Donald Trump has stopped pretending. He is waging economic war on Canada. He's imposed a 50% trade tariff designed, in his own words, to ruin its economy, and his stated goal is to make Canada the 51st state. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has already said it plainly: the United States is at war with his country.
This is not a trade dispute. It is a six-part strategy to break a sovereign nation. The USA is denying Canada's right to its own border, belittling its sovereignty, demanding it become an American state, and then using economic force to make refusal unbearable. This is the modern form of what we promised never to appease again.
And that is why it concerns us directly. Britain shares a head of state, a history, and a set of values with Canada. NATO's Article 5 says an attack on one member is an attack on all. If we stand by while an ally is threatened with annexation through economic warfare, we will have learned nothing from the 1930s. Appeasement did not work then, and it will not work now.
It is time to take a stand.
This is the audio version:
There is no Debate Ammunition for this video.
This is the transcript:
Is Donald Trump at war with Canada? And do we have a duty to defend Canada at this moment? It's a question that needs asking because, well, I think both those things are true; let's be totally honest. Let's just step back for a moment and look at what is happening.
In January 2025, when Donald Trump came into office as President of the USA for the second time, he made clear that he wanted Canada to be part of the United States. It was unambiguous. He said Canada would only function as a state. He said he would not use military force to achieve this objective. He said he would use economic force, and what we now know is that he meant it.
He has now imposed a 50% trade tariff on Canada, seeking to ruin its economy. The Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, has said that the USA is at war with his country. So is he? I think the answer is yes. Just think of battles of old and sieges. The USA is undertaking siege warfare on Canada, and that's a major problem. And the question that then arises is: should we be defending Canada? That's what this video is about.
In March 2025, Donald Trump said quite specifically, “Canada only works as a state.” What he meant was that Canada should be the 51st state of the USA. He wants Canada to give up its sovereignty and become a part of the USA, and nothing has changed since then.
So is Trump now at war with Canada? Not in the conventional military sense, of course. There has been no declaration of war, but then the USA doesn't declare war anymore before it sends troops into places. But there are no hostile US troops in Canada; let's be clear about that.
But what Trump is doing is economic warfare. He's trying to force Canada to succumb to his will by closing it down economically. He's holding it to ransom. He's literally trying to put a boundary around it because the USA has the ability to do that, because it controls so many of Canada's borders, and this is warfare.
Trump's strategy is very clear. It comes in six parts.
Firstly, he's denying the legitimacy of the Canadian border.
Secondly, he's belittling Canada's status as a sovereign country.
Thirdly, he says Canada should become an American state.
Fourthly, he's saying he will use economic force to bring that about.
Fifthly, he's imposing tariffs to undermine Canada and its economy.
And sixthly, he's offering unification with the USA as a solution to the problem he is deliberately causing by creating the economic damage that is going to harm every Canadian.
You can describe that as the strategy of a madman. It is happening nonetheless.
Mark Carney, Canada's Prime Minister, is saying the USA is at war with his country, and all the evidence is that he's right. The USA is attacking Canada, and its goal is to secure territory. The whole of Canada. That is what war is all about. War has always been about securing economic advantage or collecting extra tax revenues. That is why countries undertake it, and that is why Trump is picking on Canada. He wants to take control.
So what are the issues that flow from this? Well, the big issue is for NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, set up after the Second World War, of which the UK and just about every country in Europe is now a member, as is the USA, of course, as is Canada. Now, the NATO agreement says that if there is an attack on one member country, the person who undertakes that attack should assume that they have attacked every member country, and every member country will then come to the defence of the one that has been attacked.
This idea was, of course, put in place during the Cold War era. It was assumed that Russia would be the country doing the attacking. It was assumed that a country in Eastern Europe would be the one being hit, but now the USA is attacking Canada. It will attack Greenland next, by the way. That would happen if Canada falls. But in this, NATO is of relevance.
NATO is a defensive alliance. It is not an offensive alliance, so it has no duty to support the USA at this moment. The USA is the country that is on the offensive here.
But it has every reason to defend Canada. Every member of NATO is an ally of Canada. It is being attacked at this moment. It is being attacked by the USA. Every country in NATO should, as far as I can see, come to the support of Canada. But will they? That's the question.
And in the UK we have a very special problem as a result of this attack on Canada. Canada is also part of the Commonwealth of Nations, which is currently headed by King Charles III. We see ourselves as the epicentre of the Commonwealth. It is, of course, the legacy of Empire, and Canada was once part of our empire. We share, rightly or wrongly, a head of state, and we are old allies. That does matter now.
