Image by Oliver Lawrence Georgeson
Article by Evan
Dyer · CBC News · Posted: Feb 20, 2025 4:00 AM EST |
Last Updated: February 20
It took a while for
Canadian politicians to figure out that Donald Trump wasn't joking with his
talk about annexing Canada.
After Trump raised the
idea at a dinner in Mar-A-Lago attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on
Nov. 29, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc said the
"joke" was actually a positive.
"The president
was teasing us. It was, of course, in no way a serious comment,"
LeBlanc said.
"The fact that
there's a warm, cordial relationship between the two leaders and the president
is able to joke like that, we think, is a positive thing."
No one is calling it
positive now.
Perhaps Canadian
politicians can be forgiven their slowness of uptake, given that Trump's
comments are entirely unprecedented in modern U.S.-Canadian relations.
But there is one
strong parallel for his remarks. While Trump's words may never move past the
talking stage, they resemble the claims, pretexts and justifications used by
Russia's Vladimir Putin before and during his invasion of Ukraine.
Canadians' secret
desire to be annexed
"Many people in
Canada LOVE being the 51st State," Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on
Jan. 6.
"The United
States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that
Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned. If Canada
merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way
down and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and
Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together, what a great
Nation it would be!!!"
That post contained
themes that would later become staples of Trump and his supporters' claims
about Canada.
First is the claim
that lots of Canadians want to become Americans. Some in Trump's Make America
Great Again movement have explained the absence of a visible groundswell
of support for annexation in Canada as a result of a harsh regime of censorship,
as decried by Elon Musk and this week by Joe
Rogan.
Canadians' supposed
secret desire to be annexed might sound familiar to Russians who have heard
their leader make similar claims about Ukrainians, says Maria Popova, an expert
on Russian politics at McGill University.
"The whole
argument is based on the claim that fundamentally and deep down, all Ukrainians
want this," she said. "They want this unification with Russia."
In a long op-ed he
wrote in July 2021, Putin laid out his claim that the Ukrainian people, in
their hearts, aspired to be part of Mother Russia, but their voices were
censored.
"There are
millions of such people," he wrote. "But they are not allowed to
raise their heads. They have had their legal opportunity to defend their point
of view taken away from them."
Better off together
Like Trump extolling
the economic wonders of a U.S.-Canada annexation ("what a great Nation it would be!!!"), Putin said a
combined Russia and Ukraine would be much better off.
"Together we have
always been and will be many times stronger and more successful," wrote
Putin. "We are natural complementary economic partners."
Popova says both
leaders like to emphasize how annexation would be good economically for all
concerned.
"The first
parallel I see is the argument that it is somehow in Canadian's best interest
to be a part of the U.S. because fundamentally we're not that different. This
is indeed very similar to the argument that, you know, Ukrainians have some
sort of quirky identity maybe, but fundamentally we're the same."
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said in recent days that Trump's view on the war is
clouded by Russian misinformation. (Ukrainian Presidential Press
Service/Reuters)
Many of Putin's
arguments about Russians and Ukrainians are based on Kremlin-centric historical
narratives that, he claims, show a common identity.
"The thrust of
the Russian argument is that Ukraine is not a real country, that Ukrainians are
fundamentally wayward Russians," said Popova. "They're these younger
little brothers who are going in the wrong direction and they need to be brought
back into the fold of the Russian nation."
Trump is no student of
history (he famously claimed that George Washington won the
American Revolution after he "took over the airports"), and he hasn't
echoed Putin's long-winded historical arguments about shared ethnicity.
But Americans are, of
course, well aware of the cultural affinity of the two former British colonies
— a selling point for Canadian politicians trying to pitch Canada's case
in the U.S. No prominent Republican has proposed annexing Mexico as a solution
to its ostensibly similar trade and border issues.
'Artificial' lines
and countries
Canadian officials
have said that the moment they realized Trump was serious about annexation was
when he began to raise the history of U.S.-Canadian border arrangements,
specifically the 1908 treaty that fixed parts of the border. The officials
haven't revealed exactly what Trump said about the treaty.
Putin has questioned
the legitimacy of historic agreements over the border between Russia and
Ukraine, particularly Nikita Khrushchev's decision in 1954 to give Crimea to
the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
"Ukraine is an
artificial state," Putin told Tucker Carlson in an interview in February
2024.
The U.S.-Canada border
is an "artificially drawn line," Trump said in a Jan. 7 news
conference.
"You get rid of
that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like. And
it would also be much better for national security," Trump said.
"That would really be something." Trump followed up with a social media post including a map that erased the
nation of Canada.
"The reference to
a meaningless administrative border," said former Canadian diplomat and
international lawyer Sabine Nölke, "is how Putin described Ukraine."
Nölke was Canada's
permanent representative to the international courts at The Hague as well as
ambassador to the Netherlands until 2019.
On the eve of his
full-scale invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin provided justifications
for taking Ukraine by force, arguing they are the same people that belong under
the same flag. (Russian Presidential Press Service/The Associated Press)
"Now all of a
sudden Trump started using that language," she told CBC News, "and it
came in the context of him waving around this 1908 border treaty between Canada
and the U.S."
