"If Canada makes itself economically dependent on China, the bill will come due in the form Beijing chooses, at the moment Beijing chooses, on the terms Beijing chooses."
We are not looking to become economically dependent on China.
This is because we did make ourselves economically dependent on the United States (but, at the same time, the United States made itself economically reliant on Canada; to name but one sphere, consider how Hydro-Québec sells power to New England, or how British Columbia manages the flow of the Columbia River to ensure stable hydroelectric power generation in Washington and Oregon and to keep the river from flooding communities along the border between those states) and the bill has now come due, in the form Washington chose, at the moment Washington chose, and on the terms Washington chose. The bill is that we must further prostrate ourselves to Washington, we must decline to retaliate against their flagrantly illegal acts, that we must simply accept tariffs and threats of invasion as the cost of doing business. (But as noted, it is not as if we don't have leverage of our own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R65jaHugsHM It is that very retaliation which gives us that leverage and we are not blind to the fact that the complaints about provincial boycotts of USAian alcohol prove that that is a pain point for the US, and that we can therefore press harder on it. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nubiVIZhdG0 in which Jeanne Shaheen, who by her own admission has a financial interest in US alcohol sales, agrees with Howard that our alcohol bans are "outrageous", "insulting" and "disrespectful" instead of a proportional--or even disproportionately small--response to US economic aggression. And since I brought up both Wab Kinew and alcohol bans, mandatory video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l6WFdnipcH8 )
The posture is not "China is reliable but the United States is not, therefore let us become dependent on China". The posture is "China has thus far kept its word on trade while the United States has broken it, but China's hands are nonetheless unclean, therefore let us pursue diversified trade to hedge against the risk of doing business with either". We have forgotten neither the 51st state rhetoric nor the Two Michaels (an action by China precipitated by an invocation by Donald's first administration of our bilateral extradition treaty). This is the conclusion reached not only by Canada but by other international economic actors; see, for instance, the recent trade pact concluded between the European Union and India (another country upon which I, at least, am keeping a wary eye, as Narendra Modi is also an untrustworthy actor), or how the EU-Mercosur pact has finally reached a stage of provisional implementation after decades of negotiation (and even then figures like Javier Milei, and the potential return of Jair Bolsonaro or his associates, force a degree of wariness toward Mercosur). The EU has, of course, taken an anti-US posture in large part over the threats by the United States to annex Greenland, a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, long one of the best US allies in Europe and a critical one on account of its roles both in the GIUK gap (with not only Greenland but also the Faroe Islands as part of it) to track movements to and from Murmansk and in monitoring sea traffic in and out of the Baltic Sea with particular regard to movements to and from Kaliningrad.
(The attempted annexation of Greenland would also militarily pincer Canada, and betrays that a large part of the current US policy toward Canada is an attempt to control the sea lane that runs through our Arctic archipelago; even prior to the current tensions the US had held the position that the waters should be considered international rather than internal, and I believe this is partly based on the precedent that waters between Denmark's islands are considered international, rather than internal, due to their importance in shipping in and out of the Baltic Sea.)
You are correct that articles such as yours, and comments such as mine, could not be made if this were a Chinese platform. It is also, however, the case that in making these comments at all I am foregoing any possibility of entering the United States while the current administration (or any future administration sharing its principles) remains in power. I have relatives in the United States, and while I am not much of a traveller I have visited Bellingham, Seattle and the Los Angeles area on various trips, and even sometimes tell a funny story about getting pulled over for speeding in Montana as compared to the same in Wisconsin while on a family trip to Ontario, as we chose to drive through the United States instead of taking the Trans-Canada Highway. I would have preferred to keep that option open; other commenters (see, eg, https://www.youtube.com/@GuardTheLeaf and as he puts it, thoughts and prayers to the US tourism industry) do not make their remarks while revealing their actual identity in an effort to do just that. Do not think that I can make these remarks, under my real name, with no cost to myself.
