Canada Lost Its Top Ally. Time to Find New Ones.
The list of countries that have felt the effects of the second Trump presidency is long. His administration has directly threatened Canada, Mexico, the entire European Union and more than a dozen other countries. By the time you read this, the list may well be longer. In just a few weeks, the United States has abandoned all pretense of a rules-based order. Its preferred approach is now: Do what we say, or else. Tariff threats proceed heedless of their validity under international law. Threats of annexation fly in the face of the concept of sovereignty—the idea that countries ought to respect one another’s independence—that has acted as a cornerstone of global peace, shared among America’s allies for nearly a century.
The U.S. has likewise lost its credibility: its word means nothing. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, described by Trump as “the largest, most significant, modern and balanced trade agreement in history” just a few years ago, has been replaced by threats of across-the-board 25 per cent tariffs. Donald Trump is trying to turn global diplomacy into a lawless extortion racket, and the weaker the mark, the harder the shakedown. In the long run, such a strategy will be devastating for the U.S., as countries learn to make nothing but short-term agreements with it, and avoid arrangements requiring any degree of mutual trust.
In the short run, it’s clearly a problem for everyone else. So threatened, each country is now focused on their own security and prosperity. In Canada, policymakers have explored retaliatory measures like matching import tariffs on consumer goods and pulling alcohol from red states off provincial liquor store shelves. More ominously, some leaders played themselves off against other targets in pursuit of a better deal, such as when Ontario Premier Doug Ford publicly tried to throw Mexico under the bus in a bid for more lenient treatment. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith lobbied to get her province a reduced tariff for its oil exports, creating a significant split in the Team Canada approach.
Dealing with a lawless and predatory United States requires a coordinated response. No one country can deter it from its present course alone. Trump has picked a fight with much of the world, and he’d be biting off more than America can chew if we can find a way to respond collectively. Canada must act now to galvanize other countries into standing together against his threats of economic coercion and territorial expansionism. We all—including the U.S.—will benefit from returning to a rules-based order properly focused on solving the very real shared problems that confront our world, including the challenges of drug addiction and irregular migration. It’s time to create a coalition of the unwilling.
First, such a coalition will make it clear that America’s use of economic coercion is wrong, and that territorial expansion is not an option. It would remind everyone how much we stand to gain from an open and rule-governed world, and how much we stand to lose without it. To be effective, it would need to back up words with concrete action. Participating states could adopt an economic collective security principle, treating an economic attack against one as an attack against all, and responding collectively. A tariff against any one state would be met with counter measures by all. Again, this would be not just in defence of one another, but ultimately in defence of that rules-based international order built in an earlier era under American leadership, which has been the cornerstone of shared security and prosperity for nearly a century.
Canada is particularly well-positioned to play an outsized role in any such effort. Ironically, its very vulnerability to the American market gives it leverage over the U.S. in return. If Canada is forced to retaliate against American coercion, the U.S. will feel it. The same is true of Mexico. Accordingly, Canada’s top priority must be to make common cause with Mexico and affirm a shared commitment to mutual support.
Spreading the call wider, countries in Europe, Latin America, the BRICS (minus Russia, for obvious reasons) and the Pacific Rim likewise have much to gain from a strong stand against violations of sovereignty, and in support of a renewed collaborative approach to global governance. Indeed, countries in Latin America are accustomed to pushing back against American influence, and may welcome new allies in those efforts if the case is made well.
The ability of Canada and Mexico to counter the U.S. threat effectively now should spur other states to stand with them. If other countries wait, only to watch Canada and Mexico falter, they will be facing an emboldened U.S. without North American help. No one knows what such a world will look like, but we can be sure it will be less secure, collaborative and prosperous than this one. Given the apparent friendliness between the current U.S. administration and Vladimir Putin, potential futures for countries in Europe and elsewhere are grave. We are not in a post-NATO world yet, but such a world is suddenly plausible, and countries must adapt.
