{"id":15930,"date":"2025-02-05T05:26:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T05:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=15930"},"modified":"2025-02-05T05:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T05:26:03","slug":"trump-forces-the-question-what-is-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=15930","title":{"rendered":"Trump forces the question: what is Canada?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=e4244b9d-c52a-4c2c-ac41-c74a6c717a31\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Donald Trump\u2019s declaration that Canada could avoid a trade war with the US by merging to become the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/3cc26cc1-57e7-44d0-8c09-6c5dec30cc75\" data-trackable=\"link\">Cherished 51st State\u201d<\/a> has resurfaced the country\u2019s long-running existential crisis. <\/p>\n<p>Although the suggestion was batted aside by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump is not the first person to question Canada\u2019s sovereignty. A perceived lack of cultural identity and divisions between east and west, French and English speakers, have led many Canadians to assume that one day our country will simply disappear \u2014 either broken apart or swallowed up. <\/p>\n<p>As the celebrated Canadian author Mordecai Richler <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/player\/play\/video\/1.3595555\" data-trackable=\"link\">once put it<\/a>: \u201cNobody is quite sure what [Canadian] culture is, what distinguishes it from the British or American ones, or, indeed, if we even have a national culture at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What Richler calls a \u201ccrucial embarrassment\u201d may be one reason why some Canadians are unconcerned at the idea of being absorbed by their southern neighbour. While a <a href=\"https:\/\/abacusdata.ca\/trump-tariffs-canada-51ststate-polling\/\" data-trackable=\"link\">recent poll<\/a> by Abacus Data showed that the majority of people were opposed to joining the US, there were noticeable cracks. Among those 45 and older, 80 per cent were against the idea. For those aged 18 to 29, however, the number was only 54 per cent \u2014 with 26 per cent open to exploring a union.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n-content-layout\" data-component=\"flourish\" data-component-id=\"21453537\" data-component-type=\"flourish-in-article\">\n<figure class=\"n-content-picture n-content-layout__container\"><a href=\"#21453537\"><picture data-asset-type=\"flourish\" data-flourish-id=\"21453537\" data-flourish-type=\"visualisation\">\n<div id=\"21453537\" class=\"cp-message o-message o-message--inform o-message--notice\" data-o-component=\"o-message\">\n<div class=\"o-message__container\">\n<div class=\"o-message__content\">\n<p class=\"o-message__content-main\">Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/picture><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Not all political leaders in Canada accept the need for heavy-handed retaliation to Trump\u2019s actions either. Danielle Smith of Alberta, home of Canada\u2019s tar sands crude oil, refused to countenance halting exports of Canadian crude to the US as potential leverage in trade negotiations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Smith was recently pictured alongside Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Kevin O\u2019Leary, the Canadian businessman who brokered their meeting, has called for closer economic union between the two countries, suggesting that Canada could drop its loonie and adopt the US dollar.<\/p>\n<p>Half a century ago, the Canadian political philosopher George Grant lamented that Canada had ceased to be a sovereign nation, after pressure from the US government helped doom the populist premiership of John Diefenbaker, hastening the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Canada.<\/p>\n<p>Grant\u2019s contention that Canada had become merely a \u201cbranch-plant satellite\u201d, dependent on the US, is undoubtedly more true today. <\/p>\n<p>The country\u2019s raw products \u2014 crude oil and lumber \u2014 are sent south across the border in greater volume to be refined or finished.\u00a0Exports to the US, which comprise approximately three-quarters of total Canadian exports, amount to roughly a fifth of GDP. US exports to Canada, by contrast, add up to about 1.5 per cent of GDP.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n-content-layout\" data-component=\"flourish\" data-component-id=\"21453890\" data-component-type=\"flourish-in-article\">\n<figure class=\"n-content-picture n-content-layout__container\"><a href=\"#21453890\"><picture data-asset-type=\"flourish\" data-flourish-id=\"21453890\" data-flourish-type=\"visualisation\">\n<div id=\"21453890\" class=\"cp-message o-message o-message--inform o-message--notice\" data-o-component=\"o-message\">\n<div class=\"o-message__container\">\n<div class=\"o-message__content\">\n<p class=\"o-message__content-main\">Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.flourish.studio%2Fvisualisation%2F21453890%2Fthumbnail%3FcacheBuster%3D965962?source=cp-content-pipeline&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=1020&amp;dpr=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/picture><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>But Grant\u2019s lament inspired a renaissance of Canadian nationalism that reached a peak in the 1970s and 1980s under Pierre Trudeau\u2019s assertive foreign policy \u2014 during which he formed a friendship with Fidel Castro while being openly critical of American President Richard Nixon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is possible that Trump\u2019s trade offensive and his suggestion that the US could use economic force against Canada will do the same thing today. Canadians \u2014 ever worried that nothing besides clich\u00e9s (maple syrup, ice hockey) bind us together \u2014 may be at the start of a resurgence in nationalism. <\/p>\n<p>So far, Canada has announced limited \u201ccountermeasures\u201d to Trump\u2019s steep new tariffs, should they be implemented after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/2596b7a2-a130-4754-ab6d-d4cf65a2e19e\" data-trackable=\"link\">30-day reprieve<\/a> announced on Monday. A 25 per cent surcharge will be applied to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/b9101226-edc1-4cde-93ec-186bc95021d7\" data-trackable=\"link\">C$155bn (US$107bn) worth of imported US goods<\/a>. But decades of ever-tighter economic and political intertwinement between the two countries have been ruptured. <\/p>\n<p>Last weekend, Canadian sports fans booed the US national anthem and American alcohol was removed from store shelves. In a sombre speech, Trudeau said that Trump\u2019s tariffs had \u201csplit us apart\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>He has also noted that Canadians define their national identity in part as \u201cnot Americans\u201d. The unwieldy alliance between the francophones of Quebec and the anglophone loyalists that formed Canada in 1867 was based on the same idea. <\/p>\n<p>Being first and foremost \u201cnot America\u201d has contributed to Canada\u2019s perennial existential angst. Now, however, it could help to unite us in a more positive national identity. <\/p>\n<p>As a Canadian living abroad, whenever my accent is mistaken for American (all the time), the response to my correction is usually an apology and recognition from the other person that they might have caused offence. <\/p>\n<p>Internationally, we Canadians are known to be nice and polite but the threat of a costly trade war has made many feel uncharacteristically angry. Still, as the Canadian author and artist Douglas Coupland once noted: \u201cPeople like Canada\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009we\u2019re not after more territory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/mailto:joel.suss@ft.com\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>joel.suss@ft.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/e4244b9d-c52a-4c2c-ac41-c74a6c717a31\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}