From the moment Donald Trump lowered the boom on Canada after he won the U.S. presidential election, Canada has stood alone.
Weeks after his victory, he announced that goods from both Canada and Mexico would be subject to 25-per-cent tariffs, which he framed as punishment for allowing drugs and people to flow across the northern and southern U.S. borders. It was a spurious claim in Canada’s case (at least in terms of a problem flowing north to south at the border), but Canada’s fact-check fell on deaf ears. It was a lonely protest.
When Mr. Trump began calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Canada’s “governor” – a profound sign of disrespect from a fellow G7 leader – Canada, a forlorn target, simply swallowed the insult. When he started musing about Canada becoming the 51st state – first in jest, and then suddenly with more sobriety – Canadian leaders went on American television to defend our sovereignty. Our friends were conspicuously absent on set (so too were they, notably, in response to Mr. Trump’s threats to annex Greenland), leaving us to defend our own autonomy, like a fledgling 19th-century colony.
No doubt our allies are similarly appalled by the unprovoked and unjustified economic pressure that Mr. Trump is levying on a supposed friend, as well as the predatory expansionism his administration has adopted, so far just in rhetoric. But they are mostly standing on the sidelines, censuring in whispers, lest the mercantilist, mercurial President turns his ire their way.
That is the inescapable reason Canada now finds itself principally by its lonesome as Mr. Trump twiddles our economy between his fingers like a pencil: No one wants to be next.
But Canada’s laggard contribution to global safety and security may factor in, too; that is, its sclerotic defence procurement and failure to meet NATO spending targets (and until recently, even to have a plan to meet those targets), its derelict peacekeeping contributions, its delayed material contributions to the war in Ukraine, its inertia on Arctic sovereignty, and so on. Mr. Trump’s contention that Canada’s proximity to the U.S. has rendered it lazy on national defence is not without merit, and our allies can see that – even if the President’s response is excessive and unduly punishing. It also doesn’t help that Canadian leaders have publicly thrown Mexico under the bus: in essence offering up a smaller kid to the bully in hopes that he’ll take that kid’s lunch money first. That doesn’t make it easy for allies to line up behind Canada.
Principally, however, it may be that no one quite knows how to position themselves in what is a fundamental upending of the international order. We have practice in banding together against a diplomatic foe; in 2020, for example, when China launched a trade war against Australia for, among other things, calling for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, allied nations came to Australia’s defence (at least in rhetoric; some countries, including Canada, took advantage of the 80-per-cent tariff China levied on Australian barley, for example, and upped their own exports). The U.S., the EU and others supported Australia’s complaint at the World Trade Organization, at the “Quad” summit (the coalition between Australia, Japan, India and the U.S.) and some leaders, including then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, spoke out publicly while pursuing closer economic ties with Australia. Most, however, were deliberate in calling out the behaviour – economic coercion – but not China specifically. They had their own interests in Chinese trade, after all.
The fact that the U.S. is a friend to democratic nations makes it all the more difficult for allied countries to position themselves strategically in this looming economic (and possibly regional) war. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte avoided questions about Mr. Trump’s threat to take over Greenland during his first visit to the European Parliament earlier this month. Canada has received offers to deepen economic ties in response to Mr. Trump’s tariffs from … China and Iran. No one wants to rattle the President.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has said that she is connecting with Canada’s international allies to co-ordinate a response to Mr. Trump’s predatory and imperialist ambitions. She may be successful in garnering some muted support – whispered censures, perhaps – that might aid us in this fight, if only for morale. But the uncomfortable, illuminating silence of our friends thus far should tell Canada that we’re largely going to be in this battle alone. Indeed, our best friend has turned on us, and the rest of the group is looking away.