So are we going to stand by and let Canada be oppressed by a hostile force? The hostile force being Donald Trump in the USA? That is what Trump is going to do. He is trying to oppress Canada. Let's not pretend otherwise. So what are we going to do?
Are we going to call him out?
Are we going to call him out as a Commonwealth country?
Are we going to call him out as a member of NATO?
Are we going to do our duty, in other words, to defend our ally, which is what we have signed up to do?
Will we stand up for our friend against their enemy, which happens to be the USA, with whom we claim to have a special relationship, but we don't anymore?
Let's be realistic about this. The world is not as it was. Let's stop pretending that anything about the USA, as it now is, is anything like the country that we signed all our agreements with.
The USA is not now the benevolent overseer of NATO and the supporter of vulnerable countries, if ever it might have been; and there are questions about that. The USA is now a malign threat to the well-being of its own people, its own future and other countries, and most specifically, at this moment, Canada.
It's a fascist state by any measure that we can apply to these things. And it's currently governed by a regime that is used to, and wants to, act beyond the rule of law. It believes in violence. It imposes it, and it is doing so on Canada. Economic warfare is an act of violence because it is trying to take away the income of the people of Canada, and it's doing that to achieve its goal, which is to take Canadian territory.
So, what is the world going to do about that? That is the question we need to ask. What is the UK going to do about that? Again, that's the question we need to hear from Andy Burnham on. But so far, at the time of recording, we haven't.
The world has had to fight fascists before now. It looks as if it will have to do so again. Donald Trump is a fascist. He's using fascist techniques to line up against what he thinks is a weak state, which he thinks will succumb to economic pressure as a consequence of what he is doing.
Are we going to give in?
Are we going to appease America?
Are we not going to learn the lessons of the 1930s?
Or are we going to stand up and say, “Leave Canada alone, or we will engage in a trade war with you”?
That's what we should be doing. We should be calling the USA out and saying, “Enough.” We have literally had enough. You cannot abuse any longer.
When people fail to stand up to abuse, abuse continues, and it gets worse.
We have a choice. Now. We have to stand up to the abuse of Donald Trump, or it will get worse.
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Trump is a bully. The UK must boycott the USA and stand with Canada.
I have written a paper called “Power, Legitimacy & Putin”. It looks at what Putin did in terms of the need for legitimacy in the eyes of the Russians (and his own changing views wrt the role of Russia and his “legacy”). One can apply something similar to tRump. The erosion of info flows to tRump & the need for “legitimacy” in the run up to the mid-terms leads to actions such as Iran (look I won – erm no you didn’t) and “we can make Canada a state of the USA” nope (very a la Putin “Ukraine is part of Russia). If the democrats win the mid-terms I predict civil war – tRump vs the institutions supposedly holding him in check. If that does happen I expect China to bide its time see how it plays out & at the right moment go for Taiwan.
& thus we move back to questions posed 2500 years ago in Athens : how to chose politicians, how to keep them honest in office and how to turf them out. So far, no answers. Pity.
I wonder what the many Americans whom I understood liked to nip over the border for free and better health care think about Trumps idea given that so many of Americans can’t afford U.S. healthcare these days? Canada – a state of the U.S.? All that would do is import American problems onto Canadian soil – an expansion of misery whose feedback loop seems produce Trump in the first place.
Trump’s presidency highlights to me unambiguously that it has always been ‘America first’ it’s just that he does not cover it up.
All it serves to remind us is that American capitalism has always been ‘expansionist’ – it’s about ‘taking’, rolling over that which belongs to others (indigenous peoples for example) and swallowing it up leaving very little for anyone else. It’s how they conquered their own country first of all.
As for NATO and the Commonwealth – they are going to be sorely tested as institutions. Canada is no threat to the U.S. at all other that its resources do not belong to the U.S. The preemptive strikes of more recent conflicts seem to enable the U.S. to declare anyone an enemy if its interests demand that they conveniently be so.
Might this attritional siege by the U. S. A. against a fellow member of a military alliance result in the realisation of our government, and those of other European nations, that, at least recently and currently, alliance with America is actively socio-economically harmful to their citzens?
The big issue might well be that most other national politicians see Trump as a blip and are banking on him being turfed out at some time. In this, I think that they are very mistaken.
Placating the U.S. – now and after Trump – is a big no-no. It will only embolden them. We must not forget and even now we must let them know that their behaviour is not on.
Given the 6-point strategy outlined above, I suggest that the parallel here is not 1930’s Germany, as you suggest, but rather pre-1707 England.
The next steps would be Canadian politicians being offered significant financial inducements to support incorporation, along with military manoeuvres along the northern border “pour encourager les autres”.
