6d ago

What If Trump is serious about annexing Canada?

www.motherjones.com What If Trump is serious about annexing Canada?

Don't expect Pete Hegseth to stand in his way.

Thus far, Trump has not raised the possibility of sending actual troops to Ontario. Instead, he seems to believe he can achieve this Canadian Anschluss by simply crushing Canada’s economy and leaving it no choice but to join the US.

But Canada in 2025 is not Austria in 1938. “Canada will never, ever be part of America,” declared newly elected Canadian Prime Minster Mark Carney last week, making the country’s position crystal clear. And, last month, the Canadian Armed Forces announced that after years of declining enrollment, it had seen a surge in enlistments since Trump took office, with about 1,000 more applicants than last year. (Canadian officials couldn’t attribute the new rash of interest to Trump’s threats, but they didn’t rule it out, either.)

Given that Canada will never voluntarily join the US—which it is adamant about—would Trump try to use force to annex it? And would Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth go along with this crazy plan?

117 comments

What do you mean "IF" ?? There is no IF He just hasn't figured out how to succeed and get away with it. As soon as he has the answer to that..........
- I'd bet a significant enough chunk of the US military is against annexation and would resist orders to invade. Canada and US have basically been brothers in arms for 100+ years, thats a hard culture to throw away for no real threat. The average US infantry is not going to feel like they are fighting for freedom by annexing Canada.
  
  As an American even I don't have that faith in our military to do the right thing.
  
  Just like they were "fighting for freedom" by invading Iraq, a country that didn't have shit to do with the 9/11 attack or anything else going on at home at the time? Even after it was known they lied about "weapons of mass destruction", people still signed up to be sent over there.
  They just need to find the right kind of propaganda to justify going into Canada, and then the meatheads will follow.
  
  They've already been firing generals that won't toe the line. They're in the process of ridding the military of trans soldiers. Gay/Lesbian soldiers will probably be next, and I don't doubt there will soon be incentives to rat out any fellow soldiers who are suspected of not being "Loyal Americans".
  
  Yeah, lets see how many of them refuse to invade Canada after the first few dozen get executed in front of everyone else.
  
  I'd argue they have a constitutional duty to refuse these orders and actually, to march on the President and Congress and put a stop to this. Their duty is FIRST and FOREMOST to the Constitution of the United States.
  
  It would honestly take just a single brave "bodyguard" to end this all. Even if they are killed or jailed, it sure as shit beats having to die in combat while fighting an innocent neighbour because you followed orders from a clown.
  On the upside, they'd be a global hero for preventing a needless war. No need to go back in time to drop an orange down a flight of stairs, either.
  
  Agreed, the number of refusals, defections, and just straight up surrendering would cause massive problems for any sort of invasion.
  Not to mention the basic fact that there's nothing to "capture" these days.
  If they take the government buildings by force, does that change anything?
  They've only "taken" Canada if the people start paying taxes to the US government, and that's unlikely to happen in an invasion situation. People would just stop paying their taxes entirely. It's not like troops could go door to door collecting, they may be able to collect it from some specific large businesses, but the rest of the economy immediately goes underground
  There's no reasonable enforcement measure for the mass riots that would occur with the number of troops they could afford to deploy to Canada. If they start ordering troops to just gun down every riot, the fight back from the Canadians is going to make Afghanistan look like a cake walk.
  If they start shutting down basic functions like electricity or banking to control the population, then the number of guns Canada owns is going to become a huge problem for the troops they have here. The US military would also have to secure the border somehow as some people will try to flee into the US, and some of those people "fleeing" would then turn around and start attacking US assets in the US.
  And that's not to mention the almost million Canadians who currently live in the US, are they going to try Japanese internment camps again?
  A physical invasion is just completely infeasible. He's going to keep pushing it economically and politically, and it's very likely he's long gone (either out of office or dead) before Canada would cave to those pressures.
  
  Ukraine and Russia have been brothers in arms for a thousand years and I thought the current war was impossible, but here we are.
  
  The military will follow his orders.
  
