From hockey games to Saturday Night Live commentary, Canada is increasingly focused on the direct threats made by United States President Donald Trump against its national sovereignty.
Context matters. These events are even more unsettling given the recent U.S. vote with Russia in the United Nations and the pause in aid to Ukraine. While it was subsequently restarted following Ukraine’s acceptance of a U.S. 30-day ceasefire proposal, Russia’s Vladimir Putin seems to be playing Trump to the detriment of Ukrainian interests.
Whiplashed by these events, Canadians are rightly concerned that their principal security threat now comes from their closest neighbour.
U.S. invasion fears
Canadian security planning has long taken for granted American contributions to continental security. Canada rarely worried that the U.S. might aim its nuclear missiles at Canadian targets, or that troops in Fort Drum in northern New York state are poised to seize Ottawa.
However, the New York Times has reported the Trump administration is questioning the 1908 treaty governing the border between the two countries. Trump has doubled down with tariffs on virtually all goods exported to the U.S. Inside a famous Vermont/Québec library straddling the border, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently danced across it, taunting Canada.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill was introduced by a Democrat Seth Magaziner to prevent U.S. Department of Defense money being used to invade either Greenland or Canada.
Such behaviour has Canadians deeply concerned about how serious the American threats are and whether they’re all just part of Trump’s infamous “Art of the Deal” negotiating tactics.
Canadian patriotism is currently high, infusing both domestic politics and consumer buying habits. How resilient that sentiment will be in the face of hard pressure from Americans is unknowable in advance.
It’s worth noting that initial outbursts of “we’re all in this together” were insufficient to weather the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic.
4 scenarios
Scenario planning was made famous by Shell oil in the 1970s. By accurately assessing the impact of changes to the international oil market, the company was able to prepare for that decade’s OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil shocks.
Scenario planning isn’t about predicting the future — it’s about highlighting potential futures and the demands they’re likely to present to our current way of life.
Along two axes, we can chart the degree of American commitment to anti-Canadian animus, versus Canadian commitment to its own survival. This mix generates four possible outcomes.
In the first quadrant, where the commitment of both states is low, the result is “business as usual.” Canada continues to commercially serve the U.S market, while the U.S. extracts the best possible trade deals from Canada.
In the second quadrant, the commitment of both states is high. Here, the U.S. would go beyond tariffs and target the ability of Canadian banks to do business with American ones, and pressure SWIFT to cut off Canadian access to international banking.
A Canadian unwillingness to “bend the knee” to the U.S. creates a status not unlike that faced by Cuba, where the Americans have maintained a comprehensive trade embargo since 1958. In this scenario, Canada becomes internationally isolated and impoverished due to its resistance to American demands, seeking allies abroad while stemming capital flight through draconian measures.
In the third quadrant, Canada’s resilience is low and American animus is high. At best, the Canadian situation would be analogous to that of Belarus’s relationship with Russia.
Russia is Belarus’s largest economic and political partner; they share a long water and land boundary. In some respects, Belarus still has a seat at the United Nations, but minuscule manoeuvrability on foreign or defence policy.
Canada becoming a 51st state is highly unlikely. The electoral consequences of admitting 40 million voters much more progressive than most Americans would skew electoral outcomes unsuited to Republican tastes.
Of course, this is accepting the fantasy that Canadians would be admitted with equal rights to “real Americans.” The effort to dispossess Gazans of their rights and land is illustrative here.
Read more: Canada as a 51st state? Republicans would never win another general election
Canadian provinces are unlikely to want to be lumped into a single entity, especially Québec.
Finally, there are complicated issues at stake, such as differences over political rights, gun control, universal health care and state-supported education. A more probable outcome would involve Canada becoming a type of vassal state, not unlike Belarus.
In the last quadrant, Canadian resistance is high, but the U.S. is willing to tolerate at least a modicum of independence. Here Finland’s relationship with the former Soviet Union is relevant.
Canada would be permitted the ability to maintain independent diplomatic relations. But it would have to tread carefully by never entering alliances or agreements that would upset the Americans. Any thought of Canada joining the European Union would be dead.
Other possibilities
These four models don’t capture all possible outcomes.
They don’t take into consideration how military force might be deployed against Canada.
Outright invasion is unlikely. But “freedom of navigation” operations in the Northwest Passage are highly likely.
In the context of a new push to secure North America’s Arctic security, the seizure of one or more islands in the Arctic Archipelago is also imaginable.
U.S. market reactions may play a part in pausing some of Trump’s plans. But if he remains as fixated on Canadian annexation as he has with a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, his administration may be willing to withstand a plummeting stock market and political pushback.
How any of this plays out domestically in the U.S. is also difficult to discern. Americans are poorly educated about international affairs and know relatively little about Canada. Many support Trump narratives on tariffs, fentanyl and other imaginary reasons for harsh policies against Canada.
Read more: Why some Canadians are in denial about Donald Trump
But should the situation between the U.S. and Canada become particularly grim, the level of maliciousness required to annex Canada could shock Americans out of complacency. Nonetheless, even though a recent poll suggests most Americans are opposed to a Canada-U.S. merger, it’s unclear if that will remain the case.
The present burst of enthusiastic Canadian patriotism seems to illustrate a strong commitment to our own national survival.
But this, still, has yet to be fully tested.
Canadians must keep in mind that if Trump is serious, and if America institutions align with him, they may be confronted with colossal costs where Canada’s options may be limited to a choosing between Cuban or Belarussian outcomes.