Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Roger of Invisible America's avatar
  2. Roger of Invisible America's avatar
  3. Margaret Gilbert's avatar
  4. Margaret Gilbert's avatar
  5. John Rapko's avatar
  6. Roger of Invisible America's avatar
  7. Brian Kogelmann's avatar

Trump is not even President yet, and he’s threatening military force against Greenland and Panama…

Brian Leiter

…and economic coercion against Canada.  We're in for four years of this childish imbecile!  The threats against Canada prompted these striking observations from philosopher Rachel Barney (at the University of Toronto), which she kindly gave permission to share here:

Trump is now promising to use 'economic force, not military' to annex Canada. In response to a question from a reporter which treated those as perfectly sane, normal alternative plans a President might have.
I overcame a revulsion of many years standing and for the first time clicked on the link and heard his voice. And it's by no means the demented word salad I'd expected. All the economic grievances are familiar rightwing talking points, and the underlying theory is just what many on both sides have thought since before Confederation, that the border is just an economic impediment and union the rational, mutually beneficial option. And I have zero doubt that a US government which sought to do so, and didn't mind its own people being collateral damage, could inflict so much damage that a lot of Canadians would change their preferences fast and cry uncle. We're not Finland, never have been.
 
There's no legal or constitutional path forward to annexation, but with a bit of brutality it would be easy to create enough of an internal constituency for a US military action to be colorable as 'aid to the oppressed Albertans' or enforcement of some forcibly imposed trade deal, or emergency help or whatever. The Conservative political leadership would stampede each other for quisling roles. In short it's absolutely a doable project, and I would imagine that saner people than Trump have been looking at water resource projections and gaming out scenarios for years.
It is really really bad that so many Canadians are still being blithe about this (looking at you, Toronto Star, and your creepy new owners). We need to get past the denial stage stat. The most obvious practical response is to rally round some Liberal leadership candidate who gets it, and has what it takes to lead a kind of National Patriotic Front of all but the right. I would rejoin the Party for that.
Curious to hear from Canadian readers what they make of this latest craziness, and whether they agree with Professor Barney's assessment.  Signed comments (full name, valid email address [which will not appear]) will be strongly preferred.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

37 responses to “Trump is not even President yet, and he’s threatening military force against Greenland and Panama…”

  1. Mohan Matthen

    It's weird that Trump has suddenly lurched down this path of imperial acquisition. It was not (was it?) a campaign theme for him. But give him credit (if that is what you call it): After the Mar a Lago presser, the temperature in Canada has dropped precipitously (and not just because it is January). Now, the talking heads on the CBC start their comments by saying "This is not a joke any more." But with all respect to them and to Rachel, I must say that I still find it hard to take seriously. Trump threatened 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada, Mexico, and China (ignoring loud howls of protest from maple-syrup loving Americans). Rachel thinks this will morph into 'Become the 51st state or starve.' Well, I'm still inclined to take all of this as a bit of post-game bragging.

    Let's wait for the Inaugural for hints–the ambition to more than double the land mass of the continental US would merit a passing mention, wouldn't it? (Fascinating that he's not asking Mexico and their "very bad people" to join–the one thing that might actually tempt Canadians to surrender. Who doesn't want to be in one country with Mexico?–Oaxacan cuisine with Canadian politeness and American football) But really, how is it going to happen? Will it be like the end of WWI? Will he appoint a committee to negotiate a surrender in a VIA Rail car in Windsor? Push a constitutional amendment through US legislatures? The more I think about it, the less seriously I am inclined to take it. We should all get ready to starve on this side of the border, but we won't be surrendering our (creaky) single payer health care system any time soon.

    Reply
  2. Michael Kates

    As a Canadian living in the US, I am both saddened and outraged at this latest installment in Trump's deranged antics. I can't imagine for a minute that any reasonable Canadian would take the proposal of "annexation" seriously, but perhaps Prof. Barney is more knowledgeable than I am at what passes for "reasonable" in Canada these days. In any event, I sincerely hope that the current political leadership in Canada (especially on the Left) realizes what a disaster this would be and takes these threats seriously. Oy, Canada!

    Reply
  3. Benj

    Like Mohan, I also do not see a credible path forward for Rachel's scenario. Were the Liberals to still be in control of the Federal Government a year hence, one might imagine a cross-border right-wing conspiracy to provoke a crisis, via a drivel storm with core imagery structurally akin to Putin's Donbas mendacity: it is American patriotic duty to liberate the enslaved Albertans, howling at the lash of the communist Trudeau and his door-kicking carbon tax Cheka … a narrative with less bounce, with instead Poilievre's "MCaGA"-ists as the coming majority government.

    What I see instead resonates with something I learned from Chomsky. In '03 or so, I emailed him asking why the (if I recall correctly) Salvadorian election just then had re-installed some hideous rightist party, in light of the manifest superiority of the left-ish party policies in boosting the material condition of nearly every voter: Chomsky responded to the effect that the US had been threatening violence were the election to go the wrong way, so voting for the right counted in effect as paying protection money. In the present case, JT is already on the way out the door; but of course this will not prevent Trump from boasting of his own agency in this, and in so doing issuing Poilievre with a demand for yet more craven allegiance, which will doubtless be cravenly rendered.

