Under Donald Trump, Canada’s former best friend is now our most dangerous threat

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Threats against Canada come in two varieties: manageable and existential.

In the first category are economic threats – challenges that could leave our economy weaker, and us poorer. The most significant today is from the United States. As Prime Minister Mark Carney put it at Davos, the hegemon is weaponizing our formerly mutually beneficial relationship of trade interdependence and economic integration.

Then there are existential threats. For Canada, an external existential threat is something new. Many other countries, in contrast, are used to living with threats to their existence from larger neighbours. For most of human history, it has been the way of the world.

Canadians have not known such a peril, and have not had to imagine one, since the 19th century.

Economic threats are survivable, even if the worst comes to pass. An existential threat, in contrast, is one where if the worst comes to pass, we cease to be.

The United States is now an existential threat to Canada.

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Before I get into that, let’s review the American economic threats. However costly they may turn out to be, they will be manageable.

Some degree of de-integration of the single North American market is a high probability. The process has already begun. There are tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly asked why the U.S. buys other manufactured goods such as cars from Canada. He’s also mused about doing away with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

If we do not bend the knee, and even if we do, we could pay an economic price. If we do not bend the knee, and even if we do, trade walls could be erected against many exports to the U.S.

This is, I say again, a high-probability threat. But its costs, regardless of the height of the tariff wall, are survivable.

Last week, Mr. Trump vaguely threatened a 100 per cent tariff on all Canadian exports. It’s not about to happen tomorrow, but let’s think about the impact such a tariff would have.

The erection of a wall effectively blocking nearly all exports to the current destination for most of Canadian exports would send our economy into a recession, at least at first.

But Canada can survive a recession. We have one every decade or so. We recover. The country doesn’t end.

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During long stretches of the 19^th and 20^th century, Canada and the U.S. had high tariff walls, and hence far less trade. It would be a difficult transition today to move to trading far less with the Americans, or even, in the most extreme and improbable scenario, trading with them not at all. It would tend to make our economy less efficient, which would tend to lower Canadian living standards.

But a slightly lower average Canadian living standard would not be the end of Canada. Per capita gross domestic product is currently just under $80,000; the country wouldn’t cease to exist if the impediment of U.S. trade barriers, the higher costs of more domestic production and the inefficiencies of more trade with partners farther away permanently lowered that figure by a few percentage points.

An economic hit, followed by adjustment, is manageable. It’s survivable.

Which brings me to the other kind of threat.

Canada has gone to war many times since Confederation, but at no time was the enemy an existential threat. From the Kaiser to Hitler to the North Korean communists to UN peacekeeping to the Taliban, we sent our young people overseas to fight for our interests, our principles and our friends. Not national survival.

Modern Canadian foreign policy has been unconsciously shaped by the absence of such an external existential threat. Ditto Canadian defence policy.

Both operated with the knowledge – the certainty – that Washington was an ally. As a result, Canada’s military posture, training and procurement have been mostly about fitting into an American-led NATO and NORAD.

The change in Washington is forcing a change in Canadian economic and trade policy, which Mr. Carney has repeatedly articulated. As part of that, there will be more defence spending, with more of the spending on weapons systems made in Canada and in concert with non-American partners.

What has not been talked about publicly is the orientation of the sights on those weapons.

Our long-time friend, with whom our military and intelligence services are entwined and embedded, is now our only potential existential threat. Low probability, but infinitely high impact.

The other threats our military and intelligence services are designed to confront – Russia, China, Islamist terrorism, high seas piracy, whatever – are not existential threats.

The revolution in Washington isn’t just economic. It calls for a reorientation of Canadian foreign and defence policy.

The last time the Americans were a threat to our existence, we were under the protection of the world’s mightiest empire. Now, we stand more alone than Greenland.

More on this next week.