Interesting…
In case anyone thinks Richard is going a bit far, CNN today says
“Donald Trump’s presidency rests on the premise that he and the United States are so powerful that allies and enemies alike must submit to his will.
His break with decades of US foreign policy doctrine is laced through his speeches and national security strategies. It was best explained in January by top aide Stephen Miller, who told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “iron laws” dictate a real world that is “governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
Trump’s ‘Truth Social” says Canada is one the “worst nations in the world to deal with”. (reported on TRT tv)
I would ask ‘how many battles can he fight at once?’ Iran, trade war with Canada and growing opposition to American support for Israel. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Uk, many EU states have condemned the proposed settlements around East Jerusalem.
Ninety three nations signed a joint disagreement with the US threat to dismantle the international criminal court.
United we stand?
Thank you
Canada could call for consultations under Article 4 of the NATO treaty. I doubt they will, although it might be interesting to see the US at the table trying to justify its threats to Canadian sovereignty.
(And indeed Danish sovereignty. If the US wants Greenland back, perhaps Denmark should ask for the return of the US/Danish Virgin Islands – see the 1916 treaty.)
The obligation of mutual defence under Article 5 only comes into effect in the case of an “armed attack” on a NATO member state. And that article has been invoked just once – when the US was attacked on 9/11, the 25th anniversary of which is just 17 days away.
We might see it again if Russia goes through with threats to attack the UK or other NATO states for their support of Ukraine.
Europe rallied to the support of its US allies after 9/11. Will the US be there to support Europe if the call comes to defend now against Russian aggression?
The UK should stop the US from using RAF bases like Fairford, Lakenheath, Croughton etc.
I share that view.
And get the Americans out of Scotland also..not that we know where they are as the Scottish Government have asked but the UK /MOD have refused to say where they are based. Same as when America attacked Iran from Scottish bases without the consent/knowledge of the Scottish Government.
And let’s get American military out of my country, Canada.
It gives a whole new meaning to the word “ally” as in “the USA, our strategic historic ally”, or “Israel, our strategic ally in the Middle East” – so often, the word the UK government uses to justify its silence on, and tacit support for the cruel illegalities and violence of fascism and genocide.
The SPADS of N & S Downing Sts. will now be working on a new form of words, to justify doing more or less nothing (in a caring northern sort of Manchesterish way).
Perhaps this is the moment to unveil some taxation proposals on US-based finance in the City of London and elsewhere in the UK?
I’ll let s/o else comment on what to do with US Treasury bonds, I know nothing about them.
This. The Lit Fuse: Low Interest Rates Ruined the Economy
When it goes bang, will Canada, the UK, Europe, etc., be prepared? Of course not.
I disagree with that article. I would actually say it is nonsense.
Interest paid is a rent – it is always exploitative because it creates nothing.
The answer is not higher rents: it is better capital controls.
Fair enough, Richard. But when you can’t afford the rent?
“First Brands filed for bankruptcy in September with $14m in cash and more than $9bn in liabilities. The company borrowed an additional $1.1bn from its lenders early in its bankruptcy but burned through most of that cash by January, forcing it to rely on prepayments from key parts buyers like Ford and General Motors.”
And if the interest rate had been lower?
But most of all, what if bank credit control had been better?
While I agree that Richard is absolutely correct in what he says, and that there should be a realisation within our Government about the consequences of Trump’s action, what I very much doubt is that they will stand up to his bullying tactics, and that they will simply waffle some meaningless gobbledegook, letting him carry on with his increasingly insane behaviour.
Hmm…. I have some questions concerning MMT in this case:
If Canada would become the 51st state, could the US finance this after all?
Wouldn’t this make inflation practically explode?
And isn’t it possible to resist for Canada anyway to these tariffs?
According to what I understood of the sectoral balances, when they can’t export that much anymore, making the US print the money, can’t they just replace it with money they print themselves?
Would that raise inflation too much?
Other than that I think Trump is hoping for a big victory before the mid-terms in November (about only in 2 months).
And he’s clutching at every straw he can find, which seemingly always turns out to be full of thorns.
Not really anything surprising.
He was a failure as a business man (if e.g the Deutsche Bank wouldn’t have wanted to so desperately get into the american market that they gave credit to people who didn’t get it anymore from any other bank Trump wouldn’t be a problem anymore) and he’s a failure as a politician.
Only some sort of rhetorical ability / unjustified confidence saves him.
I am not sure how MMT gets involved in this.
This is about actual trade. Not money creation.
How does money creation keep a job in Canada dependent on exports to the USA going?
For the job lost, it wouldn’t help at all, you’re right.
Only if another country would take up the order the US then dropped, there wouldn’t be a loss and it could keep going.
