He hasn’t taken office yet, but Donald Trump keeps stirring the pot with Canada and other “allies”.
At a news conference today he indicated he can’t rule out the use of force to take control of the Panama Canal and Greenland. Think about that for a moment. Isn’t this exactly what Putin did in Ukraine…tried to take something simply because he thought he could. He would be laughed off any other stage for saying that, but as U.S. President people will be required to take him seriously.
And with respect to Canada, he suggests he would only use economic power to take control of Canada. He seemed to confirm that regardless of discussions that have been going on for a few weeks to try and forestall imposition of U.S. tariffs on Canada, he will hit both Canada and Mexico with tariffs as soon as he takes office.
Stephen Chase of the Globe and Mail describes what the incoming President said.
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump said he would be willing to use “economic force” to convince Canada to agree to a political union with the United States — remarks that suggest he’s serious about a subject Canadian officials have so far written off as a joke.
He made the comments during a press conference in Florida on Tuesday after he was asked whether he was considering military force to acquire Canada.
Mr. Trump ruled out military action, but then said he’s considering economic force. He then proceeded to make his case for absorbing Canada, saying the country already depends on the United States for military protection. “Our military is at their disposal,” he said.
“Canada and the United States: that would be really something,” Mr. Trump said. “You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like,” he said, in a modern reference to the 19th-century American idea of “manifest destiny”, where some in the United States thought it was their right to expand across all of North America.
Mr. Trump also tried to make the case that Canada has little leverage over the United States and listed off all the Canadian imports that he felt Americans could do without, from automobiles to lumber to dairy products.
He said the United States doesn’t need help defending North America.
“It would also be much better for national security. You know, again, we basically protect Canada,” he said. He said Canada wants to join a U.S. procurement plan for icebreakers, but he doesn’t see the point.
“We’re buying icebreakers, and Canada wants to join us in the buying of icebreakers. I said, you know, we don’t really want to have a partner in the buying of icebreakers. We don’t need a partner.”
Mr. Trump did not campaign on annexing Canada, but since winning the November 2024 presidential election he has persistently advanced the idea of making Canada the 51st state. The Trudeau government has dismissed his musing as a joke.
Part of Mr. Trump’s rationale is that in his mind, a trade imbalance between Canada and the United States amounts to a subsidy of the Canadian economy. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada on an annual basis reached $100-billion as of early December – something Ottawa says is largely caused by Canada’s significant oil and natural gas sales to the Americans.
Polls suggests few Canadians support Mr. Trump’s proposal.
A December Leger survey suggests only 13 per cent of Canadians would like the country to become the next U.S. state. Eighty-two per cent are opposed to the idea. (Leger polled 1,520 people between Dec. 6 and Dec. 9. The survey does not have a margin of error because online polls aren’t considered truly random samples.)
Mr. Trump said Canada brings little to the table.
“We don’t need their cars. You know, they make 20 per cent of our cars. We don’t need that. I’d rather make them in Detroit. We don’t need their cars,” he said. “We don’t need their lumber. We have massive fields of lumber. We don’t need their lumber,” he said, adding later: “We don’t need their dairy products. We have more than they have.”
He suggested he has lost patience supporting Canada. “We’ve been good neighbors, but we can’t do it forever, and it’s a tremendous amount of money.”
Source: Globe and Mail, January 7, 2025
As is usual with the man, his pontificating shows a remarkable lack of understanding of the integrated nature of the North American economy.
There has been speculation that Canada should move quickly to showcase the retaliatory tariff measures that might face the U.S. in the face of Trump’s threat. This is probably the only response he would begin to take seriously.
For other early reaction to Mr. Trump today see stories in EuroNews and Toronto Star
For an overview of the trade that takes place between Canada and the U.S. see the excellent visualizations at Business Data Lab.
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