His former vice president, Mike Pence, also criticized Trump’s policies, such as not doing enough to support Ukraine, pardoning Jan. 6 defendants and imposing broad tariffs. Here’s what happened under Trump this week. Canada’s leader visited Trump — and reminded him it’s not for sale Canada is one of the United States’ closest trading partners and allies, but Trump has potentially turned that on its head with tariffs that perplex trade experts and an even more out-of-left-field push to annex Canada. Canadians are taking it seriously, and the new Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, visited the White House for a remarkable exchange where Carney appeared to get the last word, in the Oval Office no less. The Washington Post’s White House reporters Natalie Allison and Michael Birnbaum reported: In the Oval Office, Carney kept a poker face as he sat in front of news cameras, shifting his weight in his seat as Trump declared what a “wonderful marriage” it would be for Canada to be annexed to the United States as the “51st state.” When Trump finished his thought, the newly elected Canadian prime minister asked to respond — taking an approach that at once seemed to charm the president and signal to Carney’s base of liberal supporters that he was up for the job of standing up to Trump. “If I may, as you know from real estate,” Carney said, “there are some places that are never for sale.” “That’s true,” Trump said quietly, nodding. “We’re sitting in one right now,” Carney continued, pointing to the presidential portrait-lined walls. “Buckingham Palace, which you’ve visited as well,” Carney added, appealing to the president’s well-known respect for the British royals. “That’s true,” Trump said again, with a laugh. “Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign the last several months, it’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale, ever,” Carney said. Trump fired back, with a smile: “Never say never.” Trump has started urging Americans to buy less Trump got elected a second time by promising higher paychecks and “richer” communities. But as tariffs slow the economy and threaten empty store shelves and a recession — fees that Trump says he’s considering making permanent — the president, curiously, began to pitch austerity as a desirable American value. He’s cast excessive purchases of “dolls” and “pencils” as unnecessarily coveted by American consumers. “I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three,” he told NBC News last weekend. “They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.” It’s a particularly dissonant message from a president who has made material excess part of his success story, analysts note, and who continues to get rich while in office. “I don’t think it will resonate very well,” Marc Short, a longtime top adviser to former vice president Mike Pence, told The Post’s Naftali Bendavid. “I think it’s particularly optically difficult when the president is earning a billion dollars in crypto while asking Americans to cut back on toys and products for kids. That seems like a disconnect to me.” (Interestingly, Trump also this week told Republicans in Congress to raise taxes on the rich even as Republicans try to pass Trump’s tax cuts for high earners.) Prices could soon rise due to Trump’s tariffs, including in housing Last week, we learned that the economy shrank for the first few months of the year. The economic news this week wasn’t much more positive for Trump and his tariffs: The Federal Reserve, an independent central bank that sets interest rates, warned that prices could rise and people could lose their jobs the longer Trump’s tariffs stay in place. The Post’s Rachel Siegel reported this week on the potential next domino to be hit with higher prices: the housing market, which could suggest a broader economic slowdown. This week, Trump announced a modest trade deal with the United Kingdom that economists and trade experts told me won’t mitigate the damage from the high price of import taxes. “There’s no good news in any of this,” William Alan Reinsch, a trade expert who advises the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me. “Just less bad news.” “This is insane,” Michael Strain, an economist with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told me recently. “This is an enormous self-inflicted wound on the economy, and to see our government do this to American businesses and households is something I never thought I would see.” Trump’s tariffs are looking good for Elon Musk, though The Post’s Jeff Stein and Hannah Natanson reported that nations from Lesotho to Vietnam are trying to head off Trump’s tariffs on their imports by making deals for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites that could produce billions in revenue for Trump’s biggest donor and close adviser. They report that Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears to be actively pushing other nations to give regulatory approvals for Musk’s Starlink. A technology analyst told The Post that it’s not unusual for the American government to advocate for an American satellite business internationally. But it’s difficult for countries to untangle supporting the world’s richest man with American foreign policy, W. Gyude Moore, a fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Washington-based think tank, told my colleagues. “They can see their life might be a lot easier if seen or perceived as getting along with Elon Musk,” Moore said. Trump pulls a controversial nominee who defended Jan. 6 Ed Martin is a previously little-known defense lawyer who has repeatedly said the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was staged and appeared to give a pass to those who attacked police officers. (“If you hit a cop, I can’t condone it, but you still are caught up in what I think was a staged operation,” he has said.) Trump had nominated him to the powerful position of U.S. attorney in D.C., where he could lead investigations into government officials. Martin was serving as interim U.S. attorney for the past few months, where he launched an investigation into those who prosecuted Jan. 6 defendants and used his position to try to go after Trump’s other perceived political opponents. But he did not have the support in the Republican-controlled Senate to get confirmed — which is notable, because Republican senators have approved nearly every one of Trump’s controversial picks, aside from Matt Gaetz to be attorney general. Martin appeared “to be more of a Trump attack dog than a serious person who should be entrusted with the significant powers of a U.S. attorney,” former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuade told me. “Let’s hope his failure sends a message to the Trump administration on the importance of nominating candidates commitment to the evenhanded administration of justice.” Trump replaced him in the interim with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. Martin will still hold a leadership role in the Justice Department, The Post reported. | 
