Summary
Donald Trump reiterated his claim that Canada would be better as the U.S.’s 51st state, citing trade imbalances and lower taxes.
He also announced new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, including from Canada, despite a recent 30-day reprieve.
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has not formally responded, but a government source said they await official confirmation.
Trump criticized Canada’s defense spending and border security, despite recent Canadian commitments.
Canada previously retaliated against similar tariffs in 2018 before a 2019 trade deal resolved the dispute.
Most of us would rather die than ever become an American. Want a good example of the mood in Canada summed up against our ‘ally to the south’ as of late? Well let me just personally put it this way. You, the United States, are a fucking joke.
To quote an author, Stephen Marche, who spoke on the CBC here in Canada recently… The bold is mine but the emphasis really should be placed there anyway.
They’ve [The US] come off of 70 years of failed wars of occuption. One thing you have to understand about these comments is that they come from a profound weakness that America is really unfamiliar with. And Canada is unfamiliar with America being this weak. They can’t hold Baghdad, I’m not sure why they think they can hold Montreal. But they’re also being kicked out of Niger and you know they are weaker than they’ve ever been in a lot of ways. They are extremely fragile as a country. They have absolutely no solidarity, they have absolutely no unity. They are in the middle of dismantling their administrative state and war is a is a test, fundamentally, of the strength of the administrative state. So I think you should take this about as seriously as you would take the ramblings of a crack addict on the subway. I.e, you pay attention to it and get out of the way and you do what you can but, you know, this is not something to be treated like an actual… this is not something to be thought about. It’s just the ramblings of lunacy.
[…]
I think he’s [Trump] actually managed to make Canadians patriotic for the first time since I can remember. You have to say, he’s the president of the United States but the United States is crumbling. Institutions are falling apart and ‘Who the United States is at this moment’… that’s not a meaningful phrase. You have to ask yourself which America are you talking about, which institutions are you talking about, because they are not under the guidance of anyone, right?
[…]
All he [Trump] can do is destroy. The American stock market is falling, even the threat of this [tarrifs on Canadian goods] has caused inflation to raise it’s head. The American people fired everyone who has caused gas prices to rise almost immediately. They can tolerate almost anything from their political class. War crimes, whatever, but increase gas prices they go crazy for. So it’s just very important to understand that this is spoken from a position of profound weakness.
[…]
America has never been an uglier place to become a part of. <laughs> I mean who would wanna be American at this point in history. They’re about to start killing each other. There is no question that there is a Canadian rejection of American values, the American government and Amreica itself. Why wouldn’t you reject these people? They’re awful.
To be fair, Bagdad is half a world away. The logistics of maintaining something there is astronomically higher than in the same hemisphere, let alone our next door neighbor.
That being said I’m on team annexation… of Minnesota. Please take us!
First we take Wisconsin… Then we take Mich-i-gaaaan
Surprisingly I don’t think I’ve seen comments from people who live in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont on the subject online. I never realized just how close those states are to Montreal.
About half of America would join Canada in fighting this tyranny. I think it would be a grave mistake for Trump’s presidency to follow through on these threats.
No they fucking wouldn’t. They would sit at home and watch the Superbowl and clap along like they are right now.
I think you greatly underestimate how many Americans are angry about what’s going on and like our neighbors to the North.
“being angry” is like “thoughts and prayers”… it really means nothing.
Only a minuscule part of Americans are actually <insert emotion here> to motivate them to do anything about it… half of those are not even doing anything useful…
I think I know exactly how many Americans are protesting right now.
That’s cynical. Americans generally love Canadians outside Trump’s bullshit echo chamber. It’s horrifying to watch him shit all over Canada, and only strengthens our shared enemies, which is his goal. Many of us are standing up, contacting our representatives, and saying NO.
Is that the same half that rose up to fight it at home? Because I must have missed that part.
Americans like to think of themselves as heroes, fighting for what’s right, upholding the constitution etc. But if you look at history Americans again and again chose to simply do nothing. You reached late Roman decadence.
Here a candidate voted with the far right and a week later, one million people were on the streets. Population adjusted that would be 5 million Americans. That was a small protest for us. And that’s nothing compared to the French. I looked at the biggest American demonstrations and this one demo, a regular Sunday for us, would have been the third biggest in the US, population adjusted, or the seventh biggest, not adjusted.