Money printing could help compensate the worker during the time of unemployment though when there’s no such alternative, be it short-term or long-term.
Keeping the worker inland / in his profession / his spirits up so that after the war he could restart working where his work is needed again.
This way possibly keeping the job in Canada at least in a, granted, twisted way?
This argument is too tenuous to suggest MMT has any part in it.
The UK should take positive steps immediately to back Canada:
Expand the bilateral UK-Canada trade agreement and use the CPTPP trade bloc to open up alternative markets for Canadian exports outside the US.
Directly purchase Canadian goods affected by US tariffs, particularly critical minerals, energy, aerospace components, and steel.
Lead international coalitions in the G7, Commonwealth, and WTO to formally condemn economic coercion and uphold Canadian sovereignty.
Funnel British capital into Canadian infrastructure projects, like new export ports and rail links, to help Canada quickly redirect its trade away from the US.
But don’t hold your breath!
Do we really think that a country owned in large part by US companies, with active US bases and personnel, whose nuclear capability is part controlled by USA, with ministers kowtowing to Trump over drug prices etc is NOT a 51st state?
You have ignorance of Canada and Canadians if you think that.
John was referring to the UK, I am quite sure. That is how I read his comment.
Indeed. That’s why I’m not holding my breath.
Canada does not have a nuclear capability.
I think Mark Carney may have more support than is immediately obvious. Apart from his previous role as Governor of BoE, he also held senior roles at BIS Basel and may well have the full support of the international bankers who by now will feel uncomfortable with may of Trump’s loose canon activities.
My apologies. I noticed the alternative only after posting my reply. I think the 51st State phrase threw me.
No problem….
Speaking as a Canadian (though living in the UK), I agree that this is an attack on Canadian sovereignty. For most Canadians this clumsy effort to extort Canada has come with a very deep sense of betrayal, which I believe will not disappear once Trump’s regime departs. This will change Canada’s view of the US for the foreseeable future.
Canadians would welcome some vocal support from the uk and Europe if nothing else. Starmer’s silence did not go unnoticed in Canada, and while the quiet influence of King Charles was made much of, that sort of low risk diplomacy requires little sacrifice, and so means less.
However, I do think Canada does have reason for optimism. There’s a good chance that the Supreme Court will once again rule these tariffs illegal. If the Democrats gain a majority in the House this November, I would expect more push-back on tariffs in general. US border states are already feeling the pinch. Kentucky’s bourbon industry is on life support, what would happen if Canada cut off oil, potash and electricity as well?
I’d love to see Canada take the opportunity to reverse some of the digital rights laws that the US has forced most countries around the world to sign up to (Cory Doctorow covers this extensively). Canada could take the opportunity to invest in industries that process its abundant raw materials rather than just sending them to the US. Bitumen to carbon fibre is a much more environmentally friendly than burning it. Canada’s renewable energy potential is unparalleled.
Trump does mean to bend Canada to his will, but Canada is united and has some real advantages, but it sure would be nice if the UK at least offered some unequivocal support for once.
Thank you
[…] the same time as Trump is, in effect, declaring war on Canada because he thinks he'll get an easy win that will help him secure the midterm elections, he is […]
I thought WE were the 51st State…
As a Canadian I thank you for your support!! Trump has done so much damage to the US economy already with his tariffs, lies, corruption and indecision that anything he might do to Canada we are already kind of prepared for.. it was a matter of time. Certainly support from our allies is appreciated especially as most having already agreed to unfair treatment they can maybe see a possibility of reversing. We need to stick together. Trump is currently strangling the economies of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela and who knows how many other countries are feeling their heavy hand. Up until now Canada has waged a very successful battle against US alcohol by removing it from store shelves, travel to the US has plummeted causing huge losses to the tourism industry and no doubt renewed “elbows up” attitude will reinforce the non buying of US products. The one good thing that I would wish to come out of this now we have already caused offense to the Orange Man is that we will now be brave enough to sanction Israel. Buy Canadian!!
Vance was recently recorded calling Canada a state; he said it was a “freudian slip”.
I believe it’s the beginning of the realisation of MAGA 2.0s expansion project towards some sort of Silicon Valley bros grand idea of North America being sort of a tech feudalist post nation experiment run by efficient businesses in the American heartland drawing resources from remote parts of Canada and South America into essentially a self sufficient isolationist state. In that framework borders would matter less and less as free trade would dominate inside the block and eventually they would cease to exist.
It would require Canadian raw resources and not having an indefensible border on the north is a bonus. Greenland too is part of it. It shouldn’t be lost on Canada that they would be completely surrounded by America if Greenland was to become a state and the next to be consumed. They’re just starting to say the quiet parts out loud now.