EDIT: The Canadian relationship to the United States has been an abusive one for decades, not only abuse from Washington toward Ottawa but also from USAians toward Canadians; see, for instance, USAians regularly not considering Canadian money to be "real money". We are working our way out of one abusive relationship and have no intention of entering another with Beijing.
I'm honestly not tracking your point. Of course, Canada should act in its own interests in accordance with its liberal democratic values. That, of course, includes standing up to the Trump Administration and resisting its attempts at imperial dominion over its near-abroad. I would imagine that if Trump actually ordered the United States military to invade Canada, that it would be the immediate end of his presidency, given the fact that most Americans have a higher opinion of Canada than they have of their own country right now, and the US military—from conversations I've had—would almost certainly face internal revolt at the notion that they would face down Canadian soldiers. It doesn't make Trump's threats any less egregious. But I don't think Trump could actually do it, because Americans would take to the streets by the millions if he tried to stop him from invading Canada.
My point is that you appeared to me to be mischaracterizing the position I took in my remark on your previous article, and I think mischaracterizing the position you may have heard from other Canadians. I was not saying that we should pursue the same sort of trade relationship with China that we had with the United States. I think that would be bad policy, because you are correct that China is a bad actor and would be an irresponsible global hegemon, and has in particular been a bad actor against Canada (the Two Michaels most notably). But the United States has also proven to be a bad actor and an irresponsible global hegemon, and the relationship we have had thus far has been an abusive one, and to imply that we might simply hop in the metaphorical bed with China (which would certainly be an abusive relationship) even as we are extricating ourselves from the US entanglement shows a lack of full understanding of what we're actually trying to do with regard to our international trade relationships.
Canada and the US are always going to have some sort of close relationship, however strained it may become. Geography forces it. Mutual defence interests force it. It is not easy to disentangle an economic relationship that has grown since King and Roosevelt relaxed tariffs in 1935, and certainly not by the current boorish, idiotic resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and his gang of clowns, heading a movement that is, to steal from a US military veteran ( https://www.youtube.com/@LargeManAbroad ), the day-after-Taco-Bell shitstain on the unwashed underwear of US history. But we will do what we can no longer to be in a position to be subject to the abuse to which we have henceforth been subject, and as I said, this is not only at a governmental level.
(Just as other countries are also attempting to do; you can find any number of stories about rude USAian tourists insisting that businesses accept US currency, or give change in US currency, or that they be treated the way a US business would treat them. Particularly egregious is the practice of flagjacking, where USAian tourists will put Canadian flags on their backpacks to piggyback on--and ruin--our good international reputation because they know--whatever they might say about the US being ostensibly so great and respected--that actually their reputation internationally has for a long time been that USAian tourists, enough of them anyway, are pretty dogshit rude and are treated as such in turn, and Canadian tourists sometimes have to pull out their passport for random strangers just to be treated politely. There's at least two airports here--Vancouver and Toronto Pearson--where the arrivals sign, directing domestic arrivals in one direction and foreign arrivals in another, puts a US flag next to a world map for the foreign/international arrivals sign, because many USAian visitors are apparently unable to grasp the concept of being a foreigner or being an international visitor, maybe generally or maybe only specifically in Canada, a concept which does not elude any other nationality. Personally I think those airports should remove the US flag from that sign and CBSA should summarily deny entry to any USAian who gets in the domestic arrivals line for misrepresenting their country of origin.)
EDIT: To the specific point of a US invasion of Canada, I would hope that it would be the end of Donald's presidency, but he's done a lot of things that would have ended any other presidency. It doesn't matter if he never orders an invasion of Canada; what is unforgivable is that he said "51st state" and made the annexation official US policy again. (As Charles said to Donald's face, the last time the US tried to pull that shit, the British engaged in a little unsanctioned remodelling of the executive mansion in Washington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr4W8pU4Vio "On this occasion, I cannot noticing the readjustments to the East Wing, Mr. President, following your visit to Windsor Castle last year. And I'm sorry to say that we British, of course, made our own small attempt at real-estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814.") Keep in mind that Canadians and Mexicans both have long memories (I know someone who still, thirty-five years later, refuses to buy from Shell because they operated in apartheid South Africa), and in Mexico, the US is still, to this day, the country that invaded them in the 1840s and stole half their land.