All these talks of civil war… You cannot even move your ass to go to a demo. You think regular Americans are actually going to look at a Bradley, who can kill all the inhabitants of a house with one shot, and go like “yep, time to strap on the suicide vest!”
Even those militia types… Look at them. How far do you think they can run on average? How far with a backpack? They are just LARPing. 80% will stay home, 4% will go back home after the beer runs out, 15% will rat the others out to the Gestapo.
Agree with you but I’ll also throw out- protests do fuck all here. Those in power ignore and then we move on with life. It’s just the truth.
Until you threaten their money or lives it won’t do shit and plenty of people are happy enough to hold signs and pat themselves on the back saying they made a difference.
I don’t think that many would involve themselves in this war. Luckily, you don’t need that many when your are shitting on neighbors, partners, and other military and trade hegemonies.
Maybe not half of the entire US population, but I’d hazard “half” is a fair estimate for those living in border regions, like the Great Lakes.
And America would lose. Violently. They may successfully annex the country but they would never win.
If America invades Canada then the only thing that has happened is guaranteed your own demise. You have a border with us that isn’t defensible and we look exactly like you. We sound exactly like you. We are taught the same things as you are and because of your loud as shit TV, we’re plugged into the same pop culture. We can pass every single test to come off as an American.
America invades Canada and guerilla warfare becomes instaneous. You would have to literally kill every single Canadian who has a problem with the invasion because otherwise the extreme Anti-American hatred will only grow and foster until the United States is constantly being bombarded by “domestic terrorists” from a nation that never wanted to be a part of your shitheap in the first place.
People keep thinking about war with drones and tanks and soldiers. If you’re going to another country and trying to pound them into submission like the Americans or Russians? Sure. But it is a very different thing entirely when a fishing vessel packed with fertilizer detonates inside of a port or harbor or when multiple explosives are set off devastating your insanely aging and woefully unprotected bridges and railways. Or those pipelines that go on forever with massive areas of nothing and no one in between. Cause an ecological spill you can’t recover from. Maybe even the power grid that your states have idiotically decided to seperate? We could cripple Texas with a bunch of Albertans. Or we could just go through your farming states spreading weeds everywhere. Start planting Kudzu everywhere across the US. Start burning forests that prevent your dustbowl from reoccuring. You are so fucking easy to destroy.
You guys protect all the wrong things and you do not need to be a terrorist to realize how insanely inadequate the protections would be from attacks within.
Thanks for the link and transcript
I typed that bitch out manually because I knew I was just gonna end up sending it to someone else in the future.
I already have.
That’s a lot of work, I appreciate it.
😘
What a deservedly scathing review of the US of A.
And of most of the people. That “Why wouldn’t you reject these people. They’re awful.” line is based on the fact that a majority of Americans allowed Trump to become elected. Either through actively voting for him or whatever excuse they want to use for not voting at all against outright fascism. First time he was elected an argument could be made that the people who didn’t vote or who voted for him were misled. At this point? It just became abundantly clear that our neighbors to the south genuinely don’t seem to care about anything or harbor a deep amount of hatred or ignorance within themselves.
Review should have gone a bit harder in my opinion. It isn’t just the government or the country itself that is an embarassment. Most of the people are too.
And let me be abundantly clear. If whoever is reading this voted for anyone other than Kamala, or did not vote at all, yes. You’re the awful people we’re talking about. You should really hate yourself as much as we hate you.
As George Carlin said, selfish ignorant people elect selfish ignorant leaders.
Personally, talking to anyone about politics here is unnerving. Most people are in this fog where current events are only an ephemeral storyline that they tune into periodically like it’s a TV drama. Never a big deal, never anything that could affect them or those they care for. It’s a position of privilege, frankly. Maybe some of them are just that dumb. I think a lot of people, though, are scared, either of their ignorance or their powerlessness, so they simply avoid being involved or educated out of discomfort. That’s probably the nicest interpretation I have for my countrymen’s behavior.
