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In his own twisted way, Donald Trump has become a unifying figure. He’s more politically divisive than ever, but his outright attacks on liberal democracy everywhere have managed to rally America’s traditional allies against a common threat — one he sees when he looks in the mirror.
After the shameful Oval Office ambush of President Volodymyr Zelenksyy, Trump announced he was suspending aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, thus aiding in Putin’s project of subjugating his neighbor. (Trump has since walked those measures back.) He escalated his trade war against Mexico and Canada, our closest trading partners, and incessantly talked about making Canada “the 51st state.” He told Congress he’s going to “get” Greenland “one way or the other,” then effectively killed NATO by announcing he’s not committed to defending America’s NATO allies.
All of that took place in the span of a single week, but Trump’s actions aren’t just random idiocy. They form a pattern of outright hostility and mounting aggression toward America’s closest friends.
Don’t mess with Canada
Trump claims that imposing sweeping 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada would hold them “accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.” This rationale is bogus, particularly in Canada’s case, as just 0.2 percent of fentanyl that enters the US is seized at the northern border.
The reality is that Trump’s economic assault on Canada is an escalation of his own expansionist ambitions. Trump has argued for months now that the US should annex Canada, and immiserating the country economically would be one way to make it ripe for the picking. White House officials have even started using rhetoric that evokes war-mongering from the George W. Bush administration during the run up to the second Iraq war.
Not so long ago, Canadian officials insisted that Trump was “telling jokes” and “teasing us” with his talk of taking over Canada. But no longer.
“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy,” then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a news conference earlier this month. “Because that will make it easier to annex us. First of all, that’s never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state.”
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We shouldn’t lose sight of what an astonishing statement this is for an ally to make about the American president. Trudeau went as far as to directly link Trump’s strongarm tactics to his cozy relationship with Putin.
“Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend,” he said. “At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.” (Watch below.)
But Trump clearly understands little about the Canadian people if he thought his trade war would make Canada surrender to his will. In fact, he’s united different factions of the country around shared opposition to him.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre rose to prominence as a populist who supported the 2022 anti-government “Freedom Convoy” protests. He’s staked out positions on trans issues, immigration, and crime that closely align with Trump’s, and he said that “after eight years of Trudeau, life is increasingly a living hell for the working-class people of this country.” But Trump’s trade war has torched any budding bromance with Poilevre, who said Trump "just stabbed America's best friend in the back.”
As Trump’s tariff debacle drags on, Poilievre’s rhetoric has grown even sharper.
“My message to the president is this: Knock if off. Stop the chaos. You are hurting your workers, your consumers and most immediately destroying trillions of dollars of wealth on your own stock market,” he said.
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