Our military should have rebelled against King Donnie The First of His Name when he attacked Iran and let them cut off half the world's oil supply. They did not. I'm not as optimistic as Mike is that they would stop a campaign against Canada.
Further on this, Mike, the US is attempting to force the annexation--or at least complete subjugation--of Canada without an actual invasion, as a US military veteran explains here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYc8pL9joqk
Canada and the European Union are attempting to bypass the United States by shipping between Churchill and Antwerp, now that Hudson Bay and the Arctic archipelago are becoming navigable for more of each year as global average temperatures rise. The US, in turn, is attempting to pressure Denmark into making permanent territorial cessions on Greenland for US military bases (unlike the current agreement, where the US can station troops on Greenland so long as they inform Denmark of such deployments, these would see US military bases on the island become US sovereign territory so that neither Denmark nor Greenland could force them to leave) which would be chosen strategically to allow the US to control shipping out of the Northwest Passage (which the US has long insisted should be considered international waters rather than internal Canadian waters) and in the GIUK gap, strangling Canada-EU maritime trade (the latter even allowing them to control shipping from Halifax and St. John's).
"The structure of the suspicion is the structure I have been diagnosing in these pages in other domains. It is the move that converts criticism of any party into license to defend the party’s adversaries, on the implicit theory that the political-emotional priority of opposing the wrong party requires the corresponding priority of not criticizing the right party’s enemies. The move has produced the analytical paralysis that runs through significant portions of the contemporary American left, in which any criticism of authoritarian regimes that happen to be in conflict with the United States gets read as a contribution to American imperial ideology, with the result that the actual conduct of those regimes — disappearances, ethnic-minority internment, organ harvesting, the threatening of democratic neighbors with military annihilation — becomes unnameable because naming it is positioned as taking the wrong side in the wrong conflict."
Otherwise known as the "Noam Chomsky's Political Analyst Career Premise."
"Beijing is ramping up preparations for war. This is not to suggest that it is planning to instigate a conflict, or that it expects to engage in one soon. As official assessments of the international environment continue to darken, however, efforts to strengthen “bottom-line thinking” (极限思维) and “extreme-case thinking” (底线思维)—in other words, preparing for worst-case scenarios—are leading to an increased focus on building and expanding strategic stockpiles of energy, food, critical minerals, and other materials."
I appreciate you tackling this question. I’ve thought that the Left was to some extent responsible for 2016 Trump via their distaste for Hillary Clinton as just another “imperialist warmonger,” which was effectuated through their support for the abominable Jill Stein in key states.
It’s impossible to disentangle all the -isms and how much they contribute to voters’ decisions. But we do know that enough people voted for Stein (a woman) in a few states to have put her in the White House. Did she lose some votes based on sex? Probably. Did she gain some? Possibly. Mike’s premise is also a factor. Comey’s letter, etc.
I don't think so. I think her fatal flaw was being perceived as embodying an elite establishment that people feel they cannot influence and cannot be a part of. It's not even a left versus right thing. It's why so many Bernie voters, voted for Trump. It's a sense of dispossession. Clinton embodied that elite disconnection to many people way more than any issue with the fact she was a woman. I think AOC would have a very good chance of winning in a landslide in 2028 for the same reason Clinton lost, for instance.
Can not the same be said of the Democratic men? And, I have come to consider, from observing men that I’ve known, that the “Bernie Bros” were likely formed to avoid voting for a woman, not because of a great affinity for Senator Sanders.
Of course, the reasons are complex, but considering the rampant racism and misogyny shown by Trump and his supporters, I consider that Hillary’s gender was not an inconsiderable obstacle.
"If Canada makes itself economically dependent on China, the bill will come due in the form Beijing chooses, at the moment Beijing chooses, on the terms Beijing chooses."
We are not looking to become economically dependent on China.