    Reply
  4. Simon R. Gurofsky

    I find it hard to know how to react to Prof. Barney's speculation besides with the hypothetical judgment 'If that really happened, that would be bad'. The only practical upshot of her concerns that she points to is that we should all vote Liberal, which–if that is what the pitch for voting Liberal boils down to–is just a Canada-fied version of the electoral strategy that the Dems unsuccessfully tried in the recent presidential election. I certainly hope that there are strategic planners in current and future federal governments thinking hard about how to confront American belligerence in whatever form it might take, but otherwise it's hard for me to envision what "get[ting] past the denial stage]" would mean in practical terms.

    Also, why should we assume that Canadian right-wingers would be favourably disposed to handing over sovereignty to the Americans? That would follow, as far as I can tell, not from their being *right-wing* (the natural team for aggressively nationalistic sentiments, I'd have thought) but from their being *corrupt*–but do we have reason to think that the Conservatives are more corrupt than the Liberals? (Almost a rhetorical question in the current Canadian media environment!)

    Reply
  5. s. wallerstein

    I'm not Canadian.

    However, when was the last time the U.S. attacked someone or went to war with someone who could fight back?

    They got surprised in Viet Nam, which they imagined would be a push-over against a third world "backward" society.

    They went to war against Germany and Japan (World War 2) because Japan attacked at Pearl Harbor and Hitler then declared war against the U.S.

    I can't imagine that the Pentagon and the CIA, which are used to pushing around 3rd or 4th rate third world countries, would give the green light to Trump to attack Canada or Greenland (part of Denmark), nations which could inflict real damage on "the saviors of the free world".

    People don't like having their country invaded, historical experience shows.

    Reply
  6. Paul Raymont

    The Canadian Liberal Party's best hope for re-election is that Trump continues this kind of talk. The more Trump brings the crazy, the more Canadians will support a prudent, steady hand like Mark Carney (a contender for Trudeau's job). My sense here in Toronto is that Canadians are thinking, "Sure, China's bad, but at least they're not boasting about deleting our sovereignty. Maybe we should get back to Pierre Trudeau's 1971 strategy of "diversify[ing] our points of contact with significant powers of the world" (as quoted in Roger Frank Swanson, "East-West Detente and the U.S.-Canadian Relationship," SAIS Review 16 [Spring 1972], p. 4).

    The Trump-whisperers (e.g., Scaramucci, David Sacks) advised that we take Trump seriously but not literally — he's a ranting toddler, so instead of getting into a war of words, focus on what he actually does and respond accordingly. But I find this line less convincing now that he's free of his Pentagon babysitters (e.g. Mattis, Kelly, McMaster). What if Trump says, "I'm ordering missile strikes on drug labs in Mexico," as Mark Esper alleges Trump considered in his 1st term, but there's no babysitter to stop him? Will the US military take Trump's words literally? Americans in the Senate, CIA, Pentagon, etc. surely realize that discounting Trump's WWE braggadocio when it hits the world stage is, um, problematic — I notice in today's Deutsche Welle that Trump's remarks on Greenland are being treated by German and French officials as a threat to EU sovereignty (perhaps at Putin's behest).

    I assume other countries have agreed on retaliatory measures that'll ensure the USA shares any pain brought on by Trump. I'd be surprised if traditional US allies (esp in NATO) haven't already worked out responses designed to hurt Trump in those states that look to be close in the next midterm elections. And China's going to hit back in ways that could seriously unsettle America. Short-term agony for sure.

    Reply
  7. Michel-Antoine Xhignesse

    I think a Canadian Anschluss is plausible in the very long term (measured in the next couple hundred years), especially as pressure mounts on the natural resources front. We are, after all, a mining company in a trenchcoat, as the old cartoon had it, and we're sitting on a lot of land and water, too. And we're already basically an American client kingdom.

    I think Barney is right that most of the country would basically just grit their teeth and accept the new reality. She's also right that the Conservatives would be all too happy right now to surrender to coercive pressure. The big exception is Québec. This is a guaranteed recipe for a resurgent–and quite possibly triumphant–sovereignty movement. It might even manage to convince New Brunswick and Newfoundland to join up.

    But if we're asking how seriously to take it, I'd say not very, in a qualified sense. We are politically weak at the moment, and Trump is stirring the pot to see what emerges (viz. a compliant Conservative majority). I fully expect they'll proceed to deliver further integration, and follow the American lead even more closely than the Liberals did when it comes to foreign policy. But there's no real desire for union here, and I doubt there's any real political will south of the border (imagine adding 40 million people–how many new congresscritters and senators would you need, and how many would go Democrat/introduce a new and potentially viable third or fourth party?), let alone military will (Republicans have not spent decades demonizing us, as they have Mexicans and Latin Americans). So I just expect more significant client kingdoming, which will be somewhat offset by the fact that the provinces have a lot more independence than American states.