  Plenty of the US military seems to adore Trump whatever he proposes.
  Canadian polls are rising too.
  Don't discount the effect of propaganda, and of decision makers in Washington drinking some of their own kool-aid.
- 90% the things Trump suggests are not something he actually does. The trouble is you're never sure which 10% are what he will do
  He floods the zone with so much intentionally that it all looks like noise. Don't get twisted by it all. It's designed to make you numb and assume he is more powerful than he is. He's done that this term and he did it during his first term
  Follow his direct actions more than his words. Based on actions, I'd actually be a bit more alarmed for Panama invasion than Canada right now. He directed military to create plans for that. Watch it more closely
  
  Absolutely. “Flood the zone” is Bannon’s strategy, being employed again this term.
  
  The thing is, if you don’t know what they might follow through with, you need to take it all seriously.
  Or if you’re one of our allies, you have to take seriously what would directly affect you

Do you not remember when Justin Trudeau met with Trump, and shortly afterward telling people that Trump was serious?
Trump is serious. He's incredibly brash and stupid, rife with tiny dick energy, which makes it dangerous.
- I kinda pick one of these land grab schemes as the tipping point. If the current armed forces can look at what's waiting for them when they discharge and still go "yeah fuck Greenland!" then there's no coming back from this.
  I'm a gun owner. I'm a solid shot @ 300 yards with a T/C encore 6.5. I'm smart enough to know that Id probably be dead before I even remembered to chamber against any armed forces. The military is what worries me right now very much. Especially if they choose how i would like them to. There's major repercussions to refusing orders (i assume) and I won't be the one to bear those so i can only ask.
  
  The military oath requires refusal to obey unlawful orders.
  
  This. My standard handgun is laughable compared to the military grade weapons that both the police and the military have.
  People have been saying “It’s time to pick up arms and use the second amendment as intended” but in reality, the people who do that will be shot as soon as they raise their weapon. It’s suicide by cop/military.

Everything he says, he's serious about. Annexing Canada, Greenland, Panama canal, tariffs, not leaving office (currently floated as running for another term after this one), getting revenge on all his enemies, etc etc. All of it. How much of it he can actually do is however much he isn't stopped from doing.
Would he order use of force? I don't know. But the question isn't whether Hegseth would go along with it--of course he would. The question is how many American troops would follow the orders. IMO many or most would refuse. They (and the US populace) would view using military force against Canada in the same way they would view using military force against American citizens (which I would not be surprised to be ordered at some point). Other than a few hardcore magats, I believe we would never go along with a war against our Canadian cousins.
- I believe we would never go along with a war against our Canadian cousins.
  I fucking hope so. Many of us have relatives on both sides. We share culture, to an extent. It would basically be civil war.

He's probing. If there's no resistance, he'll grab whatever he can.

MAGA path to success
Leave NATO
Invade Canada, a NATO country, triggering Article 5
???
Profit

He always is. The only question is if anyone with the power to stop him from doing whatever dumb as fuck thing has entered his diseased mind at the moment will stop him.

I think we left What If long ago.
- True, but I worry that only very left individuals are really talking about this probability. In the big picture, centrists and right wingers don’t believe it will happen. Mother Jones is left, but it’s also a large media company. If we can get more media companies to report on what we think is obvious, it will force the centrists and “I don’t do politics” people to hear it. I hope this article is the start of the discussion in the media, which will take time to happen, unfortunately.

Troops in Ontario? They'll never get past the 401. It's impenetrable
- We're not stupid. We'll invade from Buffalo.

Reminder that Canada has a population of over 40 million people and the Canada-US border is three times the length of the Eastern Front in WWII, which is by a long shot the largest front of any war in human history.
- So length does matter. 😁
  
  Only if there enough girth (population) to back it up.
- So that means there could already be US troops here...omfg! omfg
  
  As of Nov 19, 2024 there are 162 US troops in Canada.
  https://brilliantmaps.com/us-troops-overseas/

What if? He is definitely serious about his Anschluss.

There is no if. He's serious.

Send rump up here to Canada. We'll take care of the problem that muricans cannot

Yes, it all sucks, but this is just diversion to distract from the actual authoritarian takeover of the us government. Canada is safe from a military action by the US.

He is. This is about climate change. Rich Americans need new lands to destroy.

