Donald Trump is what he has always been, someone not to be trusted, who bullies and seeks to humiliate, who doesn’t pay his debts but thinks others owe him, who is erratic and who lacks intelligence to understand the consequences of much of what he does to achieve his own self-interested objectives, who refuses to learn from others (except perhaps Roy Cohn), who is a narcissist and who believes he is a victim, who is petty and vindictive, who wants an isolationist America First but has imperialist aims.

He identifies with dictators, political thugs. He surrounds himself with people who think the way he does, who have some advantage from doing so or who lack courage to stand up for what they really believe. We always knew this and now he has used those attributes to turn the world inside out. And somehow Canada has run afoul of him.

One of Trump’s talents is his ability to lie without compunction, although I’m never sure whether he knows he’s lying or lives in a world of his own design. But that means that one cannot deal rationally with him: truth is irrelevant. And that is why there’s nothing Canada could do to stop him applying tariffs. It is a perfect example of how he operates: he shifts his reasons for doing something (stop the “flow” of fentanyl and migrants, or move all aspects of car manufacturing to the United States, or because we are “unfair” to America) and identifies false objectives (the amount of fentanyl or number of migrants crossing the border north to south are very low, even without comparing to Mexico, although he simply includes both countries when he complains), he impels other countries to action to convince him they’ve done what he wants, but he’s never satisfied because the reasons he gives for imposing a penalty are not the real reasons.

Canada is spending billions of dollars in futile efforts to satisfy Trump’s whims. It is all designed to bully us into accepting becoming the 51st state. This is, of course, incredible. Although historically there have been American efforts to annex Canada, both militarily and economically, as this essay in The Conversation explains, they have failed. Why does Trump want it now?

There are several answers to this question. Prime Minister Trudeau tells us he wants control over our resources. Trump thinks, wrongly, that the United States is “subsidizing” Canada and it would not have to do so if Canada were the 51st state. Annexing Canada would give America a large land mass to add to its empire, its share of the world divided up between Russia and the United States. Whatever the reason, it is not rational.

We can learn something about how Trump sets out to achieve his goals by comparing his attitude towards Ukraine and towards Canada, as well as towards Greenland, Panama and Gaza, and from the opposite, towards Russia. He has belittled President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, ignored the history of the Canal and praised Vladimir Putin.

In the case of Ukraine, he lied about the support Volodomyr Zelensky enjoys, saying it was 4% when it is some 68%. He called Zelensky a “dictator”. The meeting with Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office on February 28th showed what Trump and Vice President JD Vance are capable of doing, with the aid of a reporter making fun of what President Zelensky was wearing. (I agree with Timothy Snyder who discusses the “five failures” exhibited by Trump and Vance during this meeting). He and his cabinet ministers term Prime Minister Trudeau “Governor”, just as they refer to the sovereign nation of Canada “the 51st state”.

Greenland, Trump asserts, needs to be within the American fold as a matter of national and international security. In his speech to the Congress on March 4th, he said he respected the right of the people of Greenland to make their own choice; he thought the people of Greenland would choose to join the United States, but if they didn’t, “we’re going to get it one way or another”, to accompanying laughter, including from the Vice President and Speaker of the House.

Determined to retake the Panama Canal, which he maintains is controlled by China, he says a deal in which China has sold two ports, one at each end, to US and Swiss investors will allow the US to reclaim control (although, according to an NBC News report, ships do not have to pass through them to get to the canal). It is not insignificant that earlier he said he would not rule out military action to take over the Panama Canal or Greenland.

His personal interest in foreign destinations is best illustrated by his goal for Gaza: after the war is over, the remaining Palestinians will be removed and Israel will hand over Gaza to the US and Trump will build a luxury resort. He posted an AI-generated video showing the resort, including a golden statute of Trump himself.

As for Russia, he refuses to say that Putin was the aggressor against Ukraine; he voted against a UN resolution that Russia was the aggressor and refused to sign a G7 statement including a reference to the same effect. He has never said what Russia would have to concede in a peace deal or that if they withdrew, the war would be over. Because Trump trusts Putin, who, he asserts, would never breach a ceasefire, Ukraine does not need security guarantees in the minerals agreement with the US. It is not insignificant that a reporter from Tass, the Russian news agency, was in the Oval Office when Zelensky and Trump met. Furthermore, bringing his pro-Russia alignment together with his victimhood, Trump positions himself with Putin as victims of the so-called “Russia, Russia hoax”, from which Putin “suffered”.

The above, in brief and within a small window of time, provides a context to Trump’s treatment of Canada.