    Reply
  8. Mohan Matthen

    Dear S. Wallerstein,

    If you meant to compare the Liberal Party of Canada (or any other group of Canadians, including the Royal Canadian Army) to the Viet Cong, Canadians might find that funnier than you might have thought.

    best regards,

    Mohan Matthen

    Reply
  9. Michel-Antoine Xhignesse

    Just a quick response to s. Wallerstein: our military is not really much of a force to be reckoned with (FWIW, I favour making it even less of one!). But the difference here is that we're next-door neighbours (making it easy to project force), and already very closely allied/integrated, culturally similar, etc. There's not a ton for nationalist resistance to appeal to, especially against overwhelming material interest. Plus, it's a very large and sparsely populated country, and infrastructure mostly ends a few hundred kilometres north of the border. We can't possibly defend it all, probably can't defend our far-flung urban centres, and definitely can't retreat into the hinterland. Canada successfully fought off American invasions in 1775 and 1812, but the facts on the ground are pretty different now. So the grand strategy game scenario doesn't look good. On the other hand, as I said above, there might be reason to believe that the US military wouldn't be super keen to follow the order, and some northern states might refuse to comply.

    But who knows? As I said, I don't think anything of the sort is really in the cards.

    For Simon R. Gurofsky: it's clear the Tories are getting their rhetoric straight from the US, and a significant chunk of the party's current leadership is very, very cozy with the MAGA clique (one is a close friend of JD Vance, among other things). And don't forget that a big chunk of MAGA world actually comes from Canada–think of the Proud Boys and the MGTOW crap, Jordan Peterson, etc. Then there's the whole foreign interference thing; the inquiry refused to consider American influence and interference (I did write to them, but I'm nobody!), and Poilievre refuses to get a security clearance so he can be briefed about Conservative Party involvement. Since we're not privy to any details we can't really conclude much on this front, save that it sure seems like Poilievre is trying to hide something, which in turn does not give me confidence that he's not going to be a lickspittle.

    This is not Harper's Conservative Party, although the Reform crowd are still in charge.

    Reply
  10. Keith Douglas

    (Response to Simon R. Gurofsky, above.) Doug Ford, the Conservative premier of Ontario, seems to oppose Trump's idea. So for what little it is worth, it may be just the PP and Alberta (probably with an appropriate urban-rural split, too) set that might welcome the idea. I have no idea if this is correct, mind you.

    Reply
  11. s. wallerstein

    Generally, I put myself in the position of the Pentagon and the CIA, whom I imagine are rational actors. Trump is just a braggart, full of hot air, who enjoys provoking progressives like you and me because he knows that we despise him because he's not our intellectual equal.

    I can't see any reason why the Pentagon or the CIA would want to invade Canada or Greenland or even Panama, all of which are "friendly", that is, subservient to U.S. global power aims.
    I also assume that when it comes to committing U.S. military power or even special operations to subvert another nation, it's the Pentagon and the CIA, which have to give the president the green light.

    Sometimes you have a president like Biden, who is completely subservient to the Pentagon and the CIA and to the U.S. imperial strategy in general and then there are no clashes. With Trump there may be clashes between the presidency and the Pentagon/CIA.

    My general theory of how the U.S. foreign policy works may be wrong, but we'll see.

    Reply
  12. Attila Tanyi

    The liberal world order is finished. It is a transitional period playing out in real time and amidst the climate crisis. Resources are scarce and will be even scarcer as the climate catastrophe is approaching. It is hardly surprising that the major powers make a run for possible future resources, be those in Canada or n Greenland (or in Norway and the arctic in general). This is recipe for disaster. The only question is where and when disaster will strike. Who could know that? Many thought the liberal world order was bad. Now they will learn how much worse the world can become without it.

    Reply
  13. David Zimmerman

    That we are even talking about this is utter madness, though understandable, given the stakes.
    (Written from Quebec City.)

    Reply
  14. Eric Campbell

    I say this as someone who was almost physically ill when Trump was first elected, and continue to think he is utterly inappropriate as President:

    Trump Derangement Syndrome is very real and pervasive. And it is an absolutely crucial aspect of how he has retained and reclaimed power, despite all the forces arrayed against him. He continually incites his 'opposition' to derange and debase themselves, which legion and provable manifestations thereof are then cycled around not only conservative/right-wing spaces, but also left-wing and even some liberal spaces. The fact that the 'opposition' media has drowned its audiences in baseless 'anti-Trump' conspiracy theories for years, for example, has been crucial to his success. That the Justice Department was clearly weaponized against him brought his poll numbers *up*. He very likely would not have won if this had not been done–this and many instances of provable fraud and debasement on the part of his 'oppostion'. Fwiw, none of this, or any aspect of the role that Democratic Party/media fraudulence or TDS more generally has played in his success has, to my knowledge, been so much as mentioned on this blog (which I have read on a daily basis for ten years, and which has been extremely valuable to me, and for which I am very grateful).

