As a US citizen, I just want to add that I hope some day we can reestablish a healthy relationship with our neighbors. These articles are saddening.
I don't see how Canada can trust us again without a major cultural and legal shift in the US. The fact is that any president can, apparently, unilaterally shred international friendships, and 30%-40% of Americans will cheer it on.
I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
I'd agree in the context that this wasn't necessarily a case of driven by natural forces of the universe rather than some key events that could have been better addressed to hold them off. And the best way to do that is lots of sunshine and awareness.
Those key elements being:
The Powell Memo -- https://www.inequalitymedia.org/explainers/v/the-powell-memo
Reagan's embracement of evangelicals (ignoring Barry Goldwater's warning)
Rush Limbaugh's unfettered demonization industrial complex
Bill Clinton's sellout of labor to the corporate class -- https://www.theglobalist.com/bill-clinton-hillary-pivoted-am...
IMHO politics is two distinct things: control of law and the circus of those who vie to take that power. Everybody focuses on the circus because that's where the media points to and is the most engaging.
But it's the former that actually matters, and it's boring, slow, and opaque, but literally a matter of life and death to every citizen of the union.
One final thought: the creation of literal Red vs Blue was a masterclass in division and distraction. It's crazy-making to watch it play out from the sidelines.
Conservative commentator P.J. O'Rourke summed it up nicely in 2016 when as a panelist on NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" announced
> I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises. It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters.
That's how it was up to 2016, long after those things you cite had been in effect. Even if you thought some candidate with a chance at winning national office was wrong on everything they were at least wrong within normal parameters.
Something happened between 2008 and 2016 that enabled the current situation.
For all of that, she did lack Bill's charisma.
Sure she was a finger in the air politician but there really was no contest as far as fitness for office. But then again, the typical American voter only cares about what's ostensibly immediately in it for them.
2016 was a populist referendum, and I still think Bernie could have won it (not that he's perfect either).
That's not the problem.
The real problem is that the political establishment let things get so out of whack that someone like Trump could enjoy a large amount of support and get elected. If actual issues experienced by Americans were getting addressed in a satisfactory way, none of this would have happened.
But instead of that we got TINA and Trump.
> I would love a return to normalcy, but Americans need to make sure, really sure this can't happen again.
Easy: just repeal democracy. Make elected officials advisors at best, and vest all power in unelected officials that will uphold the status quo.
I agree with you and I wish more people would understand that Trump is only a symptom of the issue.
Its the same in Europe where everyone is somehow discovering in 2026 that the far-right and far-left parties actually want to do what they say they will do if they get in power.
Instead of addressing the concerns of the population, all they do is talk about how bad these parties would be and try every which way to contain them except never trying to even understand or fix the issues these people are complaining about.
It was the same strategy used by Macron in France in 2017 and 2022.
Step 1: Pretend you care and tinker on the margins but fundamentally don't change anything. Step 2: Paint the opposition on the left and right as monsters that will bring chaos and disorder to the country. Step 3: Present yourself as the only one capable of containing said chaos.
In one word: TINA
Except TINA is no longer working and the mainstream parties are being challenged a lot more because people have trusted them for so long and they are no longer interested in waiting for them to actually deliver on what they promised to do years ago.
So you get Reform in the UK, One Nation in Australia, National Rally in France, the AFD in Germany, Swedish democrats in Sweden and much more....
The parties in charge could have tried to address the issues that are fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe, they could have listened to the concerns of their citizens even if they did not agree with their ideas.
Instead, they have let the situation deteriorate and portrayed themselves as the only solution to the problems they never addressed and it backfired spectacularly.
As Jack Kerouac said: After Me, the Deluge.
That might be america's problem but its not my problem. It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump. It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
I was responding to a self-identified American wishing America would return to the prior status quo. It seems like you're in the wrong subthread.
> It doesn't really matter on the outside what dynamics lead to trump.
