When signing a free trade agreement with Canada in 1988, Reagan marveled at the longest land border in the world. “No soldier can protect it,” the 40th president said. “The barbed wire has no defilement, nor the invisible economic suspicion and fear will expand it.” Reagan said on another occasion Canadians and Americans, “not just friends, neighbors and allies.” In the current situation, Reagan’s feelings are three things. First, most Americans also like Canadians, and even they have a hard time seeing them as unique, because Canadians can easily look like the “better” version of Americans. The second is that Reagan oversimplifies a complex, often competitive, and sometimes controversial relationship in history. The third is that Americans have long referred to Canadians as Russians in both respects.
Please read also: Who is James Boasberg, who was the impeacher of Justice Trump?
Fast forward to 1999, when the TV series South Park captured the dark side of this ambivalence, only irony could be. The gatherings of parents in Colorado are often strange about what Trump later called the “American massacre.” Our children fail and we are frustrated with life: it’s not our fault, so it has to be someone else’s. Ergo, as the chorus has, “blame Canada.” As a solo riff, “they aren’t even a real country anyway.” If South Park were Russian, the song might be about Ukraine.
The episode aired when Vladimir Putin began to rise to the Russian autocratic power. At that time, he firmly believed that Ukraine was not a real country, but a historical appendix to the Russian world. He combined the idea with his premise that world politics is about domination, his method (learned in his years as a KGB agent), that is, to use lies, especially big lies, to gain power both at home and abroad.
Enter Trump. For his motto in foreign policy, he passed Reagan’s “Peace by Power.” In fact, his diplomatic and strategic approach is the opposite of regenerativeism. Gipper represents the place of free trade, and Trump represents tariffs represents economic war. Potus 40 stands explicitly with the allies of the United States, staring at the opponent, with 47 dismissive friends flirting with enemies. Reagan spoke to weaker interlocutors such as Ottawa and adopted a friendly attitude, and Trump struggled to threaten Moscow with others.
Please read also: Is the U.S. recession on the card and how to know it has arrived? detail
In all these aspects, Trump is closer to Putin than Reagan in his worldview. Hence, his repeated hints—the threat to Putin reverberated in the years before the invasion of Ukraine—annexed Canada to become the 51st state. Some Canadians, not always laugh at the tongue, are talking about an imminent “Kanchilus” (Canadian Portmante and Anshrus, Austrian annexation by Adolf Hitler).
Trump’s preferred tool for Kanschlaus appears to be economic coercion. Other U.S. presidents occasionally use anti-dumping responsibilities to push Canada to abandon its own trade barriers, especially those on wood and milk. That is legal. But as Trump keeps opening and closing the punitive and devastating tariffs, he is pursuing something else: conquest.
Many of Trump’s threats will hurt the United States as much as Canada. His administration said it could kick Canada out of five eyes, a group of countries that share life-saving intelligence, including Americans’ lives. It suggests that the U.S. could withdraw from the North American Aviation Defense Command, where Canada and the U.S. jointly monitor the sky and oceans of the north, threatened from Russia, China, North Korea or other bogeyers.
Also Read: Why Trump Didn’t Meet Sunita Williams After Returning to Earth
Trump absorbed Putin’s propaganda lessons when integrating the sport into the narrative. When the Kremlin prepares to conquer Ukraine and other goals, it first weaves an exhaustive web of lies, disinformation and conspiracy theories. For example, Moscow has various pretended that Ukraine was led by terrorists, Satanists and neo-Nazis. What is important with Putin is whether these narratives make sense, but can be used to confuse and rule. That’s what Trump attracts.
One lie Trump chose to attack Canada is that the country is the prince who kills thousands of Americans every year in the fentanyl trade. The supply line for this opioid ranges from Chinese labs to Mexican cartels, and (via mostly Americans) to the U.S. consumers. Some also carry fentanyl in two directions across the U.S. and Canada border. But the number of smuggling south is negligible, at about 0.2%. If there is a fatal smuggling problem at the border, it will in turn involve American guns killing Canadians.
Timothy Snyder, a historian of Eastern Europe and tyranny, believes that “depicting Canada as the fentanyl enemy of the United States is a conspiracy theory.” He concluded, adding another big lie – Canada is not a country, not a country, and it is a step forward in the policy aimed at annexation of Canada. “When American experts react primarily by thinking about whether Canada will dye Washington political blue, they will only increase the impact of Canada.
Please read also: “Don’t buy Tesla”: Controversial sand images appear, world’s largest Elon Musk protests
Not surprisingly, Canadian politics is in turmoil, with Canschluss leading the upcoming election. New Prime Minister Mark Carney has a second thought on the contract to buy 88 American-made F-35 fighters, while also attracting Canadian European partners and focusing on alternative alliances. Many Canadians are boycotting American goods. Some people boo the U.S. national anthem in sports competitions.
It is hard to exaggerate this situation to be an unwarranted and unnecessary disaster. Those who voted for Trump last year did not do this to punish or annex Canada, or indeed Greenland, Panama, or anywhere else Trump chose. The United States and the world have many pressing problems, but irrational people think the Canadian border is on that list.
Trump is wanton and whimsical, with Reagan and many Americans for a long time, not only considering friends, neighbors and allies, alienating and confronting Trump. None of this is rational, wise or normal – it has nothing to do with “power”. This is the act of global bullying, and it has just begun.