    To wit: The most demented thing on display here is that the professional philosopher OP, if I understand correctly, had never so much as heard Trump's voice due to the strength of her revulsion (the great strength of which is of course displayed publicly). And when she finally did hear it she was surprised to find that it wasn't 'demented word salad' (when we are surprised, it is time to update!). Well below this in terms of derangement is that she thinks that Trump is actually going to try to annex Canada. I admit I could be wrong about this last point, but that seems extremely unlikely. How many times is his making people like you spaz out going to work before you wise up? It would be one thing if your spazzing out worked to defeat him. But–and this could not be any more definitively proven–it works to defeat *you*. It is and has been how he defeats you. It is how he keeps winning and winning and winning. Had it not been for the extremely disfavorable circumstances of the 2020 election (most obviously Covid), he would almost certainly have won that. He lives on your spastic, moralistic, peacocking reactions. That is the way of egos. His feeds on yours.

    There is simply no end to the refusal to acknowledge that this man is beating you and your allies. Beating you raw and bloody and all you can do is look anywhere and everywhere but at yourselves and your tribe. It's all racism and sexism and people who just can't get enough demented word salad. You tell yourselves these stories and avoid the mirror like the plague, in contradiction to everything your own tradition is trying to teach you about the unexamined life (not to mention everything that various sciences tell us about the formation and maintenance and entrenchment of religio-political beliefs). Know Thyself! The current environment–in academic philosophy as much as anywhere–treats that ancient and sacred injunction as if it were preceded by a negation. The single most powerful source of Trump's support is that they can't stand the self-satisfied, moral-supremacist, preening know-it-alls who would literally rather die in their dread than climb the cross of the moment and let their illusions die.

    The best thing about this Trump victory, if we can let it be the great thing it could be, is that it showed that the fraudulence, derangement, and debasement with which the Democratic Party and its allies have tried to defeat Trump did not work. Will not work. That is a good thing because, as our ancient and great teacher of self-examination is recorded to have taught, the most important thing is the state of our souls. Trump's evil genius has been to get us to corrupt ours in an ostensible attempt to defeat him. Which attempt has in fact had a great deal more in common with Meletus's motivations in bringing Socrates to court, at least as recorded by Plato. Signaling, signaling, and more signaling. And it's backfiring on us as hilariously as it did on him.

    But Socrates was executed, after all!, I can hear you say. Yes, that's exactly what he was trying to get them to do! Just as you are still, after all this time, doing exactly what Trump wants you to do.

    Maybe do like Costanza on Seinfeld when he saw that his life was a pathetic failure, and try the opposite?

    Maybe look deeply into the phenomenon of projection, without letting yourself think it applies only to other people? Write down, with full pettiness and aggression, all the negative, accusatory, critical things you think about Trump (and everybody else!) and then ask whether you really know whether all that is true. And then 'turn it around'. See how much of it could be said of you (and your tribe), with roughly equal validity. Or any validity at all. Since that is ultimately your first and last business anyway.

    It's been working wonders for me!

    Reply
  15. Brian Leiter

    There is no such thing as "Trump Derangement Syndrome": that's just a way of trivializing opposition to the monster child. And this strikes me as complete fantasy: "That the Justice Department was clearly weaponized against him brought his poll numbers *up*. He very likely would not have won if this had not been done–this and many instances of provable fraud and debasement on the part of his 'oppostion'." The Justice Department was not weaponized against him: he's a serial law breaker, and if Garland had not moved so slowly, he'd be in jail now. He got some mileage out of claiming, falsely, that he was being prosecuted for political reasons, but he won the election because of inflation, full stop, and voter ignorance, which is hte norm. So let's return to the real topic, which is whether there is a real risk to Canada!

    Reply
  16. Mike O'Brien

    Trump, and the fascist movement that propelled him into power, have many levers for effecting a soft annexation, without requiring the cooperation of rational actors and constitutional sticklers in the USA's military command (or in an authorizing Congress). They have already conquered the most powerful democracy in the world (add as many scare quotes and asterisks to that label as you wish).

    Post Media, which controls nearly all of Canada's daily newspapers, started as (and continues to be) a propaganda arm of the Calgary-based new "conservative" (but really reactionary in form, and petro-supremacist in substance) movement that won federal elections under Stephen Harper (currently a lead figure in the International Union for Democracy, a Fascist International of sorts). American energy companies are the chief beneficiaries of the drill-baby-drill mantra of the federal Conservatives and of the Conservative provincial governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Post Media is currently majority-owned by a Republican-connected American hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management.

    The rest of the media landscape is not much better, as even non-Post-Media corporate media outlets echo talking points that serve to attack the political legitimacy of Trudeau and his Liberal party generally, as well as attacking the CBC, our national broadcaster and just about the only major media voice that is not bought and paid for by American capital interests. The foremost argument against the CBC is that it costs too much, despite receiving paltry per-capita funding compared non-American peer countries. It is telling that the foremost criticism of Trudeau is that he has been in power too long (I would argue because no other viable candidates are nearly as capable); one assumes that if his opponents had more substantial arguments, they would shout them from the rooftops. That such an empty argument, repeated enough times in the popular media, has effectively forced an elected head of government from office, shows that (foreign) money and broadcasting rights are sufficient to capture a democracy. Of course, during the anti-Covid-measures siege of Ottawa and of Canada's most important ports and boder crossings, the rhetoric in American and Canadian right-wing media was elevated into full froth with accusations that Trudeau was a communist dictator, a charge that has preceded more than a few US-supported paramilitary coups in the western hemisphere during the Cold War. As crazy as this charge is, it has also been repeated by America's most-listened-to podcaster and promoted, through words and platform manipulations, by the richest person in history (who is now also a Trump cabinet member).