That treaty, says
Nölke, is a minor administrative one that mostly deals with physically marking
borders already delineated in previous accords. "He latches on to little
things as evidence or as being connected to a bigger idea he has. And his big idea
is Canada is not a legitimate state."
"So somebody has
waved this treaty at him. So he's now running around saying 'Aha, see there,
it's all administrative. It doesn't really exist,' completely and utterly
ignoring all the other indicia of Canadian statehood, sovereignty and
territorial integrity.
"But the bigger
message is you don't exist. You should be part of us."
The myth of
subsidies
Trump's grievances
toward Canada are also ostensibly about money, and the charge that Canada is
stiffing the U.S. on trade, defence and energy.
"Canada has been
very tough to deal with over the years, and it's not fair that we should have a
$200 billion or $250 billion deficit," he claimed on his third full day in
office.
Putin, in his national
address on Russian state TV two nights before the full-scale invasion of
Ukraine, made similar claims.
"Our Ukrainian
colleagues turned to us for financial support from the moment they declared
independence," he claimed. "According to expert assessments … the
overall benefit for the Ukrainian budget amounted to $250 billion."
Putin accused Kyiv
officials of "a parasitic attitude."
Trump has complained "We
pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE Canada.... Without this
massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country."
In his eve-of-war
address, Putin told Russians that Ukrainian authorities "always preferred
dealing with Russia in a way that ensured they enjoy all the rights and
privileges while remaining free from any obligations."
Protection rackets
"Russia has also
constantly insisted that it is the best guarantor of Ukrainian sovereignty and
security," said Popova. "And this is something that Trump has started
bringing up as well, this idea that Canada needs protection from something, and
only the U.S. can provide this protection."
Popova says Trump's
comments about Russian and Chinese ships being near Canada are a "really
big red flag."
"Take a look at
what's going on out there [in Canada]," he said on Feb. 13. "You
have Russian ships, you have Chinese ships, you have a lot of ships out there,
and you know, people are in danger. This is a different world. Today it's a
different world. They don't have any military protection."
Then-president-elect
Donald Trump is seen at former president Jimmy Carter's funeral, with Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau sitting nearby. Since his inauguration, Trump's
annexation comments have continued. (Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated
Press)
Putin's
eve-of-invasion speech also focused on the supposed threat of foreign military
presence in Ukraine. "Ukraine's airspace is open to flights by strategic
and reconnaissance aircraft and drones," he warned, as well as
"activity by NATO warships."
Although she's not
expecting an imminent invasion, Popova says Trump's arguments sound like a man
trying to construct a pretext.
"It's an absurd
claim in a similar way in which the Russian claim towards Ukraine is absurd
because, in reality, nobody else was threatening Ukraine but Russia. And right
now nobody else is really threatening Canada but the U.S. So this to me is a very
alarming parallel in the rhetoric."
She pointed out that
as NATO allies, the U.S. is already obligated to come to Canada's defence.
"So this is
clearly a nonsensical argument, but one that signals that he is looking for
these excuses that look like he is well-meaning — 'well, I want to protect
you' — but in reality it's driven by a desire and plan to somehow make
this annexation happen."
U.S. President Donald
Trump blamed Ukraine for not ending the war with Russia sooner by making a deal
years ago. The comments were a response to Ukraine’s concerns about being
excluded from talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia.
Nölke said Trump's
51st state talk may turn out to be just another meme created to entertain his
MAGA followers. But even if the threats are never carried out, they have done
severe damage.
"In terms of
state-to-state relations, he has already violated international law,
threatening international peace and security, threatening the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of Canada. This is not something that's going to happen —
he's already done it," Nölke said.
"The threats he's
uttering against Canada and Denmark are already undermining the NATO alliance.
So that is something that I think the North Atlantic Council will need to
address."
Merging world views
a threat to Canada
Of course, Trump has
not merely echoed Putin's Ukraine rhetoric when talking about Canada. He also
repeats it when talking about Ukraine itself, as on Wednesday when he branded
Ukraine's president a "dictator." Trump and his followers have repeatedly
painted Ukraine as a leech for receiving U.S. military aid.
Trump this week
suggested Russia has earned the right to keep Ukrainian territory because
"they fought for that land and they lost a lot of soldiers." He has
said that Putin, who launched the war in the first place and who has ordered
repeated attacks on civilian targets, "wants to see people stop
dying."
U.S. Secretary of
State Marco Rubio said this week that the Trump administration sees closer
relations with Russia as part of its vision of the world order. (Evelyn
Hockstein/Reuters)
On Monday in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hinted at a wider and
deeper new relationship with Moscow that sounded a lot like an alliance,
speaking of "the incredible opportunity to partner with the Russians
geopolitically, on issues of common interest, and, frankly, economically."
A U.S.-Russian
alliance — or even just alignment of views and values — would be dangerous
to Canada, said Popova.
"That's really
the fundamental danger here, that they seem to be aligned in how they think the
world should be run — no longer through the rules-based order that prohibits
conquest, but by big powers deciding the fate of the smaller countries. This is
really making a comeback and that should be very concerning to us."
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