The Trump tariffs are on, sort of on, whatever. And the Canadian resistance seems continuous. Good. Here are three things not to be too reliant on in the struggle: 1. Ending interprovincial "trade barriers." 2. The King. 3. Europe.
3 Europe (see #1 here and #2 here)
Donald Wright, historian and president of the Canadian Historical Association, has a vigorous thought piece on the 51st State delusions of the American government up at Policy Options magazine.
When I read his suggestion that being a constitutional monarchy will protect us from absorption, I thought: if the king is our first line of defence, we are really in trouble. But he goes on to underline that constitutional arcana will not save us: the only way Canada will become American is by conquest and occupation
If Canada does become part of the United States, it won’t be as a state. It will be as an occupied territory and occupations never end well for the occupier – something Americans understand after 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq.
That does underline the seriousness of our situation.
It seems to me that King Charles cannot be a positive factor in any Canadian resistance, and that expanding interprovincial trade will not make up for the loss of cross-border business.
A third popular proposal is that we open up new trade routes and alliances, particularly with Europe.
But this one is dubious too. For decades, Canada has sought endlessly to diversify its trade links across the globe. We already have a free trade pact with Europe. But shipping car parts back and forth between Dusseldorf and Windsor is never going to be as feasible as between Windsor and Detroit.
And if military defence of Canada is required, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that European strategists will decide that Europe has quite enough military challenges on its own continent without committing its forces to a confrontation with the Americans in their back yard. Europe would surely deplore and condemn American attack on Canada. But we already saw the British prime minister remaining studiously non-committal with regard to Canada in his talks with the American president.
In 1939 Canada went to war in defence of Poland. But it was forty-five year before the Poles got out from under occupation from the Germans and then the Soviets. Without assistance, how long might an American occupation of Canada last, however vigorously it is resisted?
The solution still lies where the problem does: in the United States and its political/constitutional choices from now on. Full American Fascism? a big problem for us, but a terrible outcome for Americans and the American Dream too. This American problem will have to be addressed, or not addressed, in the United States, above all. For small countries, the decisive causes of their politics often lie outside their borders.
Historical comparison: In the 1960s historian W.L. Morton theorized that Confederation represented, among many other things, a grand bargain between Britain and the United States. Britain and the United States were seriously at odds on many issues, and upholding Britain's obligation to defend British North America was already a nightmare commitment.
The Canadian proposal for confederation offered a solution. Canada would run its own affairs, and Canada, while independent, would never pose the substantial threat to American interests that Britain still did in the 1860s. And the British would be able to withdraw their garrisons from the American borders (as they did within five years of confederation).
Until recently, that grand bargain looked set to last a couple of hundred years at least. But fascism is a toxic version of nationalism, and American fascism acknowledges no friendships or alliances for the American nation, only victims and targets.
