The first act of the newly constituted Continental Army in 1775 was to invade Canada. An odd priority, you might think, until you remember how furious the revolutionaries were about the British Crown’s recognition of the rights of Catholics in Quebec.
The United States had another go in 1812, but was repelled by British regulars and Native American militiamen (Canadians sometimes call it their “War of Independence”).
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There were cross-border raids between 1866 and 1871 by Irish-Americans, who had an eccentric notion of conquering Canada and trading it for Ireland. As late as the 1930s, the War Department had a plan for a pre-emptive invasion of Canada just in case the naval race with Britain turned hostile.
Yet Canada is still there, vast and sparse, patient and polite. And, according to the polls, 82% of Canadians want to stay that way. So what does President-Elect Donald Trump hope to gain from threatening to absorb the place?
Is this meant to be one of those ‘seriously, not literally’ proposals? Because, I’ve got to tell you, my MAGA friends often seem to blur that distinction. The people who tell me that Jan. 6 was hijinks from a few weirdos in fancy dress, and should on no account be called a coup attempt, often go on to argue that the 2020 election was stolen and that then-Vice President Mike Pence should never be forgiven for endorsing it.
Either way, if I were a Canadian politician, I would now be doing everything I could to block a U.S. takeover of Greenland. A couple of years ago, it would not have mattered to me whether that icy slab was under Danish or American sovereignty. Canada and Denmark settled the world’s most civilized border dispute (both claimed a tiny uninhabited island between Greenland and Nunavut) in 2022. But, after all this 51st-state rhetoric, the prospect of being boxed in on three sides by U.S. territory would alarm me.
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In any case, annexing Canada would permanently alter the balance of U.S. politics. Canadians would have voted for Vice President Kamala Harris by more than three-to-one.
So why not find a way to address Trump’s stated concerns — border security, a trade imbalance, and what he sees as military freeloading — more cheaply and effectively?
Rather than merging the two countries, why not simply form a close and institutionalized partnership that covers all those issues? Trump’s short term aim should be to secure a commercial and military union that would leave each country as an independent democracy, while ensuring that defense, border security and trade are treated as joint concerns.
Canada and the US are already halfway there. On everything from a special travel and visa regime to a shared dial code, the world’s second-largest and fourth-largest countries have found ways to cooperate without ceding power to supranational bureaucrats.
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Why not deepen these arrangements? There is scope for closer defense collaboration, including a unified command for key units. American and Canadian citizens could be given an automatic right to work in one another’s countries in exchange for common immigration provisions vis-à-vis third countries. Trade arrangements could be extended to the point of automatic reciprocity, so that whatever is legal in one jurisdiction is legal in the other.
That would solve Trump’s identified concerns. In areas like Arctic security, have a joint military force. On border control, have common rules and station officers at each other’s entry points. On trade, who cares what the balance is once the two states form, in effect, a unified domestic market?
Might Canada agree to such a deal? Listen to the country’s likely next prime minister, the outstanding conservative leader Pierre Poilievre:
“We are the best friend to the U.S. When I am Prime Minister, we will rebuild our military and take back control of the border to secure both Canada and the U.S. We will take back control of our Arctic to keep Russia and China out.”
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But why limit such a deal to Canada? Why not bring together the Five Eyes — the five great English-speaking democracies that already trust each other on security issues in a way that has no precedent among sovereign countries — and create an Anglosphere Union? When past perils have struck, there has been no more reliable and cohesive alliance than that among the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.
Instead of the European Union, based on technocracy and central control, let’s build an Anglosphere Union based on liberty, open markets, secure property, free contract and the rule of law. A greater legacy, surely, than souring relations with your closest neighbor after more than a century of friendship.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
