On US-Canada ties, no need to exaggerate: Trump already did enough damage

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s meeting with President Trump will not on its own repair parlous U.S.-Canadian relations, but at least the two leaders were civil toward each other.

Trump repeated his fantasy of making Canada our 51st state, while Carney politely and firmly replied “never.” It could have been much worse. In fact, both leaders showed respect, and could develop a good personal relationship. 

Since Trump believes international affairs are little more than personal relations among leaders, this is no small achievement. But don’t draw any sweeping conclusions.

Trump’s determination to impose punishing tariffs on Canada (and Mexico), combined with his enthusiasm for absorbing Canada, had sent downhill previously good relations between Washington and Ottawa. Trump personally never got along well with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, derisively calling him “Governor Trudeau,” but both governments generally worked harmoniously together even when they disagreed. I do not recall first-term Trump ever aspiring to the annexation of Canada.

But this March, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said, “Canada only works as a state.  We don’t need anything they have….[W]hy should we subsidize another country for $200 billion?”  Trump was optimistic he could make it happen:  “If people wanted to play the game right, it would be 100 percent certain that they’d become a state.”  

Neither most Canadians nor their leaders agreed.  Unfortunately, however, instead of treating it as the aberrational Trumpian notion it was, Canada’s politicians took it seriously.  Even worse, they responded in kind to Trump’s rhetoric. Then-Prime Minister Trudeau shot back, “What he [Trump] wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us.”

Carney, Trudeau’s successor and the victor of Canada’s Apr. 29 national elections, made things worse during the campaign. Both before and on election night, he said, “America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country ... [T]hese are not idle threats.” He added, “Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over.”  Carney repeated this last comment during his first news conference after the election.    

Trump, Trudeau and Carney are all wrong, albeit for different reasons. 

Trump’s statements and actions do not embody majority U.S. opinion. Importantly, neither the specifics of Trump’s anti-Canada tariffs nor his fantasy of making Canada the 51st state were issues in the 2024 US presidential election. Americans did not consciously vote for Trump to ravage Canada politically or economically, not to mention how stunned they were at his hostile language on Greenland and Panama.

Republicans especially, if they gave it a moment’s thought, would dread the political consequences of admitting Canada to the union.  Its voting habits, after all, would portend strong gains for Democrats in presidential, Senate and House elections.  

Canadians and others are badly wrong to equate Trump with America or American citizens. Our neighbors may have cause for outrage at Trump, but not at Americans generally. Carney’s and Trudeau’s remarks are both inaccurate and harmful, making the toxic atmosphere Trump has created today even worse, and the damage harder to repair tomorrow.

Unhappily, however, Canadians seem to be concluding that Americans do think like Trump, and they have retaliated in various non-tariff ways, including substantial declines in travel from Canada to the U.S.

Americans, so far at least, have not turned against Canadians. Before Trump’s rhetorical onslaught against Canada, 87 percent of Americans held a favorable opinion of Canada, and 29 percent saw it as our strongest ally, trailing only the United Kingdom. In early March, one poll found 64 percent of respondents opposed Trump’s tariffs against Canada;  another reported 62 percent believed tariffs against Canada would increase prices and do more harm than good.   

On Canadian statehood, another poll found 57 percent of Americans opposed, and only 17 percent in favor. The same poll reported that 69 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of Canadians, and only 13 percent had an unfavorable view.  Thus, while some decline in the favorability of U.S. opinion about Canadians can be attributed to Trump’s incessant criticisms, he made no discernible headway in advocating Canadian statehood.

In short, when Trump and his aberrational behavior disappear from U.S. politics, basic common-sense points to American-Canadian relations reverting to the norm, albeit perhaps slowly. Little can be done with Trump himself in the interim, but Canadians (and Trump’s domestic critics) can certainly avoid apocalyptic statements about the damage he will have inflicted. There’s already enough to repair, and no need to make it worse.

The U.S.-Canada relationship carries implications for all of America’s friends and allies. As irritating as Trump’s behavior is, it should not obscure the larger, more fundamental ties that bind us together against multiple global threats. 

It may be unfair to those Trump criticizes and demeans, but his targets must grit their teeth and resist the temptation to respond in kind.  This Trumpiness too shall pass.

John R. Bolton served as National Security Adviser, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs at the State Department.