This tale began in the fall, after the American election but before he actually became president, when Trump began to threaten to impose tariffs on Canada because, in his view, too much fentanyl and too many migrants were flooding the United States from Canada. He said the same of Mexico and Canada, despite the fact that the amounts and numbers involved from Canada were extremely small and have decreased even more after the measures Canada undertook to respond to Trump. (Even today, I heard Trump supporters refer to the drug problem as if Trump had been correct in the first place and as if it is still a problem.) Prime Minister Trudeau took a trip to Mar-a-Lago and during the meeting Trump referred to the Prime Minister as “Governor” and Canada as the 51st state (a way for Canada to avoid tariffs). This was, unfortunately, treated as a joke. Of course, Trump doesn’t know how to joke.

Trump threatened tariffs if Canada (and Mexico) didn’t meet his demands; really, it wasn’t possible to meet his demands because what he really wanted was for others to do his bidding. Finally, on March 9th, Trump imposed the tariffs — 25% on a wide range of goods entering the US from Canada — and Canada responded with 25% retaliatory tariffs, first on $30 billion worth of goods, to increase to $155 billion if the US tariffs continue. These tariffs are on items that Americans use every day and in some cases, target products from red states. Both the federal government and the provinces are taking other measures. And many Canadians have been avoiding buying American goods or travelling to the US. Trump has paused his proposed tariffs on autos for a month, ostensibly at the request of the big three auto makers.

The Prime Minister has said that Trump’s aim is to debilitate Canada economically in order to annex it to have access to Canada’s minerals (similarly, he initially sought 100% ownership of Ukraine’s minerals, which he then reduced to 50%). That may well be the case, but no doubt he sees other benefits to not having Canada as Canada, or he just likes the idea of carrying a big stick.

Canada, through its leaders, and Canadians are treating Trump’s imposition of the tariffs and the broader threat seriously and are willing to take a strong stand against it. This is, as others have said, an existential crisis in the fullest sense: it relates to our continued existence as a sovereign nation. Trump treats Canada as “not a real country”, reflecting how Putin views Ukraine; the border between our two countries, he says, is “an artificially drawn line”. And as with Greenland and Panama, annexation of Canada is a matter of America’s “national security”. A trade war is bad enough and contrary to the USMCA, the “new NAFTA”, that Trump signed in his first term. But an attack on Canada’s identity and existence as a separate country raises the menace to a level that cannot be countenanced. It has ruptured the relationship between Canada and the US to a degree that will be hard to overcome: we simply cannot trust the United States.

My family chose to emigrate from England to Canada. I became a Canadian citizen when I reached adulthood and while part of me will always be English, my identity as a Canadian is an essential part of my self-definition, conceptually as well as legally.

This does not mean that I think Canada is perfect; it is not and I recognize its flaws and the harms that people have suffered and continue to suffer through our laws and practices. If our country is really worth defending, we must continue to meet these challenges and remedy the wrongs. But I also see that there are many wonderful aspects to Canada and that we are lucky to have benefitted from the geopolitical lottery from which nations emerge.

I think about how Ukrainians still fight for their country in the face of constant bombardment from Trump’s fellow victim, Vladimir Putin, who seeks to reestablish the USSR. Trump’s attacks on Greenland and Canada are akin, the contemporary version of Manifest Destiny, even if the means may be different (and who can gainsay how far Trump would go to bring Canada into the fold?). As quoted in The Globe and Mail, Trump, echoing the old imperialists, declared in his March 4th speech to Congress, “’We are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth.’”

We do not seek an empire, we do not want to enlarge our political borders. We want to maintain what we have and yes, we, too, want to ensure our security, economic and military. As others have said, Trump’s threats, now realized, have brought us together. Even Quebec has evidenced a greater commitment to Canada (they, too, are affected by the tariffs), evidencing the old saw about a common enemy bringing foes together.

In these early days, we are in the throes of the excitement of beginning a new journey. The hard part is yet to come. We will have to maintain our commitment to an independent and flourishing Canada. We have to resist the temptation to take the easy path when the going gets hard. We will need to remind ourselves that while an alliance with our southern neighbour may be a good thing, being part of the American enterprise would require too big a sacrifice. We must recall that the man whose siren call of lower taxes, “better health care” and increased security is a liar, a petty, vindictive man who thinks he has been treated worse than Lincoln and who claims “many” believe his first month’s achievements have surpassed George Washington’s. He is the worst of figures: he does not live in the real world, but he controls the real world. He is erratic and impetuous. But that means he is also the most dangerous and untrustworthy enemy to have.

We need to stick to the plan, bear the burden and maintain our commitment to preserve a Canada in which we work towards a better future for everyone.