    The MAGA-fication of traditional right-wing constituencies in Canada, particularly through social media, has created a standing reserve of quislings, who are more attached to Trumpism than the progressive, lawful, peaceful "official Canadian character" projected by the Canada's official and peri-official institutions. Nationalism may be a small "c" conservative value, but that political identity is as dead in Canada as it is in the US. (And it seems to me that Trumpists see their own faction, and not the totality of their country, as the nation to be championed.)

    It should also be noted that gun-toting MAGA crazies constitute one of the largest armed groups in the world, and a significant number of them would slavishly follow the commands of their messiah without any compunction about international law or the long history of Canada-USA friendship. Keeping millions of AR15-toting brownshirts from pouring over the world'longest unprotected border would be an overwhelmin task for armies even larger than Canada's. Were they mobilized, the ability of American forces to keep them in, rather than the ability of Canadian forces to keep them out, would be the larger deciding factor, and an official order, legal or not, to let them pass through could remove that obstacle.

    The question of whether this is too alarmist is an empirical one that will be decided by future events.

    Reply
  17. Mike O'Brien

    Trump, and the fascist movement that propelled him into power, have many levers for effecting a soft annexation, without requiring the cooperation of rational actors and constitutional sticklers in the USA's military command (or in an authorizing Congress). They have already conquered the most powerful democracy in the world (add as many scare quotes and asterisks to that label as you wish).

    Post Media, which controls nearly all of Canada's daily newspapers, started as (and continues to be) a propaganda arm of the Calgary-based new "conservative" (but really reactionary in form, and petro-supremacist in substance) movement that won federal elections under Stephen Harper (currently a lead figure in the International Union for Democracy, a Fascist International of sorts). American energy companies are the chief beneficiaries of the drill-baby-drill mantra of the federal Conservatives and of the Conservative provincial governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Post Media is currently majority-owned by a Republican-connected American hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management.

    The rest of the media landscape is not much better, as even non-Post-Media corporate media outlets echo talking points that serve to attack the political legitimacy of Trudeau and his Liberal party generally, as well as attacking the CBC, our national broadcaster and just about the only major media voice that is not bought and paid for by American capital interests. The foremost argument against the CBC is that it costs too much, despite receiving paltry per-capita funding compared non-American peer countries. It is telling that the foremost criticism of Trudeau is that he has been in power too long (I would argue because no other viable candidates are nearly as capable); one assumes that if his opponents had more substantial arguments, they would shout them from the rooftops. That such an empty argument, repeated enough times in the popular media, has effectively forced an elected head of government from office, shows that (foreign) money and broadcasting rights are sufficient to capture a democracy. Of course, during the anti-Covid-measures siege of Ottawa and of Canada's most important ports and boder crossings, the rhetoric in American and Canadian right-wing media was elevated into full froth with accusations that Trudeau was a communist dictator, a charge that has preceded more than a few US-supported paramilitary coups in the western hemisphere during the Cold War. As crazy as this charge is, it has also been repeated by America's most-listened-to podcaster and promoted, through words and platform manipulations, by the richest person in history (who is now also a Trump cabinet member).

    The MAGA-fication of traditional right-wing constituencies in Canada, particularly through social media, has created a standing reserve of quislings, who are more attached to Trumpism than the progressive, lawful, peaceful "official Canadian character" projected by the Canada's official and peri-official institutions. Nationalism may be a small "c" conservative value, but that political identity is as dead in Canada as it is in the US. (And it seems to me that Trumpists see their own faction, and not the totality of their country, as the nation to be championed.)

    It should also be noted that gun-toting MAGA crazies constitute one of the largest armed groups in the world, and a significant number of them would slavishly follow the commands of their messiah without any compunction about international law or the long history of Canada-USA friendship. Keeping millions of AR15-toting brownshirts from pouring over the world'longest unprotected border would be an overwhelmin task for armies even larger than Canada's. Were they mobilized, the ability of American forces to keep them in, rather than the ability of Canadian forces to keep them out, would be the larger deciding factor, and an official order, legal or not, to let them pass through could remove that obstacle.

    The question of whether this is too alarmist is an empirical one that will be decided by future events.

    Reply
  18. nervous

    On the Canadian issue, I agree with Michel-Antoine Xhignesse: a formal merger is probably a long way away. The noise about Greenland and Panama is worrying, though. It seems like the blob is gearing up for something like Orwell's Oceania-East Asia-Eurasia great power division of the world and constant war on the frontiers.