“Why would we do that?” said Frank Haynes, a 94-year-old Korean War veteran, who seemed utterly baffled by my absurd question.
That's pretty much what every American is thinking.

Half of all Canadians support joining the EU, and while I haven't seen a poll for us Europeans I'm sure we'd love to see it.

Given that Canada will never voluntarily join the US—which it is adamant about—would Trump try to use force to annex it? And would Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth go along with this crazy plan?
No. Also, the US tried this in 1812 and it was extremely unpopular with the American public, even moreso than the Vietnam War. And while Trump has a lot of leeway not to act on foreign policy, Congress has considerable power to constrain a President's actions in terms of war.
John Bolton did an interview recently with Kyiv Post, which addresed this specific question of Trump WRT Canada. I think a lot of people would benefit from watching the thing. Bolton worked in Trump's first cabinet, spent a long time watching him operate as President. The two did not part on good terms. Bolton's an internationalist, for context, bit of a hawk, and supports NATO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O99JIvjq9t0
I really think that the interview is a worthwhile watch, but I can give a pretty short summary:
"Trump is not part of some sort of grand master scheme run by Russia. He just has very little idea about how government works, or how to accomplish what he wants done, and tends to operate largely in terms of his own personal relationships, which is not really how international affairs actually work. Either Trump thinks of you as friendly to him or not. Trump treats international affairs more-or-less as being how much he likes a given leader personally. He doesn't like Justin Trudeau, so he insults and snipes at Canada. Sadly, it doesn't go a lot deeper than that. The chance of an actual attempt to annex Canada is slim to none."
EDIT: I should note --- Bolton has discussed Trump's positions on Greenland prior to this, to give prior material on the matter --- that Trump actually does want to buy Greenland and that this came up repeatedly in his first administration, that he'd like it to kind of be his legacy for the US. Bolton points out that isn't new to Trump, as prior administrations have made offers to buy it. That isn't a joke. Trump just has no idea how to actually go about trying to buy the thing, and so is busily pissing off both Denmark and Greenland, which pretty much ensures that he can't.
EDIT2: Bolton did point out that he would say that Putin probably considers Trump to be an "easy mark", someone who probably would do a poor job negotiating and who can be manipulated.

I’m pretty sure we’ve all figured out our own personal insurrection style already.
Mine is penises in the dead mouth like the Viet Cong did. And blowing up Americans.
There’s no “what if he’s serious” here, the rest of the world with half a brain saw it already.

Trump is only serious about it because if Canada isn't part of the United States, Vice President Musk can never take over when he is gone.

These are modern social psychological wars. If he doesn't use military he will use social psychology, they same way they did in USA. The idea is to make you guys annex yourself.
Understand American politics like Mafia life. That is the mentality and style. They will get naive people to become their pressure machine. The people won't even understand what they are doing. Joe Nobody will put pressure on his neighbors for a political mob boss to gain power, but Joe Nobody will think he's an American hero and not understand the politics is nothing but business and he won't be on the receiving end of the Bosses gains. Its similar to how gangs and organized crime use people in the street.
This is how I've seen it work in USA since 2016.

I remember last time around, Trump talked in his press conferences about Muslim prayer rugs being found at the Mexican border, which is a thing that did not happen in reality, but was a plot point in "Sicario". I'm guessing this time around, he's basing his foreign policy on "Canadian Bacon".

I don't think America has the stomach for it. I would expect insubordination and sabotage.

It would not surprise me at all to learn that cheeto had put some pressure on HBC's ownership to start this ball rolling. After all Trump has said he'd use economic pressure to annex Canada. Over 9000 people out of a job almost overnight would fit the bill.

Would they be force to create two teams, one NATO team to defend Canada and one team to attacks Canada?
- How to make the US go to civil war with this one weird trick!
- I’m pretty sure NATO is primarily a defensive alliance, so US will likely be on their own if they decide to attack Canada.
  
  Yeah but by contract they would also need to provide defence to Canada! And I'm sure they would respect their contract!

Nitpick but Mark Carney is not elected. The governing party changed leaders. I will most likely vote Liberal at the next election but it irritates me the current PM is not elected. He needs to call an election yesterday.

117 comments