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Trump cares about the stock market. To truly rebalance American trade Trump would have to swallow a reversal of a decade of trillions of dollars of foreign inflows into US capital markets and a huge crash. He can’t and won’t.
In the meantime, why not play along? Trudeau or whoever is Canadian PM should go to Washington and tell Trump they’re very interested in the joining the USA, but the people aren’t all for it, it will take time to clear some internal hurdles, and while he tries to sell it to Canada he needs some tariff relief for goodwill purposes.
By the way, this is one of Trump’s plays I actually support. Canada should be annexed by the US. The completion of Manifest Destiny would be an extraordinary achievement, and any Anglo-Canadian identity that stood out from American identity has, as our dear friend Kulak has chronicled, vanished almost entirely. There is nothing left; might as well join the US.
Canadian annexation would lead to vengeful and incompetent blue tribers having uncontested rule. No thanks.
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The problem is obvious: Trump cannot be trusted on anything, even his motives. This is not some separate issue from the OP's question.
How do you guarantee that, ten minutes after you leave, Trump will not be on Truth Social laying out the entire meeting and putting you in the worst light possible?
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I find it amusing that you and I both agree that the United States should do something extravagantly impressive and historically novel, but we disagree so strongly on the particulars of what that thing should be. I understand your fondness for empire and for your desire to be a citizen of an imperial core.
However, I think there’s an important dissimilarity between the British Empire of old and what you’re proposing for the American Global Empire: namely, that the British Empire was bringing the genteel Anglo-European culture to places which were genuinely backward and benighted, and whose populace and their posterity stood to gain immeasurably from being annexed by the British.
When you lament America losing its grip on Europe, though, or you long for the American annexation of Canada, you’re talking about the conquest and vassalization of civilizations which are, at worst, at the same level of civilizational development as America. I understand that America is richer than the U.K. and Canada, and perhaps you think that alone is evidence enough of American superiority that it justifies geopolitical domination of those countries. In terms of American cultural output, I don’t think what America is putting out into the world is generally impressive or indicative of a culture that the rest of the world ought to want to emulate or be absorbed into. Even leaving aside our repellently boorish president — a man about whose personal qualities you and I seem to be in resounding agreement — the culture we’re exporting to the world right now is, largely, vulgar and soulless trash: Marvel movies, The Fast & The Furious, race-swapped remakes of blockbusters from the 80’s, and hip-hop culture. These are not the artifacts of a civilization which deserves to rule the world and lord over other white first-worlders.
Like, I’m not some blanket Europhile who thinks all things European are sophisticated and all things American are crude. But it’s tough to see Donald Trump of all people talking down to valuable allies who are ailing — due in part, yes, to the fecklessness of their leaders, a state of affairs which can be reversed, and without Trump’s interference. If anything he’s making it much less likely that these countries will want to be more culturally and politically integrated with America. He’s highlighting differences and exacerbating the instinctive resistance to vassalization which the people of these countries still feel viscerally. I don’t want America to be like imperious Britain imposing the Raj on the benighted Indians; I want countries to be lining up to voluntarily integrate into it, because the example it sets is so undeniably great and impressive that they can’t fail to recognize the better deal that awaits them in America’s embrace. Trump’s shambolic bullying and lowbrow populism are the last things I would expect the leader of such a country to lead with in its outreaches to the rest of the world. If America does eventually annex Canada it will be a welcome reconciliation — perhaps by an American president married to a Canadian woman and with deep cultural ties to both countries, highlighting our nations’ shared past and shared future. It won’t be by idiot Donald Trump braying incoherently about fentanyl.
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This will surprise you as much as I imagine it will surprise Trump, but Canadians are, in fact, proud of their identity. ("Proud? Of being Canadian?" "Yes, Mr President, I know it sounds strange but I assure you it is true")
Why would Canadians want to join the USA? To be beholden to a constitution to which they have no fondness, to a federal government to which they feel no fealty? Have you seen the polls on this question? Additionally, if Canada did somehow join the USA, they would not be state 51, but rather states 51-60. That plus 40 million new left-leaning citizens would probably mean Democrats sweeping the elections for a generation.
It would be disastrous for the GOP, although things will even out faster than a lot of people think. But it would be a grand achievement nonetheless, something genuinely impressive.
It would. In the sense that America would simply become more like Canada.
The current partisan status quo works because neither side can seem to dominate Congress for an extended period of time. A bunch of Canadians come in - especially if they're pissed at how Trump managed it - and that changes. The GOP would have to be pulled to the left.
I guess it depends on whether you think the US would be better off being more like Canada rather than vice versa.
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If it could be achieved with a minimum of bloodshed and the broad assent of the Canadian people then yes, I agree. But this is impossible. And achieving it any other way would be the beginning of the end for American geopolitical dominance.
You're saying alienating all of their allies, making it supremely clear that they cannot be counted on to fulfill their treaty obligations, and probably tanking their defence industry wasn't?
What treaty obligations have gone unfulfilled? Or do you just mean that US allies believe that it has some kind of implicit treaty to give Ukraine military aid?
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That's why it needs to be annexed as an unincorporated territory!
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Ruling the world is awesome, but how do you see this ending? The nature of empires is that it becomes less cohesive as more people join the Imperium. Canadians can’t agree with each other now, you think they’ll like their politicians better when they’re in Washington? You think that Red Tribe wants to share the country with Canadians?
In what dream world do you live to think that Canada could be annexed while the US remains somewhat democratic?
I think you replied to the wrong person?
No? The republicans would have no problem sharing the country with the canadians as long as they don't have to share power
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That's the thing, though - joining with the U.S. allows the provinces-cum-states to work more closely with their other American analogues, alleviating the need to work only with each other. There would be little need for Alberta to agree all that much with Ontario under a new 60-State US; Alberta would have Montana, Wyoming, and all the other high-plains states to economically integrate and make common cause with, while Ontario quickly becomes NY 2.0., wiring itself into the grand BOS-WASH PMC corrior of the Northeast. Even Vancouver just becomes another PNW left-coast-progressive housing-challenged city.
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The Quebecois are one thing but I honestly think the rest of Canada will get over losing things like interprovincial barriers and bitchfights over pipelines quite fast.
Hell, some of them might appreciate no longer having to deal with all of the distinct society stuff.
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If you want further US-Canadian integration, this is pretty much the dumbest possible way to go about it. Not only is it all stick, no carrot, it's being packaged in an extremely humiliating manner.
I don't think that this is true, and Kulak claiming it makes me less likely to believe it, given his... ambitious analytical tendencies. Canadians in general appear not to believe it is true, given the backlash to the proposal. The US and Canada being very similar culturally in some respects* is not the same as Canadians lacking a distinct identity.
*I think the cultural similarity is overstated. Ontarians having significant similarities to upper Midwesterners is one thing - I don't really know that the Quebecois and Floridians have that much in common.
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