How Canadian Politicians and Citizens Can Respond to Trump

Is there an achievable, imaginative, and tactful way to deal with US animosity? I think there is, and I’m certain that there are many individuals and groups who are right now thinking through this very question and coming up with good ideas about what it will take to move forward without resorting to aggression or violence. But before this can happen we need to prepare the ground. Standing up to the US bully means ending our own love affair with neoliberalism and the fossil fuel economy. It means ending military funding to Ukraine and refusing to be complicit in the Israeli genocide of Palestinian people. It means saying NO to Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland when they propose increasing military spending to 2 percent of GDP, as demanded by the U.S. and NATO. Spending more on the military will in no way put

Canada is in no position to counter the United States in a head-to-head confrontation. Moreover, capitulating to US demands to spend more on military makes Canada look like a weak supplicant—and only invites further extortive demands by Trump. The second order of business is for Canada to get the hell out of NATO—the latter is not a peace-oriented organization. It is a bellicose association controlled through US imperialism. It goes without saying that if Canada follows the US lead of increasing military spending every year, the public money we invest in our valued social programs will be dramatically cut.

From an economic perspective, it is really past the time that Canada looks very seriously at developing good relations with other trading partners. Moreover, Canadians should be encouraged to buy Canadian, and divest from and boycott American products. In a strangely ironic way, Trump’s announcement that Canada should become the 51st American state has encouraged Canadians to reflect on who we have become as a result of being so closely tied to the American economy and American culture.  Sadly, there are some deluded people here who think being the 51st state would be good for Canada. They have forgotten that once upon a time the Canadian ideal was of a diverse, peaceful, multicultural nation that welcomed the stranger, honoured human rights and international law, and protected the most vulnerable at home and away.

Well, we never got there, did we? At least part of the reason for that is because we tied ourselves so closely to a greedy, war-mongering, union-hating, gun-loving, racist, dystopic America. This is not about countering US hegemony with a virulent form of Canadian nationalism. It is about coming together as a diverse cooperative—a society of caring people who wish to preserve the natural beauty of Canada; a society that relates to its Indigenous peoples with respect and love; a society that empowers working people and protects the nation from greedy corporate oligarchs who care only about themselves; a society that invests in public health and well-being through well-funded social programs; a society that makes corporate polluters and fossil fuel companies pay for the damage they have done. In short, a society that does everything that Trump and Musk pride themselves on not doing. I suspect that over time, if we ever came close to achieving this the dilapidated ‘city on the hill’ would be to look at Canada with something approaching longing.

When Donald Trump says “We don’t need anything they’ve got. We don’t need Canadian cars, lumber, agriculture”, everyone should understand this as pure fantasy. Canadian imports into the US stand at around $429 billion a year. We are third behind only China at $448 billion and Mexico at $480 billion. The US imports around 4 million barrels of oil from Canada…per day. So, don’t ever believe that the US would not pay a huge price for imposing tariffs on Canadian goods. In a recent article former NY Times reporter and Pulitzer prize winner Chris Hedges said the following about where America is headed: “The billionaires, Christian fascists, grifters, psychopaths, imbeciles, narcissists and deviants who have seized control of Congress, the White House and the courts, are cannibalizing the machinery of state. These self-inflicted wounds, characteristic of all late empires, will cripple and destroy the tentacles of power. And then, like a house of cards, the empire will collapse.”

We must not allow the US to drag us down with them—and let’s not fool ourselves, the Trumpists will certainly try.

A short version of this article appeared in the Powell River Peak