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Comment by andy_ppp | Hacker News Reader

Why? Seems the US doesn't like democracy anymore and the EU for all its faults still does. I can see Japan joining too and potentially South Korea, Philippines, and others who are concerned about the state of the world and want to work together rather than drive the world apart.

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If I’d said to you last year “Hey! I bet Canada is going to join the EU! No, of course not as charter-violating full member, as a newly invented ‘associate member’!” You’d probably have said “That’s both crazy and oddly specific, the chances of that have to be approaching zero”.

That’s why.

Further cooperation between the EU and Canada has been talked about for a decade or so (see CETA). Just because it is news to you, it doesn't mean it is news.

Yes but also "associate member" is, despite specificity, less surprising than full membership would have been.

Same as economic gravity meant that Brexit didn't disconnect UK from EU it only made trade harder, neither this kind of deal nor full membership can be much more than a band-aid for Trump's BS, it won't fully compensate for the harm he and his administration are doing to Canada.

I think the world would be jumping into alignments like this if the US hadn't spent the last 80 years building a "nuclear umbrella" for the "western alliance" with itself in the centre.

I bet many countries would prefer to disassociate with US foreign policy right now if they weren't security dependent.

I expect after this destructive episode in history has played out, if we're all still alive and free in another decade then there will be alternative umbrellas.

I doubt Japan can join (on their own). They're essentially a US colony in all but name, so they'll need to be allowed by the fatherland.

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