MAGA’s plan for Canada: not annexation, but dismemberment
Andrew Coyne
No one knows where Donald Trump got the notion of annexing Canada. It hasn’t been seriously suggested by any significant figure in American politics for at least a century. There has been next to no take-up of the proposal, even among his MAGA followers.
But the underlying premises – the idea that America must have complete dominion over the Western Hemisphere; that Canada is less a friendly ally than a troublesome appendage; that relations between the two countries should be based not on mutual benefit, but on dominance and despoliation – these are everywhere in the MAGA universe.
Annexation may not be on the table. But the idea that Canada must be tamed, subdued, brought to heel – reduced, in other words, to a vassal state – is very much part of MAGA thinking. Bad enough that we have degenerated into a socialist, woke dystopia. But we are also resisting American dictates in matters of foreign, defence, and trade policy. We have become a problem, in need of a solution.
As an example, consider the work of the Defense Analyses and Research Corporation (DARC), which describes itself as a “new kind of defense think tank,” very much in line with current thinking in the White House: aggressive, unilateralist, and unbound by any of “the fundamental assumptions of warfare and foreign affairs that have defined recent decades of U.S. statecraft.”
It’s a curious sort of organization: little known, of recent origin and uncertain provenance. Several of its contributors write under pseudonyms. But it’s not nothing, either. Among the named contributors are several prominent MAGA activists and, for want of a better word, intellectuals.
And while it would probably be too much to credit it for any particular Republican policy, it certainly seems to reflect current MAGA thinking. The site published several articles last year arguing for the revival of “letters of marque,” enlisting privateers in the fight against drug cartels; not long after, the idea was taken up in a bill by Republicans in Congress. It has likewise championed causes such as a revamped Monroe Doctrine (the “Trump Corollary”) and annexing Cuba before they emerged as administration policy. So we should take it at least somewhat seriously.
Last summer DARC ran a piece on “Our Canadian Problem,” which described how Canada, born of anti-Americanism, had lately resumed this adversarial posture, under the influence of multiculturalism, the judiciary and the 1982 Constitution. Canada, the author wrote, “is poised in coming years to become a serious and present threat to the interests of the United States.”
What to do about this emerging threat? The author considers several options, from limiting intelligence sharing, to targeted intelligence operations (“several agents should be tasked with developing relationships with Native American tribal leadership in the western provinces”).
“Overt aggression” is ruled out (“it would be difficult to justify the annexation of resource rich parts of Canada while simultaneously trying to maintain international coalitions against the conquests of Ukraine or Taiwan.”) Rather, it recommends “the dismemberment of Canada,” via U.S. support for provincial secession campaigns. At least, this would “cripple the federal fisc”; it might even lead to a piecemeal annexation.
Another DARC contributor has lately returned to the theme. “Canada’s desire for strategic autonomy,” he writes, “poses a serious national security problem for the United States,” citing the Carney government’s recent trade deal with China. “The United States cannot share the longest undefended border in the world with a country so eager to court hostile great powers in our hemisphere.”
Attempting to annex Canada, however, would be “counterproductive,” serving only to unify the country against the United States. Rather, it recommends a “centrifugal strategy.” Canada, the author writes, “is a deeply fragile country, one that is riddled with centrifugal forces, new and old, that continue to threaten to tear apart the union. ... U.S. strategy should be to achieve the fragmentation, not annexation, of Canada.”
The whole thing is written in a peculiarly bloodless tone, as if by a disturbed teenager contemplating dissecting a frog. “The United States does not need to kill Canada,” he writes at one point. “Canada will dig its own grave soon.” American policy should be limited to giving these “centrifugal forces” a helpful nudge, whether by covert aid to secessionist movements or by “supporting the native ‘reconciliation’ efforts,” which will “further demoralize the Canadian elites.”
It’s insane, of course, informed by a blinkered understanding of Canadian history and society and animated by a quite psychotic disregard for the welfare of the people it proposes to experiment on. But that’s the point. Everything about MAGA is insane. The President is insane. Just because it’s insane doesn’t mean he won’t try it. If anything, that’s what will recommend it to him.