    Reply
  19. Very Nervous

    Under Trump the CIA and DoD will be very different than they have been. His people will be in charge and a number of people high in the hierarchies will be replaced. The new crew will do whatever he wants. No idea what he will actually try to do about Canada, but there won't be many checks on him in the government or the military.

    Reply
  20. LudovicM

    I'm not Canadian, but it seems that the only way Brexit ceases to be an utterly incoherent economic burden for the UK is if it becomes, perhaps now more than ever in conjunction with Canada, as politically and economically aligned with the US as possible—essentially an economic satellite. Canada, of course, is already deeply integrated with the US economy through NAFTA, which makes perfect sense both economically and in terms of realpolitik.

    Brexit, however, never made sense economically, while its realpolitik rationale was contradictory: on the one hand, following the Franco-German lead has always been historically fraught; on the other, maintaining close political and economic ties with the EU was pragmatically unavoidable, given that the UK was umbilically connected to the world’s largest trading bloc, separated only by what is effectively a naturally occurring canal—the English Channel.

    If the UK, Canada, and the US were to form a new tripartite economic union, led by the largest state (the US), even Greenland could conceivably be shared among the three in proportional fashion. This, however, raises the question: what would become of Australia in such a scenario? Why not integrate it into a reconstituted economic empire under US leadership, but with a constitutional veneer of autonomy—similar to how the EU accommodates member states? In this model, the British monarchy could remain intact, as it would pose no obstacle to deep economic integration.

    In essence, this would amount to the formation of an Anglo-American economic bloc, designed to counterbalance China even more effectively than current arrangements allow. Such a configuration might even have had Churchill’s blessing, given that—once the British Empire was no longer recoverable—he still harbored strongly jingoistic and highly racialized anxieties about the rise of China. Indeed I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the architects of Trump's intimations of a neo-expansionist American phase are exceedingly familiar with the thoughts of the likes of Churchill and Cecil Rhodes on the matter.

    Reply
  21. Peaceful IR Realist

    You write, "It's weird that Trump has suddenly lurched down this path of imperial acquisition. It was not (was it?) a campaign theme for him." I think this is correct. Trump's 2024 campaign mirrored the 2016 campaign in that he emphasized the three prongs of the old Pat Buchanan platform: anti-immigration, anti-trade (e.g., calling for tariffs), and foreign policy restraint (in 2016, he emphasized the third prong by criticizing the 2003 invasion of Iraq; in 2024, he did it by calling for an end to the war in Ukraine). Annexing Canada would be wildly inconsistent with all three prongs. But calling for annexation as a negotiating tactic to obtain better trade terms for the U.S. could arguably be consistent with the anti-trade prong. Of course, there is little chance that anyone else in the U.S. national security establishment will be interested in actually annexing Canada, which would (at best) be a massive distraction at a time when the U.S. needs to focus on the serious challenges it faces in Eastern Europe (Russia's war in Ukraine) and East Asia (the rise of China). So no, this is not going to happen. What's interesting here is why anyone takes these threats seriously. Annexing Canada is not something Trump would do, but it is something Hitler would do (Lebensraum), so by treating Trump's comments as serious threats, Trump's political opponents are taking advantage of an easy opportunity to portray him as Hitler, but really they are helping him negotiate with Canada by making his annexation threats seem less empty than they really are. One wonders whether Trump and his liberal American "antagonists" (who presumably would be happy for the U.S. to obtain better trade terms vis-a-vis Canada) might be conscious of and mutually exploiting this dynamic.

    Reply
  22. Paul Raymont

    I agree that annexing Canada isn't viable or desirable (for either country). The way these discussions usually go is that the vast majority of Canadians as well as moderate and left-wing Americans reject the idea, and after a right-wing American raises the idea other right-wing Americans reject it because Canada is (allegedly) a fiscal basket case that bizarrely (in their view) restricts guns while providing public health care.

    What's riled Canadians isn't so much a fear that the US will actually annex Canada. No, it's instead the fear that the US is going to nuke our economy if we don't cave to all Trump's demands.

    Eric Campbell: Yes, we're aware of the entertainment value in MAGA of liberal tears and the injunctions not to give them the satisfaction, but your remark that "It works to defeat *you*" applies (if at all) only in US domestic politics. When Trump says these things about other countries, he speaks as the man elected to lead the USA, so people in other countries react not simply to his words but to the knowledge that this is what Americans want. This is who they elected.

    The reactions to these provocations are going to be unpredictable. One I've been hearing is this: Okay, I guess we Canadians should spend more on defense, but not (as now) on military units that can support US operations. No, we should develop our own nukes. Crazy as it sounds, more Canadians are talking this way — if the Americans are so annoyed at us living under their nuclear umbrella and 'freeloading' off it, let's get out from under that umbrella and have our own nuclear deterrent.

    Reply
  23. Jorge

    Is it too crazy to think that the new shipping lanes in the arctic that climate change is opening and that the US must control to preserve its dominant place in world trade may provide enough motivation for the pentagon and the CIA to support this? I can’t help to think that this is precisely why Canada, Greenland, and Panama are the countries at stake for Trump.

