John Jefferson
During his Super Bowl interview, President Donald Trump reiterated his desire to annex America’s northern neighbor: “I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state.” Alas, the vast majority of Canadians disagree. And they have begun shifting against the Conservative Party, which is seen as Trump’s natural ally.
The Liberal Party, headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has ruled Canada for the last decade. However, as the new year dawned, fortune seemed to favor Canada’s Conservatives. Long a decided minority, the right-leaning party appeared to hold a lock on the upcoming election.
Explained Warren Kinsella of the Toronto Sun: “At the start of 2025, when Justin Trudeau was still in charge, pollster Angus Reid reported the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives were at 45 percent support nationally. The Trudeau Liberals were down to an extraordinary 16 percent. Back then, other pollsters showed nearly the same thing. Nanos put the Tory lead at 23 percent. Research Co. said it was 26 percent.”
The Liberal Party was imploding. Trudeau had announced his resignation after an embarrassing split with the deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland. The leadership fight appeared to be over who could steer the Titanic as it sank below the electoral waves. For the Conservatives, what could possibly go wrong?
Donald Trump became president of the United States.
Trump’s convoluted resurrection of 19th century American imperialism, which even includes turning Gaza into a U.S. outpost, has excited some of his supporters but, alas, plays less well among the targets of his insults. He obviously views belligerence as a useful negotiating tactic—after all, Colombia agreed to accept deportees after being threatened with economy-breaking tariffs. However, the administration almost certainly could have achieved the same result without the public threat. A polite phone call noting the importance of Colombian cooperation in a critical administration initiative probably would have achieved the same result without the sturm und drang—and damage to America’s already battered claim to virginal innocence in international affairs.
Trump also evidently enjoyed his opportunity to rhetorically brutalize Trudeau, for whom the president appears to have contempt. Calling the prime minister “governor” and suggesting that he adopt the American right’s policy priorities, such as increased military spending, humiliated a politician already on the skids. While many observers assume Trump is trolling, Trudeau is convinced he is serious. In any case, the president shouldn’t let personal pleasure undercut U.S. national interests. His attack likely encouraged Trudeau to resign, allowing the Liberal Party to choose someone who may prove a more effective leader. Moreover, Trump’s abuse made Trudeau the defender of Canada’s sovereignty against American encroachments. For instance, Trudeau called on Canadians to buy made-in-Canada goods, presumably not what Trump desired.
Most worrisome, the president may really believe that Canadians are desperate to join the United States. “Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada—AND NO TARIFFS!”, he declared on Truth Social. Trump may not realize that Canada has a long history of resistance to its big neighbor. “Fear of America has been a big driver of nationalism,” explained Asa McKercher of St. Francis Xavier University,
Canadians resisted American invasions during both the Revolutionary War and War of 1812. “To Canadians, the ill-disciplined American soldiers who invaded their homeland looked like plunderers, not liberators,” writes historian Lawrence B.A. Hatter about the latter war. “They soon rallied to fight alongside British soldiers, and Indigenous allies. The U.S. invasion was a military disaster. The devastating waves of invasion and counter-invasion that followed along the Canada-U.S. border in the next few years only served to entrench a sense of difference between Canadians and Americans.”
A century later, Canadians ousted a liberal government over its support for a free trade pact with America, which the conservatives attacked as a threat to Canadian sovereignty. Opposition persisted to later trade agreements, including NAFTA, signed in 1992. Nor have more recent proposals for a national merger won much support up north. A decade ago, newspaper columnist Diane Francis published a book proposing a continental merger. In an interview with the Independent, Francis discussed its reception: “A lot of Canadians hated the book…They hated the idea that someone would even write the book.”
The president’s musings have garnered a similar reaction, driving away what he claims as a kindred people. And it’s not just Trump. Fox News host Jesse Watters is incensed that Canadians are not genuflecting to Washington, begging to be annexed. He apparently can’t imagine other people being patriots as well. Why would Canadians want to join a nation where such attitudes circulate?
Support for annexation barely breaks single digits, with 90 percent opposed. Normally mild-mannered Canadians are showing their opposition and, more importantly, anger. Reported the Economist: “Holidays in the United States have been cancelled and the American national anthem booed before hockey games. Shops have emptied their shelves of American booze, replacing it with placards that read ‘Buy Canadian Instead’.” The only question is how long the hard feelings will last. “The damage is going to be long-lasting,” contends the University of Toronto’s Robert Bothwell: “The Americans won’t be trusted anymore. The 51st state stuff is just contemptuous. It treats Canada like we don’t even exist.”
