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I actually think the reasons were more prosaic. Trump wanted secure borders and more favorable trade relations with some additional things like increased defense spending as part of NATO pledge etc. Canada dug their heels and decided to go for trade war and insults back. It of course does not help that both sides were let's say ideologically opposed to certain extent, but the dispute is a real one. Also let's not pretend that the same does not work the other way around as when EU representatives strongarm other countries like Hungary or post Brexit UK or Italy, when elections do not go the way powers that be like.
But in the end it is all besides the point. Canadians may learn the ancient truth of the strong do as they will and weak suffer what they must. USA is not Hungary or some random African nation. Good luck to Canada for next 3 years and potentially number of more years, if some MAGA candidate wins next elections.
When Trump wanted to renegotiate NAFTA and slap his name on it, that happened. The idea that Canada's response is to just never do anything when it comes to US demands doesn't stand up to scrutiny. USMCA also has a mandated renegotiation period coming up so all parties agreed in principle that negotiations are part of the deal, Trump decided to jump the gun and impose tariffs outside of regular order (which is why he had to claim an emergency).
The idea that Canada is the party that "dug their heels in" and threw insults is...Like, I'm legitimately wracking my brain here because it's just so far from my experience of what happened. Trump started the conflict, Trump insisted on the idea of annexing a neighbor in a trade dispute, Trump then said a few times that there was nothing to be done to remove tariffs and Canada should just accept being annexed.
It would be vibes-based idiocy to base trade policy on that in the first place
But this isn't even really consistently true. Starmer is probably worse than Trudeau on all of the major woke indices and he somehow gets along with Trump.
If it is besides the point why bring it up? Why lump it in with legitimate strategic concerns like NS2? Why not just say from the start that the US is just thrashing about for advantage any way it can?
This is another hallmark of this sort of vibes-based, personality-driven "policy": frog-boiling and essentially apathy once it's done (for reasons no one could have predicted beforehand or hell, even articulate consistently today).
It's not a debate that Canada is weaker than the US (in fact, that's my argument against the idea that some meaningful defiance was going on), or that it has behaved in an indolent fashion that makes its dependency worse.
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