    Plus, it is evident that no European country would be able to help Canada or Greenland in this hypothetical scenario since they depend on the US supplying weapons to Ukraine to keep Russia out of Europe.

    I don’t know. In my opinion it is hard to see what conditions would be more favorable for this crazy idea to work.

    Reply
  24. s. wallerstein

    Since World War 2, the U.S. has controlled the globe, not through annexing nations, but through creating networks of "friendly" states, states which don't make problems for U.S. global dominance.

    That strategy has worked well for the interests of the U.S. global elites. Canada, Greenland and Panama are all "friendly" nations: they cooperate with U.S. global geopolitical interests and global trade. Why invade them?

    The U.S. almost always prefers to use proxies or client states to fight its wars. We see that in Ukraine which is bleeding the Ukrainians to weaken Putin, in hundreds of instances in Latin America, the Nicaraguan contras, the Cuban exiles in the Bay of Pigs, in coups carried out by rightwing military backed by the U.S. in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and so many other nations, in the way "we" back Israel in its destruction of "unfriendly" Islamic groups like Hezbollah in the Middle East (there are "friendly" ones of course).

    Direct invasions often produce resistence not to mention U.S. casualties (which the U.S. public does not appreciate).

    Reply
  25. Attila Tanyi

    While I think some such matters will sooner or later come to materialize given the increasingly worsening conditions in the world, we should not forget that one of the main moves in the modern autocrat’s rulebook is to raise issues that have nothing of substance behind it (in the given moment), just to turn away attention from other, more serious and impending moves. This is what Orban does in Hungary all the time whenever something threatens his rule. So, why is it not possible that Trump is making these crazy-sounding claims just to divert attention away from his domestic plans? After all, the domestic front, where I certainly would expect significant moves away from today’s constitutional setup, is suspiciously , by Trump’s standards anyway, quiet.

    Reply
  26. Mark Capustin

    I will be very interested to see now the next government (and anyone who is still fantasizing that it will be another Liberal government should dispose of this fantasy) will react to Trump. For now, we essentially have no leader, no Parliament, and no plan to deal with Trump. That is disconcerting, to say the least.

    Living in the Prairies, the last two elections have elicited a lot of anger in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where Trudeau is utterly despised. I don't know if people living in cities like Toronto and Montreal have the slightest concept of what kinds of sentiments are pervasive in rural Saskatchewan and Alberta, where talk of succession has been more than just whispers. This doesn't necessarily translate into joining the U.S., but if there by some miracle were to be another Liberal victory, Saskatchewan and Alberta would be ripe for the picking for Trump. Canada joining the U.S. isn't necessarily an all or nothing proposition. Some provinces could be more open to the idea than others.

    Reply
  27. David Zimmerman

    Dominick LeBlanc, one contender for the Liberal leadership, has come out strongly against Trump's threats:
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/canada-us-trump_n_677fd1d5e4b09fe8a981d11c

    Reply
  28. David Zimmerman

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-tariffs-2670786395/

    Oranges that come in and oil that hgoes out– Maybe Canada plans to do something serious about Trump's ridiculous threats.

    Reply
  29. Mike O'Brien

    The perennial discontent and grumblings of secession in rural Alberta and Saskatchewan have been front page national news for decades. Eastern city slickers are quite aware.

    Reply
  30. Mike O'Brien

    The perennial discontent and grumblings of secession in rural Alberta and Saskatchewan have been front page national news for decades. Eastern city slickers are quite aware.

    Reply
  31. Very Nervous

    Canada may be too big to steal, but Greenland and the Panama Canal probably aren't. It sounds crazy to normal people, but this is a 78 year old president who sent a violent mob to seize the Capital Building. He's a psychopath with a very tenuous grip on reality. This time he will have his own people running all branches of government and he has a broad immunity. Things that could have been dismissed out of hand in the past can't be now.

    Reply
  32. Eric Wilkinson

    I'm a Canadian working in the US.

    There is no possibility this would happen, as with his comments on Greenland in 2016, Trump will forget about this in a couple weeks. And any suggestion that Canadians would accept annexation is lunacy. That attitude seems so out of touch with the attitudes of everyday Canadians

    There is no political faction in Canada interested in union with the US. Even among average Canadian conservatives, Trump has always been unpopular. He has only ever been liked by a sliver of far-right conservatives, but right-wing nationalists in Canada have no interest in an American nationalist, why would they?

    Likewise, the possibility of armed conflict here is a fever dream. But some here have been dismissive of the Canadian Forces, which while underfunded is perfectly capable of making the US sufficiently miserable that their public would not tolerate a prolonged conflict. Russia can fight Ukrain for years beacuse it's a dictatorship, the American public would not put up with having their sons conscripted to fight Canada. Where are the draft-dodgers going to escape to?

