The administration is actually serious about some aspects of this, the whole “51st State” thing with respect to Canada, basically annexing it. For a long time pre-administration and a few weeks post-inauguration, the consensus was that Trump was just trolling Canada to be seen as “tough” with his supporters. It wasn’t the nicest thing to do but as just trolling for appearances, it wouldn’t be all that harmful, either. But they’re clearly not just trolling. There is no getting around the fact that they clearly want to manipulate this relationship, if not persuade Canadians that this is something they really should look at – no matter how strongly rejected. So on they go, no let up, despite it so obviously hurting the U.S. economy and reputation around the globe… God only knows how they justify it. It is not like Canada is going to give any ground beyond agreeing to work with hardening the border a bit as they heard and said “Okay” to. Now not so much.
Today it was Peter Navarro saying he’ll just redraw the border. It sounds like he’s just content with stealing it, putting up American flags around Toronto, Vancouver, and all good stuff in between (They really probably don’t need permafrost semi-tundra, just the first 100 miles in.) Who is Peter Navarro to take this international move on himself? Great question. He is the current Trump administration Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing or just the type of guy with the power to go about “drawing the new border” and taking Canada. Nice. Oh, and it definitely impacts the U.S. and not in a good way. From a report in the Telegraph:
A top White House official has threatened to redraw the Canadian border amid Donald Trump’s ambition to turn the country into America’s “51st state”. Peter Navarro, one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, is pushing US negotiators to discuss reworking the border with their Canadian counterparts.
Yes, well – be that as it may, Canada has shown zero interest in negotiating a thing, indeed just the opposite. Canadian citizens and politicians are only getting madder and madder and now voting with their wallets, pulling back from trade and tourism dollars.
“Navarro recommended revising the Canada-US border, which is just crazy and dangerous,” a source close to negotiations told The Telegraph. Proposals also put forward by Mr Navarro include expelling Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, the most important intelligence-sharing network in the world.
Okay but what if the other three eyes, and Canada, think that the administration’s contempt for independence, Canada’s self-determination, and the weird American relationship with Russia has them coming out to tell the U.S., “Frankly, we’d actually rather kick you out and invite some others in… ” If the U.S. gets too far into strong-arming and throwing the administration’s weight around they might well face a situation where their position goes downhill. As I’ve written many times, Canada has a lot of friends in this world, from Europe to East Asia, it’s not like every country will just back the U.S. it seems like plenty are ready to put their foot down and say “enough already.”
Do we know what will play out in the next few years? Of course not. The administration may decide to back off in the next few weeks with the President simply saying, “this is going nowhere, let’s try something else… ” (He has some pretty level-headed advisors around him of the Susie Wiles type that aren’t really afraid to say, ‘This isn’t really helping.’) Or it could go all the way, NATO be busted up, trade coming to near a dead halt and many many former allies looking at us simply saying “They’re sort of insane and it’s probably best to just do our thing and let them worry about their issues.” We don’t know.
We only really know that this talk is now to the point where it’s having a serious impact on a relationship that – for the most part – served each country just fine and no real reason to change much of anything since there was little to be gained. We only know that this stuff is now just sort of hurting the U.S. with almost no potential to help anything. The more serious they appear, the more other nations just want to back off and take care of their own – including a decent ally in Canada. It is not exactly subtle or complicated diplomacy. “Don’t be a dick” works just fine in international relationships.
God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter-X at @JasonMiciak, or follow me on Bluesky.
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There’s a piece over on the other site, that says Canadians are selling their winter homes in Arizona in record numbers. Of course, the reason is tRump. I thought all along, that his comments about Ukraine never becoming a member of NATO are bogus. Several factors could make that irrelevant. First, Europe could and probably will form their own security agency. Second, tRump won’t either live or be president forever. I’m pretty sure Zelensky will outlive him. I agree, all of tRump’s ridiculous comments and actions need to be stood up to. The sooner the better.
“…include expelling Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, the most important intelligence-sharing network in the world.”
Throw out Canada, put in Russia.
What could go wrong?!?
Navarro was a felon the first time, he’s worse now.
I’m Canadian. FU Navarro!!!!
So what did you think of my conditions for joining the States at the end of Jason’s piece on Gretzky???
Not bad, except for #9. Why not give them free health car, too, and make it more enticing? They’d never know what hit ’em and it would be hard to “go back.”
Love it: Don’t be a dick.
Yeah. Exactly, Well said Jason. Couldn’t have expressed it any better
I’ll always be here, Jason, to remind people that Peter Navarro wrote a book warning the U.S. about Chinese imports.* He didn’t work very hard on it and kept quoting “China expert Ron Vara.” You know, that expert who does not exist because Ron Vara is an acronym for Navarro!! He later used that same expert in a book with a co-author, who was not told of Ron Vara’s non-existence until after publication!! So, Navarro is, of course, an adviser to Sphincter Face! “Boss, what do you need…Canada as the 51st state?…I can get it for you wholesale through wholesale lying!!” 🤥
* https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771396016/white-house-adviser-peter-navarro-calls-fictional-alter-ego-an-inside-joke
Anagram, not acronym! My bad! 🤦♀️
Annexing a sovereign. nation or even part of one against its citizens desire is called an invasion. We saw this in real time when Vlad invaded Ukraine, as has been pointed out to him by president of France, the U.K. prime minister, and Ukrainian President Zelensky.