Trump's annexation talk extends a long U.S. tradition of political miscalculation about Canada
Analysis: Trump is the latest American politician to assume Canada is ready to join its neighbor to the south, discounting the country's political views.
President-elect Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that he wants Canada to join the United States have become a staple of his presidential transition. But the sentiment — like Trump’s breezy confidence about its ease and popularity — is far from new.
Such talk has sprung up practically throughout the whole of American history, often buttressed by the idea that Canadians were clamoring for it, too.
Donald Trump
Trump's annexation talk extends a long U.S. tradition of political miscalculation about Canada
Analysis: Trump is the latest American politician to assume Canada is ready to join its neighbor to the south, discounting the country's political views.
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Trump sets sights on Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal
By Scott Bland
President-elect Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that he wants Canada to join the United States have become a staple of his presidential transition. But the sentiment — like Trump’s breezy confidence about its ease and popularity — is far from new.
Such talk has sprung up practically throughout the whole of American history, often buttressed by the idea that Canadians were clamoring for it, too.
Amid the War of 1812, President Thomas Jefferson told Philadelphia newspaper editor Thomas Duane that “the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching.” (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.) Among other things, the National Park Service notes in an article about the comment, many in the United States wrongly “assumed that the Canadian population would welcome the arrival of American forces.”
Later in the 1800s, a degree of pro-annexation sentiment developed within each of the major U.S. political parties, according to historian John W. Quist, united by a common thread that annexation of Canada “would occur peacefully and be welcomed by Canadians.”
And now there’s Trump, posting on social media that “many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State.”
On Tuesday, he continued the drumbeat at a news conference, telling reporters he could use “economic force” to acquire Canada. “That would really be something,” he continued, adding: “You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like. And it would also be much better for national security.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said afterward on X: "There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States."
Public opinion polling of Canada illustrates a distinct political culture that’s far different from the United States.’