This is because we did make ourselves economically dependent on the United States (but, at the same time, the United States made itself economically reliant on Canada; to name but one sphere, consider how Hydro-Québec sells power to New England, or how British Columbia manages the flow of the Columbia River to ensure stable hydroelectric power generation in Washington and Oregon and to keep the river from flooding communities along the border between those states) and the bill has now come due, in the form Washington chose, at the moment Washington chose, and on the terms Washington chose. The bill is that we must further prostrate ourselves to Washington, we must decline to retaliate against their flagrantly illegal acts, that we must simply accept tariffs and threats of invasion as the cost of doing business. (But as noted, it is not as if we don't have leverage of our own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R65jaHugsHM It is that very retaliation which gives us that leverage and we are not blind to the fact that the complaints about provincial boycotts of USAian alcohol prove that that is a pain point for the US, and that we can therefore press harder on it. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nubiVIZhdG0 in which Jeanne Shaheen, who by her own admission has a financial interest in US alcohol sales, agrees with Howard that our alcohol bans are "outrageous", "insulting" and "disrespectful" instead of a proportional--or even disproportionately small--response to US economic aggression. And since I brought up both Wab Kinew and alcohol bans, mandatory video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l6WFdnipcH8 )
The posture is not "China is reliable but the United States is not, therefore let us become dependent on China". The posture is "China has thus far kept its word on trade while the United States has broken it, but China's hands are nonetheless unclean, therefore let us pursue diversified trade to hedge against the risk of doing business with either". We have forgotten neither the 51st state rhetoric nor the Two Michaels (an action by China precipitated by an invocation by Donald's first administration of our bilateral extradition treaty). This is the conclusion reached not only by Canada but by other international economic actors; see, for instance, the recent trade pact concluded between the European Union and India (another country upon which I, at least, am keeping a wary eye, as Narendra Modi is also an untrustworthy actor), or how the EU-Mercosur pact has finally reached a stage of provisional implementation after decades of negotiation (and even then figures like Javier Milei, and the potential return of Jair Bolsonaro or his associates, force a degree of wariness toward Mercosur). The EU has, of course, taken an anti-US posture in large part over the threats by the United States to annex Greenland, a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, long one of the best US allies in Europe and a critical one on account of its roles both in the GIUK gap (with not only Greenland but also the Faroe Islands as part of it) to track movements to and from Murmansk and in monitoring sea traffic in and out of the Baltic Sea with particular regard to movements to and from Kaliningrad.
(The attempted annexation of Greenland would also militarily pincer Canada, and betrays that a large part of the current US policy toward Canada is an attempt to control the sea lane that runs through our Arctic archipelago; even prior to the current tensions the US had held the position that the waters should be considered international rather than internal, and I believe this is partly based on the precedent that waters between Denmark's islands are considered international, rather than internal, due to their importance in shipping in and out of the Baltic Sea.)
You are correct that articles such as yours, and comments such as mine, could not be made if this were a Chinese platform. It is also, however, the case that in making these comments at all I am foregoing any possibility of entering the United States while the current administration (or any future administration sharing its principles) remains in power. I have relatives in the United States, and while I am not much of a traveller I have visited Bellingham, Seattle and the Los Angeles area on various trips, and even sometimes tell a funny story about getting pulled over for speeding in Montana as compared to the same in Wisconsin while on a family trip to Ontario, as we chose to drive through the United States instead of taking the Trans-Canada Highway. I would have preferred to keep that option open; other commenters (see, eg, https://www.youtube.com/@GuardTheLeaf and as he puts it, thoughts and prayers to the US tourism industry) do not make their remarks while revealing their actual identity in an effort to do just that. Do not think that I can make these remarks, under my real name, with no cost to myself.
EDIT: The Canadian relationship to the United States has been an abusive one for decades, not only abuse from Washington toward Ottawa but also from USAians toward Canadians; see, for instance, USAians regularly not considering Canadian money to be "real money". We are working our way out of one abusive relationship and have no intention of entering another with Beijing.