    Reply
  33. Brad Inwood

    I hate to disagree with Rachel, whose grim assessments of continental politics are usually bang on. But as someone said, Canada is already a client state; so the smart move for Trumpish policy-makers is to try to engineer a more compliant federal government in Canada — much easier than any other means to the desired economic ends. As for the left/right balance on the annexation issue: it's more complicated than it seems, especially when you factor in the variety of provincial governments, each of which has its own agenda and considerable political power. Doug Ford, Conservative premier in Ontario, can sound Trumpy at times, but he's now playing Captain Canada and threatening economic counter-warfare. Alberta is the odd province out, even among right-wing governments, so we shouldn't give them too much weight in the grand scheme. (The exciting bit would be if the national government were to retaliate by cutting off oil exports to the US; that would create a huge rift between Alberta and the feds, but that would be a familiar kind of domestic struggle.)
    And really, informed US politicos will soon realize (what several smart commentators have pointed out already) that Canada would not become a single US state, but between 8 and 10 new states. That's a lot of centrist senators upsetting the American apple cart. (I envisage the lower Maritimes amalgamating, at long last; but Newfoundland would stand alone and Quebec likewise. All other provinces would certainly remain separate — OK, maybe Saskatchewan joins with Alberta. The three territories could be swallowed, I guess.) And for those who really think Canada could be squeezed into a single state, it should concern American right-wingers that it would be a state with about the population of California and far bigger than any other state. That's a lot of new voters from a jurisdiction where even the right wing crazies would fit comfortably into the Democratic party. As for the current Liberal government, it is likely to champion the Resistance, no matter who winds up leading it. We might well expect a Conservative federal regime coming, but despite the opportunistic populism of Poilievre he leads the party that has, over the long sweep of its history, been more nationalist than the Liberals and more resistant to the fantasy of integration with the US. Poilievre is as much in hock to the corporate elite in Canada as any Liberal, and most of corporate Canada relies on jurisdictional protections to avoid being drowned in the sea of US mega-corporations. Things will not go well in Canada under Trump, but annexation is not a realistic worry.
    PS: those of us old enough to remember the Liberal's big push for diversifying Canada away from reliance on the US back in the early 1970's also know that it didn't work. But Canada has recently flirted with the EU for trade deals, so there might be more in it for Canada this time around.

    Reply
  34. LFC

    I haven't read every single word of the thread (especially the last several comments), but it's notable that no one seems to have challenged the statement by Attila Tanyi (comment no. 12) that the liberal world order is "finished." It's under significant stress, for sure, but to say that it's finished is a considerable overstatement.

    Almost everyone on this thread seems to adhere to a "realist" or quasi-realist approach to international relations. Many realists (there are some exceptions) don't believe that norms/rules, such as those embodied in Art. 2(4) of the UN Charter for instance, have causal effects in world politics. However, if those norms didn't exist, then the only basis for resisting aggression, such as that of Russia in Ukraine, would be self-interest; and while self-interest is a very powerful force, it's even more powerful when supplemented by the legal principle that the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state is impermissible. In this connection, see the comment (no. 20) by Peaceful IR Realist, who implies, implausibly, that the *only* reason the U.S. won't annex Canada is that it would be a "massive distraction" from the real challenges the U.S. faces in E. Europe and East Asia. While annexing Canada would indeed be a massive distraction, it would also violate sovereignty norms which some members of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment are still committed to. There's a difference between seeking economic advantages and invading a sovereign state. While the U.S. (and UK) did that in 2003 with Iraq, there are multiple reasons why that almost certainly won't happen with Canada.

    Incidentally, s. wallerstein asks (comment no. 5): "when was the last time the U.S. attacked someone or went to war with someone who could fight back?" In late 2001, the U.S. went to war with the Taliban in Afghanistan, initially deposing the Taliban government. The justification was the (accurate) claim that the Taliban had provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda. That war lasted until 2021. The Taliban are back in power; the U.S. and its NATO allies did not win.

    Reply
  35. Jeff Kochan

    In response to Professor Barney’s call for a “National Patriotic Front” led by the Liberal Party, here’s what Charles Taylor wrote in 1967 about the Liberal Party’s commitment to Canadian national independence:

    “Whether consciously or not, this party is plainly oriented toward a continentalism of an increasingly paralytic kind. Since there are signs that this policy is approved of by the overwhelming majority of Canada’s business elite, it is not surprising that it should be the policy of their major political instrument. But what is surprising, and symptomatic of Canada’s sorry plight, is that all this should happen in a half-light of semi-consciousness, that the Liberal Party can still pose as a party seriously interested in remaking Canada as an independent power.”

    On four occasions in the 1960s, Professor Taylor ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Commons, always as a member of the left-wing New Democratic Party. The above passage is excerpted from his essay “Nationalism and Independence,” which can be found here:

    https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/nationalism-and-independence

    Reply
  36. Jeff Fedorkiw

    There is zero chance that the Trump will annex Canada with “economic force”, let us know when you’ve defeated Cuba and we’ll start worrying. What has been made clear, I would think, is that there’s no moral argument for preferring trade with the USA over China.

    People should be cautious in their stereotyping of Alberta voters.

    Reply
  37. Brad

    Jeff Kochan
    Incidentally, David Gauthier, another influential Canadian political philosopher, ran for office (unsuccessfully). He ran in 1962.

    —–
    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog

    Reply

Designed with WordPress