The view from Canada: US threat to our sovereignty is no joke

The relationship went deeper than politics or money, too: Many Canadians and Americans have family across the border, and many more work, travel, and sometimes live in the other country. So for Canadians, the second Trump administration has been a bit like waking up to find your big brother, on a meth binge, standing at the door in the middle of the night with a knife, asking for money. The first feeling is terror, followed closely by disgust, attached to a residual sadness.

Americans never look closely outside their own borders, so it may come as a surprise to many that Canada is on a war footing. As far as I can tell from my American friends, they continue to think of their country’s threat to our sovereignty as a joke. It is not. Trump’s fetish for Canada has developed quickly but consistently. The tariff war is one thing — malignant, stupid, and self-defeating. The calls for annexation are quite another matter.

“The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State,” the US president wrote on Truth Social. “This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.” He has also made his desire to annex my country clear to Canadian political leaders in private conversations. For us, the threat is as serious as a heart attack.

It is impossible to overstate how much Trump has upended Canadian political life in the past two months. The Liberals, down as much as 25 points in polls last year, have experienced the greatest political comeback in the history of the country. But the change is much deeper than electoral politics can convey. According to current polls, support for Quebec separatism has fallen to its lowest level on record; a higher percentage of Texans want to separate from the United States than Quebecers want to separate from Canada. Trump has injected patriotism into the heart of the country like a shot of pure adrenaline.

I trust I don’t have to explain to the citizens of Boston that any price is worth paying for liberty. I take it for granted that a city that is literally a byword for fiery independence does not need to have it explained that Canadians are going to refuse, forever, to be subjects of a foreign power.

Quite beyond the threat of annexation, Canada has found itself no longer capable of maintaining its relationship with its neighbor. Canadians desperately want to be America’s friend, but who can afford it anymore? To be America’s enemy is much more stable and safe than to be its friend. America only respects its enemies — Russia, China, North Korea. If you’re going to be America’s ally today, you’d better get used to wiping the president’s spit off your face.

And if you fight on the side of America in any conflict, you can be quite sure that it will forget the moment after you’ve joined its side. The 60,000 Afghans that Trump is leaving to the clutches of the Taliban have learned the lesson America is teaching: If you fight on America’s side, you should be honored to do it. Denmark lost more troops per capita than the United States in the Afghan war. They fought and died because they were outraged by Sept. 11. Their reward for that sacrifice is to have their territorial integrity challenged. To support American interests is a form of national suicide now, no matter what country you are.

The chances of America successfully annexing Canada are more or less zero. Somewhere around 90 percent of Canadians do not want to be American. The number of Americans who want to invade Canada by force is 2 percent. So all of this is pointless and futile, but it has had the starkest consequences nonetheless. Canada has no choice but to take these threats seriously. And we are.

The Canadian government just announced a $4.2 billion purchase of an Arctic radar network from Australia. Military experts have been openly discussing the possibility of becoming a nuclear power, and the moment we achieve that status I think it’s safe to assume all talk about annexation will disappear. What is that American expression? “An armed society is a polite society”?

Just to be clear: None of this is of Canada’s choosing. We have been forced to confront America as an existential threat. Trump has made it impossible for us to be an ally. Discussing future military aircraft, Trump recently said, “Certain allies, we’ll be selling them perhaps toned-down versions. We like to tone them down about 10 percent, which probably makes sense because someday maybe they’re not our allies, right?”

Canada was set to buy American-made F-35s, but after that remark, anybody who buys American military hardware is committing suicide. The president is telling us, before he’s even reached for the knife, that he’s going to stab his allies in the back.

But at this point, the overt betrayal is entirely to be expected. Trump just tore up the North American trade agreement that he himself negotiated and signed in 2018. Another hard lesson: Any agreements you make with the United States don’t really exist. America does not keep its word. You should only do business with such a country if you can’t think of any other alternative, and Canada is looking for any and all alternatives, including China.

Canada has traditionally thought of itself as a country of compromise, a country of “why can’t we all just get along?” Just like a kid brother, we all sincerely hope that America will survive the current meth jag without hitting too many more rock bottoms. But certain lines have been crossed and cannot be crossed back. Canada will exist, from now on, against the United States. It doesn’t matter if the guy is your brother and you love him. Eventually, to survive, you just have to stop answering the door.