Otherwise you are spot on. The uniquely tasteless brand of brash American chauvinism that we were globally lampooned for during the Invasion of Iraq has metastasized. We are long overdue for being knocked down a peg. I wish I could say the fallout from this painful reckoning would stay within our borders, but it most likely won’t. We have a very uncertain year ahead of us, let alone the next five years.
Most people are in this fog where current events are only an ephemeral storyline that they tune into periodically like it’s a TV drama.
No, I think most people only have the spoons to handle what is in front of them for the next 3-7 days. Its a systemic problem, that’s been promoted by both parties: Keeping voters head’s spinning, and the cloak of darkness providing cover for what our oligarchs want to actually do.
I’ve recently had to explain this to another person: The further down you are, in getting your needs met on the Maslow diagram, the shorter your planning becomes.
If all your needs are met, you can plan for this year, next year, and make decent plans for beyond. If your basic physical needs like food, shelter, water, and housing aren’t being met, then your planning is reduced to 3-5 days, if that.
Its purposeful by design, for the working class to have their needs met partially only, at best, by the ruling class. So, we CAN’T plan further out.
Notice during the pandemic, when food, housing, water, etc were all being met better, due to a reduction in transportation costs, food distributions, moratoriums on eviction? We went from people re-learning to make bread, to “Fuck the system!” in a matter of a couple of months?
Most of the people I’m around are not rich by any means, but they are not living paycheck to paycheck. Rising cost of living is worrying, but manageable. They can afford to pay even the littlest bit of attention or concern, but they don’t. Because then they would have to admit that things are collapsing around them week by week, and that’s too frightening for them.
Frankly I’m tired of justifying the behavior of the average American with infantilizations like we are some lower form of life without sapience. At some point we have to own up to it, even if it’s painful, even if all we have is ignorance, cowardice, and apathy.
Most of the people I’m around are not rich by any means, but they are not living paycheck to paycheck.
Most Americans are a single paycheck away from being destitute… Like, the average savings for a person in this country is 2K. That’s not even a single paycheck of mine, and hell, I even find it hard to make and plans past 8 or 9 months out.
Really looking forward to the day the orange buffoon drops
Beautiful reference and mention of an insightful writer and author … now I have some more reading to do. Thanks!
I disagree with only one point there: while America as a political entity is like a crazy crackhead, it’s like a very heavily armed crazy crackhead. Treat the prospect of being invaded by the US the same way Ukrainians treated the prospect of being invaded by Russia. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, because the US military is really good at wrecking whole countries even if it sucks at occupying them.
And are they just going to start shooting normal people at random? Canadians look exactly and sound exactly like America. The US Military is really good at wrecking a country but who cares when we can cross a border you can’t defend, mingle perfectly and start guerilla attacks against major infrastructure?
This war is not just tanks vs planes and ships vs submarines. This would end violently for America.
You seem to be under the impression that I’m defending the idea of the US invading Canada. I am not. It’s a horrific thing to even contemplate and insane on many levels. My point is that the US might do it anyway, so Canada needs to be prepared. You really don’t want to be the next Vietnam or Iraq.
You seem to be under the impression that I’m defending the idea of the US invading Canada.
No? I just missed a step in my text a bit. My point was that while the US military is strong and could outright invade Canada with tanks and planes and guns… that isn’t how the war would actually be fought. It would instantly turn to guerilla warfare as normal citizens started weaponizing themselves, crossing into the United States, and being able to carry out attacks on American infrastructure while looking and sounding the same as Americans.
Canada can’t prepare a ton more than it already has but America can’t prepare at all. The infrastructure in America is way too vulnerable and any war with Canada would mean a destruction of American infrastructure carried out by people wearing not uniforms but a smile.
Excuse the naive question please, but how will Canadians know each other?
That doesn’t matter at all when you’re actively attacking infrastructure and not people.
Canadian here, can confirm. This is pretty much how just about everyone I talk to feels about the situation. And I work in the trades in Alberta. Even my dumbest trump friends don’t want to be American. There will be boots to the fucking ground if our government tries to allow America to annex us.
Christ. I’m from Newfoundland but also (surprising literally zero Canadians) lived in Fort McMurray and other parts of Alberta for a time. The idea of them reacting like that up there now is kind of astounding. I remember when Trudeau was elected. I was living just outside of Calgary at the time. I remember people flying American flags saying they wanted to leave and join the US as a whole other state.
