Global Thoughts: Annex Canada!
By Gwynne Dyer
US President Donald Trump’s imposition of 25% tariffs on all Canadian exports to the United States cannot be justified by the false claim that illegal immigrants and large amounts of the synthetic opioid drug fentanyl are flooding in across the Canadian border.
The accusation about fentanyl is preposterous, since the total amount intercepted at the Canadian-US border in the past year is far less than one percent of the amount stopped at the Mexican-US border.
As for the alleged border-crossers, why would any migrant who is already safely in Canada (generous to asylum-seekers, gun control, universal health-care, few crazies, and pretty relaxed about race) want to sneak into the United States (deportations, medical bankruptcies, guns everywhere, racism rampant, and ‘Christian nationalists’ in charge)?
There is no flow of illegal immigrants entering the United States from Canada. Trump must have some other motive for including Canada in the top three targets on his tariff hit list (Canada, Mexico, China). What could it be?
For want of any more convincing motive, Trump’s frequently repeated intention to annex Canada must be taken seriously. So far he continues to say that he will achieve this exclusively by ‘economic pressure’, and Canadians will cling to this assurance – but they should not bet the farm on it.
The reason it’s hard to take the ‘American threat’ seriously is because countries just don’t behave like this any more. (Well, okay, Russia does, but it’s the only other country to act on such an ambition, or even to express such an intention, for a very long time.) Nevertheless, Trump’s intention is probably real. Just listen to how he speaks.
On 2 February he wrote on Trump Social that Canada “should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada — AND NO TARIFFS!”
“We don’t need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use. Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country.”
It’s a waste of time to rebut Trump’s lies and distortions line by line – there’s one in almost every sentence – but three things are worth noting. First, Canada’s geography means that the only country that can pose a direct military threat to it is the United States. Second, there is no US subsidy of any kind to the Canadian economy. And third, he really means it.
I’m certainly not suggesting that Trump has a plan for invading Canada, or even (as he claims) a step-by-step strategy for squeezing Canada economically until it gives up and surrenders its sovereignty. Neither do I think that he will necessarily succeed in his ambition. But I am saying that he poses an existential threat to the Canadian confederation.
Why do people have such difficulty in believing this? Only 23 years ago another American president, George W Bush, actually invaded the wrong country. (Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and no connection with the 9/11 attacks.)
Trump is even more ignorant than Bush, and certainly more impulsive. He has already begun the economic pressure on Canada, and Canada has already responded with like-for-like tariffs. That may be the end of it, for Trump is opening trade wars on many other fronts as well – but when somebody says they are going to hurt you, it’s wise to take precautions.
Not one Canadian in ten would freely choose to become part of the angry and divided society to the south, but they may have to endure a long and miserable economic siege to avoid that fate. Everybody else will sympathise, but nobody else will or even can help much as Trump batters at the door. And at some point Canadians may even have to ‘blow the bridges’, at least metaphorically.
