my name is Aaron Edinger and I'm a political science Professor here at Carlton University I specialize in American foreign policy Canadian foreign policy and international relations this is a perfect perspective from which to view the buding conflict between Canada and the United [Music] States back at the end of 2024 Donald Trump started mocking Justin Trudeau as being the governor of Canada I call him Governor TR do and talked about Canada being the 51st state of the American Union now of course that started off as a joke but now it's sort of become a thing Trump's
argument is that if Canada doesn't pay for its own defense then the United States should just Annex Canada and be done with it but wait a second can he actually do that can you actually Annex another country in 2025 well let's take a look at some history annexation is when one country claims sovereignty over the ter territory of another country or another territory it is unilateral and is usually done without the consent of the other party now in the Canada US situation here we got a problem there are two Sovereign countries at play and the
matter of consent is rather important historically there are basically five ways to Annex your neighbor the most popular one is Conquest roll in the tanks roll in the troops conquer territory and claim it for your own most of history is the story story of annexation through conquest and the United States has been really really good at doing this most American territories and possessions in the Caribbean or in the Pacific are the result of conquests made during the Spanish American War and the second world war the second approach is simply just planting the flag in fact
the United States made a law about this the 1856 guano Islands act yes the guano Islands act look it up it allows any American citizen to plant the flag and claim for the United States any territory that is otherwise unclaimed or uninhabited now back in the day this was all about gaining access to guano which was an important fertilizer the third approach is couet and then gradual annexation this is what happened in Hawaii in 1893 Sanford Dole the guy from the pineapple and the sticker on your banana did a cou d'a against Lil oani the
queen of Hawaii and after that Hawaii became its own independent republic and eventually a territory of the United States and by 1959 it became a state in the American Union proper fourth way to Annex your neighbor is through purchase one country buying the territory from another some of the most famous examples in history are American the Louisiana purchased in 1803 Thomas Jefferson bought a third of the United States's territory from Napoleon for $15 million the fifth and final way that you can Annex your neighbor is through bargaining now this in the the American constitutional setup
is done through Congress and the Constitution has language about how Congress can admit new states to the union but it is silent beyond that now bargaining annexation requires an annexe and the annexe has to consent to these kinds of things I can't think of many countries in the world today that would voluntarily give up their sovereignty so how would Donald Trump go about annexing Canada well in his words he would use economic Force to get rid of the border between the two countries economic Force because Canada and the United States that would really be something
does anybody know what that means no but Canadians need to take this really really seriously is integrating Canada into the United States a good idea no it's not good for Canada and it's not good for the United States let's do the math here for a second Canada is a population of about 41 million people it's about the same size as California in fact it's a little bit bigger and so by the Electoral math Canada would be a portioned about the same number of seats as California now what would those 54 House of Representative seats and
two senators du to the American electoral system well frankly the Republicans would have a hard time winning an election ever again how would voters in the state of Canada vote well generally speaking about one-third of Canadian voters are conservative and the other 2/3 are generally to the left of the conservatives right they'll vote for the Liberal Party the ndps the greens the block and other parties to the center and Center left now translate that into American politics that means about 2third of Canadian voters would vote for the Democrats and onethird for Republicans that's an overwhelming
majority of democratic voters in the state of Canada the state of Canada would swing almost every single Republican victory in House of Representatives since the year 2000 it would have changed the results of two presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 and it would make the razor thin majority in the Senate even thinner if Canada were to become the 51st state Republicans would probably never win another election at the national level ever again that's assuming we are admitted as a state and not a colony but that's another story of course the great irony in all of
this is that Canada would probably have more influence in Washington as a state of the union rather than as a sovereign country unto itself so is annexation going to happen no and nobody really has taken it all that seriously since he started musing about it president Trump signing a trio of executive orders imposing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada with the lower 10% tariff on Canadian Oil and Gas and 10% tariffs on goods from China a trade War would be devastating to the Canadian economy and really bad for the American economy in Canada
about 75% of our exports go to the United States about 12 or 133% of all jobs in Canada are somehow connected to the export sector there's a fundamental reality in the Canadian political economy we are inextricably linked with the United States what would tariffs look like for an ordinary person well in short prices are going to go up you basically have two options the Importer can eat the cost or pass along the cost to the consumer and which one do you think is going to happen well Canada is going to retaliate and it's going to
retaliate in very targeted specific ways targeting vulnerable Republican districts or exposed American Industries Why Canada's not going to win in a slugfest with the United States but it can put pressure on vulnerable districts that are in play in the 2026 midterm election if a tariff war is bad for business why is Donald Trump doing this in the first place and the answer is easy it's all about politics not about economics it's about politics it's about Donald Trump putting American Industries first and exerting its power on the world stage it's about politics not economics so we've
talked about annexation we've talked about the 51st state we've talked about tariffs we don't know how this is all going to end but I can assure you of one thing we're going to find out and we're going to find out real soon a few moments later [Music]