Man. You have to fuck up royally to get dimwit dipshit Albertans and other Canadians to go “Nah, we’ll pass there buddy.”
As mentioned I’m from NFLD. Specifically from the Gander area and of an age to vividly remember all of the planes landing in Gander. All the shitloads of people, mostly Americans, who were stranded and afraid. We had a Texan couple stay in our house for a couple of days until the planes were ready to go. There is a musical play called Come From Away that I cannot recommend enough about what happened. Got our accent and music right but also the feel of what was going on. I’m super proud to have lived during that and while I was just a kid? I am super proud of how we all acted. Most people got taken into homes and taken care of until their planes were ready to go. Not to mention all the work setting up emergency areas for people to stay and food and everything else. It truly was a community effort.
The towns have been informally polling ourselves on Facebook and other places to see how we’d all react if 9/11 happened today. The overwhelming majority of us reacted with “Fuck them. They’re staying on the planes or limited to the airport.” with some people saying the planes should be outright rejected for fear of it being a ploy of Americans trying to invade Newfoundland.
Just to let you non-Canadians know something… You know how Canadians are called the most polite people on the planet? Newfies are usually said to be the most polite of the Canadians.
Again… how royally do you have to fuck up…
Planes with Americans? Gander? As an European this sounds like there was a refugee crisis between Canada and the US. What happened lol?
The link I posted of the trailer of Come From Away sums it up pretty well. But basically, airspace got locked down in America on 9/11 and hundreds of planes that were on their way had to be grounded. Gander, a small town of about 9000, took in about 8000 passengers. Due to the central location of Gander, it took an absurd amount of planes in and all those people had to go somewhere. We set up emergency shelters but most people just stayed at someone’s home for free until the plane was ready to go.
Post Sept 11, (lots of) flights were grounded for several days.
September 11, 2001, all planes were grounded in North America, and Gander has an airport under flight routes.
Yeah I remember. I’ve seen maybe one MAGA hat in the last few years, and the dude wearing it was absolutely ancient. they were all over the place during the last election. After the Jan 6 stuff Albertans started to think maybe he wasn’t that great after all. There’s still a lot of “lesser of two evils” sentiment around the guy but nobody wants to join the US anymore.
Reminds me a bit of how it was in Germany at the beginning of the Iraq war (2). Plenty of Americans saying we should be bombed back to the stone age for not going to Iraq, while our soldiers were dying in Afghanistan. I remember in all the bulletin boards people would kind of cheer for American losses, hoping secretly or sometimes openly that Iraq would win, and the schoolyard bully would get another bloody nose.
That’s the moment large parts of my generation became anti-american.
I know a bunch of Canadians who are still furious about that time an American dropped a fucking bomb on Canadian forces and killed a bunch of us and then walked away with effectively no repurcussions.
I’m one of those Canadians.
He’s too busy banning paper straws and taking away his enemies security clearances to annex Canada.
You used to be able to say “It’s all about the oil” but in this case “It’s all about the eggs”
This man shits worthless click bait out of his mouth daily, why does media fall for it?
When the leader of the world’s largest superpower dreams of Anschluss of their otherwise allied neighbour, that’s not clickbait, it’s the state of international policy and diplomacy with the leader the US elected.
What do you want them to do? Not report on the most powerful man in the world? They need to report this, people need to see it
Fall for it? They’re grateful he’s made their job insanely easy. They used yo have to investigate things and then risk running afoul of the powerful. Now they just have to print whatever the latest outrageous bullshit comes out of Donald’s mouth and reap the clicks and ad dollars.
All the while ignoring all the terrible things being done by Republicans.
I unapologetically woke up this morning hoping to read that someone took a successful shot at him during the Superbowl.
Put me on whatever list you wish.
Dementia is a persnickety business
and it is his cherished state
Why would Canada join the US, only to be rewarded with a shitty health care system and a low national minimum wage?
Elon Musk and the nazi sad boys will just dig up cases, where chain smokers having lung cancer getting treatment, etc. In Hungary, some try to divert the anger created by the constant defunding of healthcare (some of which was done by diverting money into building football stadiums “to encourage children to do sports thus be healthy”) to the sick and the disabled…
He can’t even cherish California, what makes anyone believe him?
