Yes Trump Wants To Annex Canada ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If Putin can invade his neighbors, why can't Trump?
Welcome to Amerikansky Oblast, where every day is stupider than the last! And now it’s starting to sound more like the old man is maybe actually serious about wanting to annex Canada. You know, Canada, member of NATO and the G7, and our biggest ally and trading partner.
It’s kind of like Putin (or as the French-Canadians call him, Poutine) has been whispering in Brain Genius’s ear that if Russia gets to annex Ukraine, Trump should pick himself up a little imperialist something-something from the gift shop too. Why not Canada? Why not Greenland or Panama? And then Trump talks to Trudeau, who reminds him that it’s a really stupid fucking idea that will not work for a million reasons and will bite the US on the ass the hardest of all, and then Trump changes his mind. Because the only art of the deal Trump has ever had is screaming and bullying people, then stiffing them and getting himself sued. If he’s not in a situation that lends itself to that technique, he has no idea what to do.
Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, seems equally delusional, or at least he’s going along with Trump’s delusion that this is all part of some grand plan to have America make all of its own T-shirts now.
Trump has been chuntering about annexing Canada since at least last Thanksgiving, when Trudeau came to visit Mar-a-Lago, though the Canadians and everybody else thought Trump calling Trudeau “governor” was just him awkwardly trying to make small talk, and chuckled politely as he “joked” and sawed at his rubber turkey.
Said Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc at the time, “The president was telling jokes. The president was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment. [...] The conversation was going to be light-hearted,” and it could only mean that everybody’s best friends because “the president is able to joke like that for us.” Just like when your “best friend” “jokes” about how funny it would be to kick you in the nuts, I guess.
But it became increasingly clear that Ginger Donya was actually serious when a couple days later he posted an AI illustration of himself standing on the Matterhorn with the caption “Oh Canada,” and LeBlanc was quickly like oh shit, this dumb asshole is actually not joking. “The joke is over,” he told reporters. “It’s a way for him, I think, to sow confusion, to agitate people, to create chaos knowing this will never happen.”
And Trump continued to not shut up. He blarbled to reporters on his plane in January: “I view it as, honestly, a country that should be a state. Then, they’ll get much better treatment, much better care and much lower taxes and they’ll be much more secure.”
Then January 31, dog-shooting sociopath Kristi Noem went to the Haskell Free Library & Opera House, which sits on top of the border between Canada and Vermont, to meet with the family of Border Patrol Agent David Maland, who was killed during a traffic stop, and used the solemn occasion to frolic on the piece of tape that marks the border. According to Deborah Bishop, the library’s executive director:
“She stood on the American side and said, ‘USA No. 1.’ Then she crossed the line and said, ‘The 51st state. She did it at least three times and was very clear in saying, ‘USA No. 1,’ and didn’t even say ‘Canada.’ Just, ‘The 51st state.’ ”
Then a few days later, Trump took up ranting to Trudeau that he didn’t think the 1908 treaty that established the border between the two countries was valid, and he wanted to tear up the Great Lakes agreements that govern how the US and Canada share and manage the lakes, too. By February 25, advisor Peter Navarro was even talking about removing Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, though Navarro later denied it.
The US actually already tried annexing Canada with economic pressure once before, in the 1890s. In those days Canada was still a British colony dominion, and William McKinley was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He proposed the 1890s McKinley Tariffs, signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison, which raised the average duty on imports to almost 50 percent, and up to 70 percent on some goods. The secretary of State hoped this could lead to “a grander and nobler brotherly love, that may unite in the end” the United States and Canada “in one perfect union” making Canada the 45th state.
Quelle surprise, this backfired terribly, and instead stirred a renewed “love for Queen, flag, and country” in Canadian loins. Canada quadrupled its trade with Britain, and instead of Canadian companies moving to the US, American companies like International Harvester and Westinghouse moved their production to Canada, instead.
The act was so unpopular that Republicans lost 93 seats in the House in the next election, and duh, Canada was not annexed. Utah became the 45th state instead, after renouncing polygamy.
What’s old is new again! Tariffs shall be kicking Trump and Americans in the nuts once more, because Canada is not backing down from retaliatory measures this time around.