Even China, despite its own territorial ambitions and reliance on economic coercion, clearly sees value in standing against US economic coercion. Last week, its 10 to 15 per cent retaliatory tariffs on American crude oil, liquefied natural gas, farm machinery and select other products went into effect. A limited degree of co-operation may be possible there, while still making clear the important differences between countries’ priorities. As the noted realist William Shakespeare observed, misery acquaints us with strange bedfellows.
The response need not be identical from each country, but nearly every country can contribute. A weeklong embargo by coffee-producing nations, for instance, supported by other countries, would certainly get America’s attention. If Canada reduces its oil supply to the U.S., other petroleum-producing states—including Venezuela, a potential alternative source of heavy oil—could make it clear they will not fill in the gap. It would be telling if the U.S. turns to Venezuela to replace Canadian trade; it would be even more telling if Venezuela refuses to co-operate.
Likewise, countries in the Pacific Rim play a crucial role in electronic and other manufacturing supply chains, and a coordinated response would make it clear that such economic coercion will not be tolerated by any. Other states can make their own contributions. Such an effort would draw support from many within the United States itself, from Americans dismayed with the country’s direction and eager for a return to a normal foreign policy.
The message for all must be that the U.S. remains a welcome partner, but bullying and extortion will not be tolerated. Crucially, America’s place in the world order, if and when it chooses to return to the fold, would be assured. Canadian leadership and participation in any such effort must make it clear that it is a stand against lawless extortion. It is not a stand against the U.S. itself. By dint of shared geography, history, and more than a century of friendship and co-operation, our security and our prosperity will always be intertwined with that of America’s. For our part, we must make it clear that we stand ready to renew that friendship, even as we also do what we must to protect our own interests in the interim.
If we are looking at a prolonged period of America in absentia, the coalition would have to pursue other goals as well. Beyond direct responses, such a coalition could provide a venue for conversations about how to reduce global dependence on, and exposure to, American political and economic influence. Now is the time for Canada to talk with other trading partners, to clarify the extent to which political and economic diversification is possible. If Europe is facing a world without American security guarantees, they may also be eager to discuss new trading and political arrangements with reliable trading allies like Canada. A renewed commitment by Canada to the idea of NATO, for instance, and a commitment to reinvest in collective defence may go a long way to encourage Europe to do likewise, and to explore opportunities for deeper economic ties. It’s important to have those conversations now.
In the future, countries could use the effort as a launchpad for a new approach to global governance, with or without American involvement. Globalization has brought great prosperity, but the gains have been extremely unequal, weakening social bonds in communities around the world. Those left behind are increasingly willing to support whoever promises to pick up the political snow globe and give it a good hard shake—consequences be damned. Leave the root causes unaddressed, and Trumpism and its analogues around the world will remain.
The obstacles to such coalition-building should not be minimized. In a world of institutions designed and dominated by the U.S., it’s a genuine challenge for allies to even assemble, let alone act, when the U.S. itself is the source of the problem. There is also much that divides countries threatened by the U.S., further complicating efforts at co-operation. Even if other countries recognize the severity of the problem, there is still the issue of free-riding. Anyone not currently over the barrel will be tempted to keep their head down and let Canada, Mexico and China deal with the threats on their own in the hope that the U.S. protectionist wave runs out of steam before it hits them.
Canada’s task is to make sure other countries see the risks of inaction. History supplies a clear lesson of what happens when a global hegemon—the country at the heart of political order—turns protectionist: the Great Depression. America’s Smoot-Hawley tariffs significantly deepened the depression’s effects, and the ensuing economic dislocations contributed to democratic passivity in the face of expansionist authoritarian states, ultimately culminating in the Second World War.
Global hegemons who develop territorial aspirations ultimately, always, trigger a balancing coalition against them. The question is simply how long it takes for other states to organize, and the longer it takes, the uglier the conflict of containment when it occurs. We are (so far) in an era in which war among developed economies seems unthinkable, but even a prolonged economic confrontation will be costly. Simply put, the problem of a friendless, bullying America is one that looms over all in different ways, and one way or another the problem will continue to worsen until other countries respond effectively. The world simply cannot afford to wait and hope American democratic institutions rein this administration in. There’s no guarantee they will.
Stewart Prest is a lecturer in political science at the University of British Columbia.
