Protesters burn posters depicting U.S. President Donald Trump during a rally against Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Panama City on Feb. 2, 2025.
(AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Canada as a 51st state
But Canada? At least Trump agreed at a news conference before taking office that military force was off the table. Instead, Canada only had to worry about “economic force” being used to annex it.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told business leaders that Trump’s talk about annexing Canada is “the real thing,” aimed at obtaining Canada’s critical minerals.
Donald Trump’s threats about annexing Canada and Greenland are causing widespread alarm among NATO allies. This is an AI-generated image Trump posted to his Truth Social account.
(Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Trump’s interactions with Denmark, Canada and Panama all demonstrate a disdain for basic principles of the rule of law at the international level, which is underpinned by the sovereignty of states.
His musings on Gaza, which led United Nations Secretary General António Guterres to warn him specifically against endorsing ethnic cleansing, demonstrate a willingness to break completely with international legal norms.
He’s not only peacocking on the global stage, he is also telegraphing that he holds international legal norms in even lower esteem than the norms of his own country, where he is a convicted felon. This situation is as alarming as it unprecedented.
Read more:
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s gift to Donald Trump, he could be barred from Canada as a convicted felon
America now a threat
Right now, cognitive dissonance in the form of status quo bias poses a real danger in terms of Trump’s dismissal of the rule of law. This means that folks are somehow convincing themselves that the undoing of the global rules-based order in real time is just a blip; things will somehow ramp down and return to normal.
But the evidence is glaringly to the contrary.
Trump is plainly communicating his wishes: a new age of American imperialism. At first few took him seriously. Now we all are. Canada, due to its proximity to and reliance on the U.S., must especially face a new reality in which an American president casually and repeatedly threatens its sovereignty.
Canada, America’s closest ally in terms of shared language, culture and geography, should be the first and not the last to start believing Trump’s threats to annex it.
Read more:
Allies or enemies? Trump’s threats against Canada and Greenland put NATO in a tough spot
Even when Trump is no longer in office, neither Canadians nor any of America’s other allies can be certain someone just like him will not be returned to power by the U.S. voters. That means America’s western allies, like Canada and Denmark, must learn the lessons Latin American and Middle Eastern countries learned along time ago: America is a threat.
The Democratic Party must also figure out how it’s going to effectively resist Trump over the next four years.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Martin Heinrich hold a news conference following President Donald Trump’s announcement he was freezing all federal grants and loans on Jan. 29, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Only an American concern?
Some might ask: Aren’t these American problems for the American people? As Canadians can attest, no. Trump poses grave dangers to the rest of the world due to the unique place the U.S. occupies in the geopolitical system.
Nothing about Trump’s second presidency bodes well for America’s allies and friends, including Canada.
A kleptocrat who regards friends and allies as transactional customers and for whom everything is “just business,” including national security, Trump poses an existential threat not only to America, but to the international world order.
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Publish date : 2025-02-20 04:52:00
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