It's worth noting those dynamics aren't unique to the US.
> It only matters that US foreign policy has taken a turn, the turn seems permanent, and we can no longer trust that our interests are aligned with the new management.
It's also worth noting that many countries were probably taking advantage of the US's old management (e.g. most of the rest of NATO severely under-investing in their defense, expecting the US to spend to pick up the slack). Some of the vibes I pick up around those topics come off as entitled, which is is not a good look.
yeah, that is how being a hegemon works. There are benefits and drawbacks to that, but lets not pretend like USA didn't get a lot of benefits out of the arrangement.
In any case, seems like that era is mostly coming to an end.
It's sounds just like you are believing your own propaganda. This behaviour was intended and encouraged by the US. They would still prefer for it to stay that way, even if they are saying otherwise domestically. Look how they try to sabotage the other countries, now that they try to actually uncouple from the US.
Are 30%-40% of Americans really cheering for shredding of the friendship with Canada? Is that supported by some specific survey or are we just looking at approval ratings or some proxy?
Isn't this more or less normal for the USA in the broader perspective? Certainly had some very weird presidents in the past? We had things like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_movement
I feel like we're just not living in normal times. The lack of normalcy is social media, conspiracy theories, politics. This isn't simply a US-Canada relationship question and "return to normalcy" isn't really just about "how do we ensure a certain level of quality of leadership". I'm not even sure what's normal any more ;)
https://leger360.com/in-the-news-canada-us-trade-war-canadia...
https://leger360.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/OMNI_tradewa...
"Our latest survey finds that 41% of Canadians now consider the United States an enemy country, up 15 points from June 2025. At the same time, 64% say their impression of the United States would change if Donald Trump were no longer president."
I find this insane. Also the weighting towards 55+, male, Quebec, is interesting. It says something about how humans are easy to influence IMO. Not exactly a surprise I guess looking at humanity as a whole but something I would have hoped we had some immunity to in free western societies.
In fact the very foundation of Canada is a response to the US threat.
So yes. I agree there is an actual change vs. the post WW-II trajectory. At least in the public sphere. I don't know what used to happen behind closed doors. AI here says a lot of power struggles have happened (some specific examples but I'll spare you) but not in public. But argues that the shifting of those into the public sphere is a real change. And I agree with the AI overlords.
Most Americans don’t have a problem with the content of Trump’s proposed treaty either. It would have lowered Canada’s tariffs on US dairy products down from 400% to whatever the US charges on Canadian dairy products. It would have allowed US banks to enter the Canadian market just as Canadian banks are allowed to operate in the US. Etc, etc.
The Canadian government made the soup themselves.
That said, saying that the tariff is never collected is itself misleading. The importers know about the quota, and naturally they avoid going over it. It’s a restraint on trade either way and Trump proposed getting rid of it.
Maybe some Americans don't take all the "51st State" and annexation talk that's become a full-on party line seriously, but Canadians are perfectly in their rights and sense to take it seriously and literally.
First, he decides what he wants. He does this in advance specifically so that he can avoid agreeing to any deal that gives him less. Then he asks for the moon, knowing that the other party won’t want to give it all up. Instead he wants them to negotiate him down. He will agree to almost any deal that gives him what he wants, but of course hopes that they’ll give him more than that.
So when Trump says that Canada should join the US he is asking for the moon. He knows that Canada would never actually agree to it. It’s not an unjustifiable position; he can offer arguments about why they should (it simplifies the defense of the continent, it eliminates the expense of maintaining the border, it eliminates the possibility of trade barriers between us, etc, etc), but he expects to be talked down from that position. Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
So Canadians who took these statements “seriously and literally” were in fact overreacting.
> Obviously Canada should at minimum demand to be brought in as multiple states rather than as one oversized one. Or Canada could just offer to lower tariffs instead. It’s up to them.
