Trump Unleashes Hostility Against Canada

Until about two years ago, I regarded the United States as a friendly neighbor, a nation whose democratic values were in alignment with that of Canada. In this respect, Canada almost seemed like a carbon copy of America.

When I crossed the world’s longest undefended border, I did not feel that I had entered an alien foreign country. English was the common language and the culture was remarkably similar.

In actual fact, Canada and the United States were different. And although their leaders often agreed on foreign policy, they sometimes clashed. Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson declined to send combat troops to the Vietnam war, angering US President Lyndon Johnson. Yet Canada and the United States remained constant friends and allies.

That being the case, I never felt that I was a stranger in a strange land when I cycled in Vermont, hiked in the Adirondack Mountains or in Zion National Park, walked the streets of New York City or Seattle, drove from Los Angeles to Vancouver, or relaxed on a sandy beach in Sunny Isle, Florida. These places were a lot like home. The Americans I met were generally far more brash and voluble than most Canadians, but they seemed quite familiar otherwise.

On a more personal note, I was connected to the United States through family ties. My mother’s two brothers lived in the New Jersey towns of Fairlawn and Patterson. My father’s sister was a resident of Portland, Maine. When I was a teenager, we visited them on a fairly regular basis.

So I had fond memories of our southern neighbor.

Regrettably, my perception of the United States has undergone a sea change. I no longer necessarily view this great nation with affection. President Donald Trump, an incredibly powerful, mercurial, erratic and narcissistic man, has single-handedly and short-sightedly demolished the United States’ mutually beneficial friendship with Canada, at least for now.

During his second term of office, Trump has launched a punishing trade war against Canada, one of the United States’ chief trading partners. Having accused it of unfair trade practices, he imposed stiff tariffs on major Canadian industries, prompting Prime Minister Mark Carney to slap retaliatory levies of $28 billion on US businesses.

Furthermore, Trump has yet to renew the 2020 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced the North America Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1994.

Whether the much smaller Canadian economy can withstand Trump’s punitive tariffs has yet to be determined. Certainly, as the Bank of Canada warned last week, the escalating trade war will bring uncertainty to domestic growth and may cost some Canadians their jobs.

Canada, though a mouse compared to the American elephant, is resolute in the face of Trump’s hostility. Having concluded that Trump is fickle and unreliable, Carney is diversifying Canada’s commercial partnerships and courting overseas investment capital.

On September 13, he was the keynote speaker at a two-day Canada Investment Summit in Toronto to which almost 500 guests from around the world were invited to invest $1 trillion over the next five years. And on September 14, The Globe and Mail reported that he was to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg on September 17 to pitch Canada as a European Union partner.

In the meantime, the majority of Canadians are willing to absorb economic pain to push back against the Trump administration, according to a Nanos Research survey.

Canada’s resistance to Trump’s bullying was exemplified by a speech that Jean Chretien, the former Canadian prime minister, delivered a few days ago. “We embrace our friends and we help them in their moment of need, but we bow to no one,” he said. “The more we are insulted, are threatened and abused, the more we will stand up for ourselves and stand united.”

Chretien made these comments in Gander, Newfoundland, on September 11, the 25th anniversary of 9/11. That was the infamous day when Arab hijackers affiliated with Al Qaeda crashed four American airliners into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon in Washington, and an empty field in rural Pennsylvania, killing close to 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist incident in US history.

With the United States having closed its airspace, 38 commercial planes were diverted to Gander, a town with a population of less than 10,000. In a spontaneous gesture of hospitality, local residents welcomed the 7,000 passengers with open arms. They were invited into homes, shelters, community centers and schools.

As it happens, many of the stranded travelers were Americans. Never having forgotten the generosity of their Canadian hosts, they established lifelong relationships with some of them and  formed an indelible bond with Canada.

This inspirational episode in the annals of US-Canadian relations, the subject of a highly successful play, has not receded into the mists of time, but it seems far removed from current realities.

As the contemporary expression goes, Trump has thrown Canada under the bus, mistreating it as a mortal enemy. He has sacrificed his country’s long and valued relationship with Canada on the questionable assumption that Canada has taken advantage of the United States.

If Trump had been a normal president, he would have tried to resolve mercantile difficulties with Canada through quiet diplomacy and negotiations. His predecessors, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush, never attempted to inflict pain on Canada by means of high tariffs.

Due to his shenanigans, Trump is the first president since William McKinley, one of his heroes, to act so aggressively toward Canada. McKinley was not an original. Years before he appeared on the scene, the United States withdrew from a free trade agreement with the British colonies in what is now Canada, writes Eric Helleiner, a University of Waterloo professor.

Trump’s strategy appears to be predicted on his desire to turn Canada into an economic vassal state of the United States. Trump covets its natural resources and its 3.9 million square miles of territory. He does not respect Canada’s sovereignty.

In a recent Truth Social post, he depicted himself as a Team USA hockey player towering over a fallen Carney, whom he has just body-checked.

To say that he is an imperialist would not be an exaggeration. His mindset readily explains why he thinks of Canada as the 51st state, why he refers to Lake Ontario as Lake America, and why he has condescendingly calls Carney “governor.”

Trump has the dubious honor of being the first US president whose objective is the annexation of Canada, says Robert Bothwell, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto who specializes in Canada-US relations.

Trump’s insatiable appetite for territorial expansion was on full display recently when he posted a map on his website showing the US flag superimposed over Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Iceland, the Caribbean and much of Central America.

Trump’s bluster is risible, but it should be taken seriously. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would turn on Canada, the United States’ best friend. But here we are in the unpredictable, topsy-turvy new world Trump has created.