The political consequences have been predictable, with Canadians shifting toward Liberals politically. “Canadians know that not every Canadian Conservative is a Trump fan,” Kinsella noted. “But they suspect, correctly, that every Canadian Trump fan is a Conservative.” So far, the shift is modest and isn’t necessarily permanent. However, the more Trump dominates Canadian news, the worse the news is likely to get for the Conservatives. For instance, a Global News poll released in early February found: “The Conservatives still enjoy a commanding lead at 41 percent support nationwide, followed by the Liberal Party (28 percent) and the New Democrats (16 percent). But that’s an eight percentage point jump for the Liberals since Ipsos’ poll in early January, mostly at the expense of the Conservatives, who dropped five percentage points over the same period.”
Barely a quarter of Canadians want the Conservative leader representing them against Trump. Reported CTV News:
“Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney would do the best job at negotiating with U.S. President Donald Trump, over Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, and fellow leadership candidates Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould, according to new polling from Nanos Research conducted for CTV News. When asked ‘Which of the following politicians would do the best job at negotiating with U.S. president Donald Trump?’, two out of five, or 40 percent of respondents, answered Mark Carney. Poilievre received the second most support with 26 percent of people surveyed saying he would do the best job. Thirteen percent of people answered Freeland, 1 percent said Gould, while 12 percent said they were unsure and nine percent said it wouldn’t make a difference.”
Indeed, the Liberal leadership race is now focusing on policy toward America and Donald Trump. One recent poll found that “three-quarters of people who would consider voting for the Liberal Party would be more likely to do so if the next Liberal leader can stand up to—or skillfully negotiate—with Trump.” Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre wants to focus on the cost of living and carbon tax. But now the economic threat comes from America, with which the Conservatives would normally want to align. Even Poilievre has “shifted entirely the focus of his message to tariffs and Trump,” observed Scott Reid of the communications firm Feschuk-Reid.
As for Trump’s current trade offensive, Canadians support resistance, not surrender. Many say they plan to cut back on personal purchases of American goods and travel to the US. They want their government to go on the attack as well. Reported CTV News:
When it comes to next steps, and specifically what Canada should do in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs, if they come, polling shows Canadians support a wide range of measures. Most Canadians are on board with having provinces pull U.S. wine, beer, and liquor from stores across the country—78 percent say they support it, and 10 percent somewhat support it. Canadians feel similarly about responding by imposing dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs on U.S. goods entering Canada—68 percent say they support it, and 21 percent somewhat support it. When it comes to cutting off exports of oil, natural gas and electricity to the U.S., as a form of retaliation to Trumps tariffs, 51 percent said they support it and another 25 percent somewhat support the move.
Moreover, some Canadians are looking for alternative linkages across the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps even European Union membership. Stanley Pignal of the Economist has noted that Canada has the territory and resources, while Europe has the people. Many European officials feel increasingly uncomfortable with U.S. policy and are mulling how to push back.
Just a few months ago, this passage from the Telegraph would have sounded like a parody: “NATO countries discussed deploying troops to Greenland in response to Donald Trump threatening to use the U.S. military to seize the Danish island. … Questions were even raised over whether Article 5, the Western military alliance’s mutual defense clause, could be invoked in the event of an American invasion of a fellow NATO member state.”
While it is impossible to imagine Europe’s NATO members going to war with America over Greenland, alongside Canada it would be easier for that continent to face down Washington.
Trump’s tariff threats have also led the European Union to indicate a greater willingness to work with China on trade issues. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently cited “an era of hyper-competitive and hyper-transactional geopolitics” and appeared to soften her criticism of Beijing, talking of constructive engagement: “I think we can find agreements that could even expand our trade and investment ties. It is a fine line that we need to walk. But it can lead us to a fairer and more balanced relationship with one of the world’s economic giants. And that can make sense for Europe.”
After less than a month of Trump’s second administration, America is feeling the first gusts of the whirlwind unleashed by the president’s swaggering encore. Under President Biden, Washington’s demand for primacy had encouraged Moscow and Beijing to cooperate, along with lesser powers such as North Korea and Iran. Now, Trump is encouraging allies and friends to cooperate against Washington as well.
The best reason for Trump to drop his modern version of manifest destiny is that it is an awful idea for America, which already is much too big to be a genuine republic, ruled as it is from Washington. Moreover, politics up north is decidedly to the left of that in America. Francis, who favors union, is blunt: “there’d never be a Republican president again.” Annexation would end Trump’s plan to reverse the tide of liberal progressivism.
Americans bridle at foreign interference. Canadians are no different. Trump should leave the future of Canada to the Canadians. Americans have enough work to do on this side of the border.
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