I'm honestly not tracking your point. Of course, Canada should act in its own interests in accordance with its liberal democratic values. That, of course, includes standing up to the Trump Administration and resisting its attempts at imperial dominion over its near-abroad. I would imagine that if Trump actually ordered the United States military to invade Canada, that it would be the immediate end of his presidency, given the fact that most Americans have a higher opinion of Canada than they have of their own country right now, and the US military—from conversations I've had—would almost certainly face internal revolt at the notion that they would face down Canadian soldiers. It doesn't make Trump's threats any less egregious. But I don't think Trump could actually do it, because Americans would take to the streets by the millions if he tried to stop him from invading Canada.
My point is that you appeared to me to be mischaracterizing the position I took in my remark on your previous article, and I think mischaracterizing the position you may have heard from other Canadians. I was not saying that we should pursue the same sort of trade relationship with China that we had with the United States. I think that would be bad policy, because you are correct that China is a bad actor and would be an irresponsible global hegemon, and has in particular been a bad actor against Canada (the Two Michaels most notably). But the United States has also proven to be a bad actor and an irresponsible global hegemon, and the relationship we have had thus far has been an abusive one, and to imply that we might simply hop in the metaphorical bed with China (which would certainly be an abusive relationship) even as we are extricating ourselves from the US entanglement shows a lack of full understanding of what we're actually trying to do with regard to our international trade relationships.
Canada and the US are always going to have some sort of close relationship, however strained it may become. Geography forces it. Mutual defence interests force it. It is not easy to disentangle an economic relationship that has grown since King and Roosevelt relaxed tariffs in 1935, and certainly not by the current boorish, idiotic resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and his gang of clowns, heading a movement that is, to steal from a US military veteran ( https://www.youtube.com/@LargeManAbroad ), the day-after-Taco-Bell shitstain on the unwashed underwear of US history. But we will do what we can no longer to be in a position to be subject to the abuse to which we have henceforth been subject, and as I said, this is not only at a governmental level.
(Just as other countries are also attempting to do; you can find any number of stories about rude USAian tourists insisting that businesses accept US currency, or give change in US currency, or that they be treated the way a US business would treat them. Particularly egregious is the practice of flagjacking, where USAian tourists will put Canadian flags on their backpacks to piggyback on--and ruin--our good international reputation because they know--whatever they might say about the US being ostensibly so great and respected--that actually their reputation internationally has for a long time been that USAian tourists, enough of them anyway, are pretty dogshit rude and are treated as such in turn, and Canadian tourists sometimes have to pull out their passport for random strangers just to be treated politely. There's at least two airports here--Vancouver and Toronto Pearson--where the arrivals sign, directing domestic arrivals in one direction and foreign arrivals in another, puts a US flag next to a world map for the foreign/international arrivals sign, because many USAian visitors are apparently unable to grasp the concept of being a foreigner or being an international visitor, maybe generally or maybe only specifically in Canada, a concept which does not elude any other nationality. Personally I think those airports should remove the US flag from that sign and CBSA should summarily deny entry to any USAian who gets in the domestic arrivals line for misrepresenting their country of origin.)
EDIT: To the specific point of a US invasion of Canada, I would hope that it would be the end of Donald's presidency, but he's done a lot of things that would have ended any other presidency. It doesn't matter if he never orders an invasion of Canada; what is unforgivable is that he said "51st state" and made the annexation official US policy again. (As Charles said to Donald's face, the last time the US tried to pull that shit, the British engaged in a little unsanctioned remodelling of the executive mansion in Washington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr4W8pU4Vio "On this occasion, I cannot noticing the readjustments to the East Wing, Mr. President, following your visit to Windsor Castle last year. And I'm sorry to say that we British, of course, made our own small attempt at real-estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814.") Keep in mind that Canadians and Mexicans both have long memories (I know someone who still, thirty-five years later, refuses to buy from Shell because they operated in apartheid South Africa), and in Mexico, the US is still, to this day, the country that invaded them in the 1840s and stole half their land.
Our military should have rebelled against King Donnie The First of His Name when he attacked Iran and let them cut off half the world's oil supply. They did not. I'm not as optimistic as Mike is that they would stop a campaign against Canada.