My grandfather was in Alsace-Lorraine during the German occupation in WWII. Thanks to a warning from a neighboring village he barely escaped being drafted into the Nazi army and had to go into hiding, surviving in the forest on his own until the end of the war. He never admitted whether he ever had to kill someone or not. But my mother remembers hearing him scream every night from the nightmares.
Now I’m in Canada and I’m wondering if this kind of thing is going to become a family tradition.
I’m amazed at how quickly the US has come close to being on the brink of becoming a rogue state.
Well the veneer of respectability politics scratched. It’s like people getting drunk it’s not that alcohol makes violent, or sobby, or anything in particular: It disinhibits (by anaesthetising the frontal lobe before everything else), allowing already-existing but usually under control tendencies to break through.
US has come close to being on the brink of becoming a rogue state.
We always have been.
At this point, I’m seriously wondering what the Reichstag fire will be that will prompt the US to conjure up an “enemy without,” steamroll several sovereign countries and blockade the Mediterranean and most of the Atlantic.
Internet Explorer meme
The US has been a rogue state for decades. Just that they used to be smart enough to keep some countries in the empire aligned without direct military force.
If I understand correctly Canada has a kind of similar worldview as Nordic countries. Traiding that to a right wing capitalist shit hole like US would be a no go.
Cherished my ass. You’ve done nothing but disrespect them since you were elected. The only thing you want is their resources so you can hoard a few 100 mil before you kick the bucket in a few years. Which I find completely ridiculous because it’s not like you get to take money into the afterlife, if there even is one.
He knows he’s going to the burning afterlife so he’s going to try and pay off the guy in charge.
Resources is definitely true but it also concerned me a bit that the three countries he targetted (Panama, Greenland, Canada) are all countries that control major trade routes. Panama shouldn’t need to be explained but Canada has St. Lawrence Seaway that goes into the Great Lakes and Canada also controls (with Greenland to an extent) the Northwest Passage that is becoming more navigatable every year.
We also have about 20% of the world’s fresh water, the oilsands and a shit ton of critical minerals.
As global warming advances and the vast majority of US farmland becomes to arid to produce crops the land in Canada will be invaluable.
Aluminium
Tomato, tomahto.
This is going to be the weirdest part of any history book. People reading and trying to understand why the US suddenly turned on and invaded their close ally of Canada in a failed annexation attempt immediately after watching Russia struggle a similar (though less surprising) annexation of Ukraine, which the US helped fight against.
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Not that weird, since we’ve had similar things happen in Europe in the 1930s. I’m mostly wondering, what’s going to be Canada’s Stalingrad.
Hmm probably hamilton. A lot of steel mills. If they come up through st Catherines, and hang a Reich to Toronto they would have to go through hamilton first.
I don’t foresee them making it past Fort Erie, tbh. But, that would be one of the more logical choices to try, so I expect Trump to instead try to invade Sunnyvale Trailer Park.
They better not touch those god damn cute kitties. Build a shopping cart wall that will impede them.
Fort Erie.
Not even going to lie, the Great Lakes will quickly become Canadian territory if Trump tries to make serious on his claims. Most of the folk in my region love Canadians more than we do people in other states.
The US army is much larger and better equipped than the Canadian army. And the US has about 10x the population of Canada and most of the population lives within a few dozen miles of the US border.
Also who is to support Canada with arms to defend against the US invasion? China? Russia? Because South Korea and the EU would first need to purge all the US bases they have.
I think US vs. Canada would play out very different than Ukraine vs. Russia. Could end in a long and bloody incursion, but for the conventional side of things the US would steamroll Canada at first.
the US would steamroll Canada at first.
that was the default convention in all the wars the USA has fought and lost in thevlast 40 years
Which is very different to Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022, where after first quick gains that got repelled, things bogged down in a slow war of attrition.
Has the US fought anyone even near parity since WWII? Its a big army but it has a hard time defeating guys living in tents and caves without resorting to carpet bombing.
I think of we invade Canada, we’ll be fighting two fronts…the other will be from within.