This is quite something. Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026, and the framework you've put this in is so far outside of any coherent diplomatic framework that it's outright an offense.
No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!
No, I am being completely straight forward about Trump. Go read the book.
> Trump does not think in any kind of structured axiomatic way at all as of his decaying health in 2026…
There’s where you make your mistake. There’s no evidence of that at all. Well, he’s physically somewhat frail, but that’s pretty normal at his age.
> No, Canada should not be put in a position where they consider the choice of being multiple U.S. states! What is wrong with you!
I think that Canadians are strong enough to rationally discuss any idea. We don’t need to shield them. Besides, apparently Canada is going to join the EU now. And they won’t even get to be a full member; they’re opting to be a junior partner instead. Will they even be allowed to vote on things, or will the EU expect them to meekly adopt whatever new rules they are given?
If Canada decides instead to team up with the USA then they should insist on becoming as many states as they can get away with. They are 10% of the US population and will therefore have about 10% of the seats in the House, but they should aim to have about 10% of the seats in the Senate as well. 13 new states would probably be a hard sell but you might be able to swing it.
If it makes you feel better, Trump and the ambassador to Canada probably never actually brought up the idea with the Canadians. They were negotiating in the context of the existing trade agreement so they were just talking about trade. The quip about the “51st state” was merely something Trump said on television.
Tariffs today have one real value only: protecting domestic industry. And to do that correctly, it needs to be thoughtful, consistent (legislated rather than by executive order), and coordinated with the industries they are designed to protect.
The US hasn't withdrawn from CUSMA. On July 1st it declined to extend the agreement past 2036, which isn't the same thing. The deal stays in force until 2036 with annual reviews, and no withdrawal notice has been given.
It was also the US, not Canada, that declined to renew. Canada and Mexico both pushed for extension with the same administration that renegotiated NAFTA into CUSMA only a few years ago. So what changed exactly?
Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice. As I understand it the treaty doesn't set up "if negotiations fail, then withdraw" mechanism but IANAL.
The 400% dairy figure is incredbily inflated. The steep tariffs, roughly 200-300% depending on the product, apply only above quota, and in quota imports come into the states without duty. The US also runs its own dairy quotas, and it's incredibly disingenuous to portray Canada as the overbearing protectionist entity in a scenario where Americans twice elected a leader running on an overtly and relatively unprecedented (in modern times anyways) protectionist policy.
> The Canadian government made the soup themselves.
On this we are in full agreement. The integration of the Canadian economy into the American one has placed Canada in a precarious place and only further decoupling from America and seeking trading partners abroad will change that.
https://cassels.com/insights/cusmsa-still-in-force-notwithst...
> Also, the 6 year review is about whether to extend the term. Withdrawal is a separate clause that a nation can use at any time on six months' notice.
These are good corrections; I was merely oversimplifying. The main point is that what Trump is doing is not some kind of horrible betrayal, he is simply using the terms of the treaty as written. The treaty explicitly specifies how and when either party can renegotiate, decline to renew, and withdraw. You could argue that the treaty ought to have been more permanent than that, but then your beef is not with Trump but with the Canadians who agreed to the treaty as written.
As Carney has said, this President's signature is apparently in pencil. If you violate agreements you yourself signed, don't be surprised if people stop trusting you.
Finally, if the current trade deal was so awful... Trump negotiated that. One has to ask, what would it take for you to hold your glorious leader accountable for something he did?
I think this was a much needed wake up call, perhaps a way to shed our naivete.
For years we have coupled ourselves to United States without thinking twice and it turns out that this was not a good idea.
I think we are going to see a very different Canada in the next decade or so. We will always maintain trade with United States but operate under another foreign policy.
I still feel like Canada is vulnerable, hopefully our government accelerates securing the nation on all fronts: military, trade, cyber and borders.