Further on this, Mike, the US is attempting to force the annexation--or at least complete subjugation--of Canada without an actual invasion, as a US military veteran explains here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYc8pL9joqk
Canada and the European Union are attempting to bypass the United States by shipping between Churchill and Antwerp, now that Hudson Bay and the Arctic archipelago are becoming navigable for more of each year as global average temperatures rise. The US, in turn, is attempting to pressure Denmark into making permanent territorial cessions on Greenland for US military bases (unlike the current agreement, where the US can station troops on Greenland so long as they inform Denmark of such deployments, these would see US military bases on the island become US sovereign territory so that neither Denmark nor Greenland could force them to leave) which would be chosen strategically to allow the US to control shipping out of the Northwest Passage (which the US has long insisted should be considered international waters rather than internal Canadian waters) and in the GIUK gap, strangling Canada-EU maritime trade (the latter even allowing them to control shipping from Halifax and St. John's).
https://www.joeydevilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/there-is-no-enemy-like-a-friend-betrayed-2.jpg
"The structure of the suspicion is the structure I have been diagnosing in these pages in other domains. It is the move that converts criticism of any party into license to defend the party’s adversaries, on the implicit theory that the political-emotional priority of opposing the wrong party requires the corresponding priority of not criticizing the right party’s enemies. The move has produced the analytical paralysis that runs through significant portions of the contemporary American left, in which any criticism of authoritarian regimes that happen to be in conflict with the United States gets read as a contribution to American imperial ideology, with the result that the actual conduct of those regimes — disappearances, ethnic-minority internment, organ harvesting, the threatening of democratic neighbors with military annihilation — becomes unnameable because naming it is positioned as taking the wrong side in the wrong conflict."
Otherwise known as the "Noam Chomsky's Political Analyst Career Premise."
The Chinese government:
"Beijing is ramping up preparations for war. This is not to suggest that it is planning to instigate a conflict, or that it expects to engage in one soon. As official assessments of the international environment continue to darken, however, efforts to strengthen “bottom-line thinking” (极限思维) and “extreme-case thinking” (底线思维)—in other words, preparing for worst-case scenarios—are leading to an increased focus on building and expanding strategic stockpiles of energy, food, critical minerals, and other materials."
https://jamestown.substack.com/p/great-power-conflict-concerns-spurs
Another brilliant essay. Thank you for this one, in particular!
About the capture
Justice John Roberts has been at it for decades. His pet project.
https://youtu.be/IgfyJLxYhCY?si=s7D6C4YJCDVSoLfG
I appreciate you tackling this question. I’ve thought that the Left was to some extent responsible for 2016 Trump via their distaste for Hillary Clinton as just another “imperialist warmonger,” which was effectuated through their support for the abominable Jill Stein in key states.
Stupidity, you might say, can be ambidextrous.
It’s impossible to disentangle all the -isms and how much they contribute to voters’ decisions. But we do know that enough people voted for Stein (a woman) in a few states to have put her in the White House. Did she lose some votes based on sex? Probably. Did she gain some? Possibly. Mike’s premise is also a factor. Comey’s letter, etc.
Her fatal flaw was being a woman
I don't think so. I think her fatal flaw was being perceived as embodying an elite establishment that people feel they cannot influence and cannot be a part of. It's not even a left versus right thing. It's why so many Bernie voters, voted for Trump. It's a sense of dispossession. Clinton embodied that elite disconnection to many people way more than any issue with the fact she was a woman. I think AOC would have a very good chance of winning in a landslide in 2028 for the same reason Clinton lost, for instance.
PS I wanted Bernie. I’ve never particularly liked Hillary. Of course, I voted for her. She would have been a good President
Can not the same be said of the Democratic men? And, I have come to consider, from observing men that I’ve known, that the “Bernie Bros” were likely formed to avoid voting for a woman, not because of a great affinity for Senator Sanders.
Of course, the reasons are complex, but considering the rampant racism and misogyny shown by Trump and his supporters, I consider that Hillary’s gender was not an inconsiderable obstacle.