OCTOBER 21 — Donald Trump appears to believe a good neighbour is someone who buys your products, applauds your threats and occasionally checks whether you would like their country gift-wrapped. Canada has declined the packaging. This has complicated things.

A country whose international personality was somewhere between a courteous librarian and an expensive outdoor jacket has discovered that politeness does not require becoming somebody's annex. Canadians have turned away from American bourbon and holidays. Flags have appeared. Indignation has become a national resource.

Unfortunately, outrage is a terrible export. Everybody already produces their own.

Mark Carney's more useful response is to make Canada harder to bully. Asean should pay attention. Preferably before commissioning another commemorative summit tote bag.

For decades, Canada enjoyed a commercial arrangement so comfortable that questioning it felt rude. An enormous customer lived next door. Goods crossed the border. Security came wrapped in an enduring alliance. Then the customer started behaving like a landlord who had discovered the tenant was breathing his air.

More than 70 per cent of Canada's goods exports went to America in 2025. Every business owner understands that vulnerability. Your biggest customer may be wonderful, supportive and reliable. You still ought to have another customer.

Canada spent years discussing diversification. Trump supplied the deadline.

Perhaps Carney should have called his bluff: "Fine, Donald. We'll be the 51st state. Now explain how many electoral votes we get." Somewhere in Republican headquarters, a calculator would burst into flames. Imagine annexing Canada only to discover that winning the White House might require French lessons and a convincing position on cheese.

But Canada's weaknesses predate Trump. Investment was sluggish. Productivity lagged. Housing became a national obsession. Businesses underinvested in machinery and innovation while property made sitting still look entrepreneurial. Why develop a breakthrough when the bungalow is doing so well?

Population growth outran homebuilding. Provincial rules complicated trade and professional mobility. Canada worried about barriers at its southern border while maintaining an impressive collection between its own provinces.

Asean will recognise the furniture.

We speak enthusiastically about integration. We hold summits. We issue declarations reaffirming our commitment to implementing the commitments we previously reaffirmed. Then somebody tries to sell something across a border. Suddenly the regional vision needs three certificates, two translations and a signature from a gentleman who is away until Tuesday.

Asean has removed most tariffs across much of its internal goods trade. Yet differing requirements, cumbersome approvals and administrative duplication still make commerce harder than it needs to be. The border tax leaves. The clipboard stays.

Carney's domestic programme matters because it connects sovereignty to competence. Canada has legislated to reduce federal barriers to internal trade and labour mobility and accelerate major projects. His broader agenda includes investment incentives, tax changes, housing commitments and stronger defence.

Execution will decide whether any of this works.

A minister standing beside an excavator does not constitute infrastructure. Sometimes it is simply two expensive machines waiting for instructions.

Investors need electricity, ports, workers and predictable approvals. They cannot operate a semiconductor factory on stirring speeches, however excellent the acoustics.

For Asean, the practical agenda should be familiar. Recognise compatible standards. Simplify customs. Improve payments. Connect electricity networks. Give smaller firms a chance to expand without hiring a legal department larger than their sales team.

Imagine a Penang sauce producer trying to sell into neighbouring markets. Integration should mean clear labelling rules, affordable testing, reliable shipping and money arriving. Nobody has ever paid a supplier with a summit communiqué.

We have mastered the group photograph. The exporter would now appreciate a functioning process.

There is an uncomfortable lesson about labour, too. Migrants did not create Canada's longstanding investment failures. Blaming them lets employers and policymakers escape scrutiny. But expanding a workforce without sufficient housing, infrastructure, training and equipment creates predictable strains.

Constant access to inexpensive labour can also reduce the incentive to modernise. Southeast Asian employers should consider that before requesting another batch of workers. If your productivity strategy involves adding three people to compensate for one broken machine, you have postponed calling the technician.

In restaurants, better preparation, equipment, ordering systems and management can improve service and earnings. A kitchen can be frantic all evening without being particularly productive. Shouting at the waiter remains popular. Its contribution to economic development is less established.

Abroad, Carney is seeking new customers and partnerships while managing the difficult neighbour he cannot relocate. Canada cannot put America on mute and move to Portugal.

Diversification requires competitive products, infrastructure and patient commercial work. Signing ceremonies are easy. The container still needs somewhere to go.

Asean should cultivate America, China, Europe, India, Japan, Canada and other markets wherever interests align. Replacing dependence on Washington with dependence on Beijing preserves the underlying weakness. The shipping address changes; the negotiating problem remains.

The objective is enough alternatives to survive disagreement.

Middle powers can build those alternatives together. Cooperation on an electricity connection, shipping route or maritime surveillance need not wait for agreement on the entire moral architecture of the universe. Choose something useful. Establish who pays. Set a deadline. Finish it.

A cable carrying electricity is an unusually eloquent diplomatic statement.

Security matters, too. Canada is confronting the cost of relying heavily on American protection and equipment. For Southeast Asia, stronger capability should begin with maritime awareness, coastguards, cybersecurity and procurement that delivers equipment people can use. The threat may be at sea while the money disappears on land. Both deserve investigation.

None of this makes Carney a magician. Canada has resource wealth and geographical advantages Asean cannot download. Asean comprises sovereign states with different capacities and interests.

Nor should Carney receive a certificate of economic salvation in advance. Housing promises need houses. Investment announcements need investment. Faster approvals must respect Indigenous rights and environmental obligations. Strategic spending must produce more than opportunities for well-connected businesses.

Retaliatory tariffs can hurt your own consumers. A patriotic confrontation can become expensive entertainment. There is little glory in winning the press conference while losing the factory.

Domestic solidarity also needs material foundations. People support a shared future more readily when they can afford to participate in it. Asean governments should remember that before celebrating national growth figures to households calculating whether dinner needs an egg.

Carney's opportunity is to convert external pressure into domestic reform. His achievement will depend on what gets built, fixed and made more productive.

For Asean, the choice is becoming uncomfortable. We can explain that the world has changed while protecting every comfortable monopoly, obstructive procedure and cherished excuse at home. Or we can make our economies work better.

That involves upsetting people who benefit from the existing mess. It requires governments to spend political capital rather than another afternoon discussing it.

Trump has given Canada an unwelcome reason to act. Asean should be capable of finding its own.

A country becomes harder to intimidate when its citizens can build a decent life without first knowing somebody in the right ministry.

Another speech about resilience will neither frighten Washington nor impress Beijing. It might frighten the hotel staff if the summit overruns lunch.

We need governments that can deliver and businesses that can compete.

And somebody, for the love of God, needs to fix the bloody customs form.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.