Trump must be taken seriously. It is time to fight a bully by destroying his bully pulpit.
By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 13, 2025.
OTTAWA—Enemy of the state: that is the only way to characterize the threat of Canadian “economic annexation” by American president-elect Donald Trump.
His so-called joke about Canada joining the United States is turning deadly serious.
It is a threat that one would expect from a dictator. It is not a threat that one could expect from the leader of our democratically-elected neighbour, the United States.
All bets are off with the Trump claim that Canada should join the U.S. in the formation of a single country.
He even has the nerve to post a map of Canada absorbed into the United States, with the stars and stripes flag covering all the way from Mexico to the Arctic.
Trump has ruled out military force as a method of annexation, speaking instead about economic annexation.
He continues to falsely claim that Canada receives hundreds of millions in subsidies in America.
He wants to end auto, milk, and lumber imports from Canada, claiming that his country doesn’t need any of our goods to survive.
However, Trump did not mention electricity or oil and gas, Canadian exports that America needs to keep its economy running.
Trump also reached out to support the candidacy of Pierre Poilievre as a future prime minister, saying the pair are on the same political wave length.
Poilievre moved quickly to distance himself from Trump, stating the obvious: Canada will never become the 51st state.
But Conservative allies like Alberta Premier Danielle Smith plan to attend the president’s inauguration on Jan. 20 in celebration of his victory.
The Alberta premier has also refused to join Ontario Premier Doug Ford in denying the export of energy to the U.S. Ford promised to retaliate on tariffs by refusing to export energy south of the border, but Smith quickly rebutted that Ford did not speak for her province.
However, that happened before Trump launched his campaign to annex Canada.
Smith would be hard-pressed to explain her presence at Trump’s inauguration when the leader she plans to celebrate is claiming publicly he will buy Greenland, annex Canada, and take over the Panama Canal.
While Trump’s threats are being widely covered here at home, they won’t make the news very long in the U.S.
Ford was supposed to be interviewed on the subject by CNN, but his presence was cancelled when the California wildfires replaced Canada’s annexation in the news cycle.
While Americans may gloss over Trumpian machinations, we cannot afford to do so.
We need to get tough on as many fronts as possible. One of those could be a refusal to allow the president to enter Canada for the G7 meeting in June because of his recent federal criminal conviction.
Diplomacy could override that refusal, but diplomacy is also a two-way street.
Unless Trump issues a clarification regarding his crazy annexation claims, he should be kept out of the country.
Words have consequences, and the words of a bully need to be met with consequences.
Some might argue that barring Trump from the country would simply poke the bear.
But stroking the bear has not gotten us anywhere.
Peter Donolo, former prime ministerial communications adviser to then-prime minister Jean Chrétien, recently wrote an opinion piece saying that we can’t treat the Trump threats as a joke.
Instead, we need to act with political muscle. That muscle should include testing Trump in international fora.
The Organization of American States is where the unilateral declaration of annexation theory could be tested. Last year, the OAS issued a condemnation of Venezuela’s move to annex the Essequibo region of Guyana.
Canada, and the rest of the Americas, has an interest in dampening down Trump’s rhetoric.
Annexation is not legal, which is why the world has been working to get Russian troops out of Ukraine.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization should also be asked to take a stand on the American president-elect’s annexation ruminations.
The United Nations could also be an appropriate forum for condemnation of Trump’s hostile annexation rhetoric.
These claims need to be fought at the highest level of international diplomacy, including the potential for legal remedies.
The International Court of Justice should be asked for its opinion as to the legality of Trump’s annexation threats. It has a mandate to give advice on international legal issues. What could be more pressing than a claim that one democratic country will undertake ‘economic annexation’ of another?
Trump must be taken seriously. It is time to fight a bully by destroying his bully pulpit.
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.