In January Trump announced there were going to be 25 percent tariffs on Canada starting February 1, and then a few days later he changed his mind and paused them for a month. Then Monday he insisted tariffs would go into effect for real this time because EMERGENCY Canada has SUPER LABS and their cartels are shipping in FENTANYL! (The Canadian cartels are not shipping in fentanyl, and most of it comes as precursors from China, via the US mail. Also, and not for nothing, why is Trump mad at Canada for “letting things though” the American border? Shouldn’t our guys be stopping any shit that needs stopping? The US Border Patrol’s $7 billion annual budget says … eh, fuck it.) And the stock market began sinking immediately.
AND THEN on Thursday, as in yesterday, Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — Trump calls him Governor Trudeau, of America’s “Fifty-first state,” because he loves insulting our allies — had another phone call, in which Trump reportedly screamed and cussed, and Trump backed down again, with yet another month-long tariff reprieve, and a concession that the tariffs will not apply to certain goods like cars and agricultural goods. And now instead there will also be new duties on things that were exempt before, like computers and beer.
Then Trump delusional-bitched about Trudeau to his idiot supporters from his platform: “Believe it or not, despite the terrible job he’s done for Canada, I think that Justin Trudeau is using the Tariff problem, which he has largely caused, in order to run again for Prime Minister. So much fun to watch!”
Trudeau already stepped down in January, and the liberal party will select a new leader in just two days, most likely an economist named Mark Carney. Trudeau is surely counting the minutes.
Poor guy sounds so tired.
Tariffs on over $30 billion worth of US goods such as orange juice, motorcycles, and cosmetics are still on, and right-wing Ontario Premier Doug Ford — who saw him coming, huh? — has announced the province will still charge an extra 25 percent on electricity going to the United States starting Monday: “You touch the stove once, you get burned, you don't touch that stove again. We're going to make sure that we follow through with what we said we were going to do.”
Ford has also banned US companies from bidding on the province's procurement contracts, instructed the Liquor Control Board of Ontario to stop selling American booze, and cancelled a $100 million deal with SpaceX for Starlink. Provinces across Canada have eased restrictions on alcohol sales between provinces, and are removing American spiritueux from shelves. And Canada has suspended imports of pork offal from Smithfield’s North Carolina plant.
Even the Wall Street Journal is sick of this crap, and the editorial board is huffing “Trump’s Tariffs Are No ‘Emergency,’ The President invokes a law that doesn’t give him power to impose sweeping tariffs. Someone should sue.” LOL.
So great job there, Arty Deal! Check back in soon, when the US tariffs may be back on! Or off again! Or on again! Oh wait, now Trump just said that Canadian dairy and lumber tariffs might be on again, maybe today, maybe Monday, because he apparently just this minute learned that Canada has been charging some tariffs on those things.
Anyway, tariffs/annexation/invasion. All Mr. Pacifist Donald the Dove knows is he wants some kind of war, and that’s for him to fuck around with and the rest of us to find out.
[New York Times archive link / Time Magazine/ WSJ gift link, “Trump Pares Back Canada, Mexico Tariffs in Latest Whipsaw on Trade”/ WSJ gift link, “Trump’s Tariffs Are No ‘Emergency” / CBC]
It would be really helpful to debunk misinformation about the trade relationship between the US and Canada.
Donald has been very successful at convincing many Americans that Canada has massive tariffs against the US and is violating trade agreements. This is entirely false - and in any case if he believed it to be true, trade agreements have dispute resolution mechanisms that he has not availed himself of.
The most common “fact” parroted is that Canada has a 250% tariff on dairy. CNN repeated this today without even attempting to commit journalism. Aside from being extreme cherry-picking - 99% of all US goods come into Canada tariff-free - this misrepresents how dairy trade works. BOTH countries protect their dairy industry through a system of quotas and very high tariffs for imports above the quota. Not all imports. Canada imports a certain amount of dairy from the US and then applies an extremely high tariffs once the quota is met in order to prevent the market from being flooded with cheap imported dairy. The US does exactly the same already, though its over-quota tariff is in the range of 70%. The quotas and tariffs were consistent with the CUSMA, which Donald once bragged about signing, and which expanded access to Canada’s markets for US dairy without a reciprocal loosening of US dairy import restrictions.
The net effect is that Canada exports very little dairy to the US and is a net importer of US dairy.
The big money people are playing a dangerous game by allowing this bullshit to continue.