There’s this thing called NATO
Until the NATO countries have removed the US soldiers from their soil, most of the populated area of Canada would have been occupied already. There is around 100.000 US soldiers stationed in Bases in Europe. They need to be captured and disarmed first, before any forces can be send to defend Canada. That will take weeks at least. The US has the largest navy by far. Breaking the US naval blockade will take months if not years.
An US invasion of Canada will mean months of war in Europe, before any chance of European troops getting to Canada.
Unless the EU prepares quickly to kick out all American soldiers as well as build up a stockpile of anti-ship weapon, building jets and ships ourselves will take years, there is no way EU countries can come to the aid of Canada in time.
I’m not sure any US strategist is willing to face the fallout of open war involving all of Europe. But then again, when has Trump ever cared about his advisors
We are truly living in interesting times
Honestly, Canada is a terrible target from a guerrilla warfare perspective. We have vast areas of emptiness that locals are familiar with but are dangerous if you don’t know how to survive there, many pocket communities that could easily hide insurgents and weaponry, lots of farming, which means lots of nitrates, a populace that can easily disappear into the American general population, and enough of an identity to not want to be absorbed by a different culture.
I don’t think we could stop America from invading and occupying, but we could make Vietnam look like a walk in the park. So, who’s up for another couple decades of occupation?
Also who is to support Canada with arms to defend against the US invasion?
US citizens…
Could end in a long and bloody incursion, but for the conventional side of things the US would steamroll Canada at first.
That will be kinda hard, with US citizens shooting at their backs.
I meant insurgency, not incursion. My bad. I think we are agreeing on what would happen.
Well, except the part about steam rolling into Canada… Because US forces will have US citizens shooting at them while they attempt to enter Fort Erie, or Niagara Falls.
Assuming that the US takes the most strategic point of entry, which I kinda doubt… Like they’d instead do something stupid like invade via Alaska, which I feel would have less pushback, in numbers, but a better armed citizenry fighting them on both sides.
Alaskans love hunting with AR-10s.
If they had any brains, they’d create a salient by using the fifth column traitors in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Very little would hold them back in Maple MAGA country. They’d have both provinces in short order and then work on defending them.
A bit like Hitler making a beeline for the Russian oil fields before he got distracted with taking Stalingrad because of “symbolism” or some shit.
Who’s to support Canada? Sane, freedom-loving Americans.
With life time of insurgency.
Holding a country that doesn’t want to be held, that no one else wants you to occupy, is very different than winning it, as the US and other countries have repeatedly learned.
And the unpopularity at home would make Vietnam look like nothing.
No, it would be a disaster for the US. A very different one than Ukraine, but maybe even worse.
The US army is much larger and better equipped than the Canadian army.
What % of the US army would be happy to obey an order to invade Canada. At what level if seniority? What justification could be given to sure up the troops?
Nevermind that Canada has more than a few MAGA supporters/fascists in our military, so can’t count on 100% support from them.
The same could be asked about the Vietnam invasion, the First Gulf War, Iraq invasion, Afghanistan invasion… From my perspective none of these had any convincing reason to give to the people, still Vietnam lasted for almost two decades. The occupation of Afghanistan also lasted two decades and there is still US troops in Iraq.
If push comes to shove some bullshit reasons will be made up and i don’t trust the US executive to not obey. They are also letting some mid twenties kid fuck up the treasury system to hide payments being made or not made. And this is directly risking their own salaries.
Getting in would be a piece of cake, yes. Holding it would be so increadibly hard though.
Over 80% are against annexation. How much police officers/soldiers would be needed to keep the peace? Socially it would be a nightmare to integrate. Canada would probably retaliate with sabotage and guerilla tactics to shut down key infrastructures.
US government would have to deal with a good portion of its own population not to mention NATO and the commonwealth members states. They could support Canada militarily, but even if they don’t there would be strong pressure and irreversible diplomatic and economic consequences. What if China and/or Russia use this as an opportunity to weaken USA while it’s busy hitting its own allies?
I just don’t see it happening and being profitable in any shape or form. It would be a useless costly mess and needless bloodshed.
What’s in it for Canada? Expensive ineffective healthcare? Why would they go for this?
Reduced quality of life? Greater danger of being shot in a school? Shorter life expectancy? Lower quality food? And imperial president instead of a democratic one?
I’m not seeing the upsides for Canada.
Don’t forget the gun violence
