Easier to annex
The threats to Canada seemed to be too absurd to be real, but it turns out that plenty of people think it’s all too real.
After President Trump imposed tariffs on Canada on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an extraordinary statement that was largely lost in the fray of the moment.
“The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false,” Mr. Trudeau told the news media in Ottawa. “What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” he added.
This is the story of how Mr. Trudeau went from thinking Mr. Trump was joking when he referred to him as “governor” and Canada as “the 51st state” in early December to publicly stating that Canada’s closest ally and neighbor was implementing a strategy of crushing the country in order to take it over.
Could we just not? Could we go back to being a deeply flawed but still serious grown-up country that doesn’t attack its own allies?
Mr. Trump and Mr. Trudeau spoke twice on Feb. 3, once in the morning and again in the afternoon, as part of discussions to stave off tariffs on Canadian exports.
But those early February calls were not just about tariffs.
On those calls, President Trump laid out a long list of grievances he had with the trade relationship between the two countries, including Canada’s protected dairy sector, the difficulty American banks face in doing business in Canada and Canadian consumption taxes that Mr. Trump deems unfair because they make American goods more expensive.
He also brought up something much more fundamental.
He told Mr. Trudeau that he did not believe that the treaty that demarcates the border between the two countries was valid and that he wants to revise the boundary. He offered no further explanation.
Yeah see announcing you want to revise the boundary is like saying “I want your house and everything that’s in it.” Trump could mean he wants to push the boundary 500 miles north…where it’s 99% ice.
Canadian officials took Mr. Trump’s comments seriously, not least because he had already publicly said he wanted to bring Canada to its knees. In a news conference on Jan. 7, before being inaugurated, Mr. Trump, responding to a question by a New York Times reporter about whether he was planning to use military force to annex Canada, said he planned to use “economic force.”
Trump hates Canada and loves Russia.
We’re doomed.
That’s not hyperbole any more. It looks horribly likely that we really are doomed – stuck with a crazed megalomaniac who will destroy everything, like a reincarnation of Hitler.
I’d be more worried if he was ten years younger… Which is to say I’d be buying my six cylinder retirement in the very near future.
As is, who fucking knows? Our worst fears are being realized but he’s also extremely old.
Very Putinesque, only vastly speeded up.
Destroy your own country by bleeding it dry to enrich yourself and your cronies, and then start grabbing land from the neighbours to keep your personal coffers topped up. Putin must be amazed that his protégé has managed to work so fast.
The question is how many in Trump’s circle will pursue this in his absence? While he’s alive, there are far too many who will follow him anywhere, and do his bidding. If Trump has any kind of “magic”, at his command this is it. His successor(s) may not enjoy the same kind of power; this kind of magic, however twisted and misplaced, is likely not transferable. This cult of personality seems to be unique to him, God be praised.
With Trump gone (one way or another), will his supporters and successors follow through because it’s part of his “legacy”, or will they quietly let the Canadian project drop? It sure would be nice if they could let it drop now, and if they could convince Trump that this idea that backfire on him. Because it has to be bout him, successfully disuading him (assuming that’s even possible) can only happen through getting him to accept that the consequences of this trade war, and the annexaion fantasy, will cost him something, that the price for him will be too high. Talk of the cost or injury to America won’t do it, because everything is a distant second to his own whims and desires.
Also, annexation will not be enough; making us the “51st state” will require invasion and occupation. Canada will not willingly join the US. Ever. Crashing our economy? Not going to help; we will take yours with us, and it will only fuel our resistance and stubbornness.
The part about trying to collapse Canada’s economy in order to annex it seems very plausible to me, and I’ve been saying that since Trump’s 51st state rhetoric began. For even longer than that, I’ve been saying (and writing, including here at B&W) that Canada’s economy is in a dire and precarious state. All of the economic actions taken by our Federal and Provincial governments over the last couple years have been indicative of panic behind closed doors and of a quiet effort to stave off a real estate bubble collapse. And from the looks of things, it could be a bigger economic disaster than the US 2007/2008 crisis. There are a lot of things to blame for the current situation in Canada, but Trudeau’s Liberals were certainly asleep at the wheel and let the situation go on for far too long before they woke up to the burgeoning crisis. Everybody thought they could get rich quick off of investing in cheap new condos and then shoveling millions of new immigrants and international students into them to pay them off.
Any assimilation of Canada would involve negotiations with a minimum of 13 different existing political entities. Plus all of the squabbling units within those existing political entities.
Plus the fact that the First Nations have a rather cynical disregard for what the invaders consider political boundaries.
The USoA does not have what it takes to manage a Borg-like take-over.
What?
(To be clear, I don’t think annexation will ever happen, at least without a war, but I do think the part about Canada being in economic trouble has merit to it.)
A Borg-like takeover is even harder with these chuckleheads running things… They may control the enforcement and power projection institutions but they have severely weakened them already.
It’s been some time since I considered “doomed” to be merely hyperbole (or, for that matter, just metaphorical).
We tried invading Canada twice. It didn’t work out. Eventually we realized that having a friendly democracy all along our northern (and eastern, for Alaska) border was a pretty sweet deal, even if they speak funny, beat us in hockey, and sometimes disagree with our policies.
Of course, Trump and the Muskovites don’t understand about neighborliness. They’d rather have minions than friends.
Jeff – same, I suppose, but I hadn’t quite explicitly noticed the shift.
What a Maroon… more than twice. There were a couple of unofficial incidents that certainly weren’t opposed by the USian .gov. The Fenian Raids and Cypress Hills come to mind.
Trump is tanking the economy of the USA’s closest ally for fun.
But Trump is tanking *both* nations economies.
US farmers need potash for fertilizer. Saskatchewan has the largest deposits & the highest production of potash in the world.
Lots of US manufacturers need aluminum. Cheap hydroelectricity in Canada means Canada refines aluminum much more cheaply than anywhere in the US, or most of the rest of the world.
Exporting Canadian goods to countries other than the US might make this tariff war harder on the US than Canada.