The legal shift is the key part. We've now discovered that the US has a very well thought-out separation of powers on paper, but it only exists on paper. There is no enforcement mechanism if a president decides none of that applies to them and they can role-play dictator. That means every future president can also do the same. So there is no way to trust anything the US says or does.
Unless there is a major constitutional reform soon that assures in absolute terms that no future president can ever overstep their constitutional authority. This is the legal reform necessary for any other country to ever trust the US.
That's right only America is capable of providing a livelihood and productive economy for its citizens. Silly Canada, just become a client state and let America make all those hard decisions for you.
Canada has a massive amount of untapped potential, and it’s time we tap it.
Last year our population only grew by 0.5%. We have a long time before it doubles.
More importantly, they are talking over a time frame of 2100. Doubling the population over the course of 75 years is probably fine. The economy can handle it over that time frame.
I first learned of it here on HN, someone submitted it last year.
>The economy can handle it over that time frame.
What economy? Are you planning on finding jobs for tens of millions more people? One might say that you don't have enough jobs to go around as it is.
Population almost exactly tripled in the last 75 years, though.
More than 20% of Canada's current population was born outside of Canada. That's a substantial block of people!
I'm not against immigration by any means, but still. Immigrant Canadians are strongly likely to outnumber born Canadians in my lifetime
I asked some of my Indigenous friends here how that worked out for them and they said not great
Remember that the Canadians claimed to care a lot about climate change, and sending goods to Asian or Europe has a greater environmental cost than shipping to America.
Do you really think the Canadian government will stop advertising on YouTube and Facebook? The Canadian PM mainly does news with American companies...
Trump was deeply unpopular at the end of his first term too, and Americans still went back for a second bite.
We gotta look inward and, metaphorically speaking, go to rehab.
Reducing America to one simple statement is not possible.
This isn't a deeply unpopular anomaly. This is a significant chunk of America, and they may easily regain the majority if the economy improves in a few years (or if it worsens further under a Democratic president).
Current day politics are about polarization. More so than ever. There is no room for nuance. This is what worked for Trump and this is what worked for Carney and the Liberals in Canada. The Liberals didn't win on some brilliant policies they simply won on anti-American feelings.
This is not a statement on who is right or wrong. There are certainly many aspects of Trump's behaviour here that most would say are wrong. The problem is when we lose nuance and debate we can't make progress. But a leader in today's world that introduces nuance loses to the leader that polarizes. Dragging us all down.
American re-elected him, despite the cronyism, jan 6, mental decline, etc. Combined with the democrats are so self defeating and they also repeatedly poked at trade issues (the loooooong running softwood lumber disputes, Keystone XL, "buy American" provisions that ignored NAFTA/USMCA for projects that were going ahead w/o the provisions, etc).
We know what populism is (we've experienced and are experiencing it ourselves) and know that it is usually fleeting, but we don't trust another "smarter" nativist president to come along and screw us again.
Also, there's an internal game going on here. Canada has (institutionally) took the "easy" way out of controversial projects, often due to our proximity to the US. This has meant that when some projects run into a greater than normal amount of political resistance (eg environmental fights against pipelines or LNG terminals), the default has usually been to back off. But Trump has in a way given cover to actually move forward.
I don't expect the next president to "cave" so easily. Even before he was sworn in, republicans had their messaging in full swing against Obama about the deficit. I fully expect the same thing to hammer the next president on trade if they're a democrat.
but from what i can see, the american reaction to this, even from the anti-trump crowd within america, is to basically shrug and assume that canada will quickly forgive and forget.
Just write "Thoughts and prayers!" and save us all some time.
Canadian here. It'll be at least a generation, if it ever happens at all. I have two kids in elementary school and every single one of their peers is talking about America as a threat. More than once I've had one of my kids ask me if it's true Donald Trump wants to take over Canada. It's a whole generation of children growing up resentful of America, viewing it as a threat rather than an ally. Those attitudes aren't going to just evaporate after Trump leaves office.
I took no end of downvotes and snarky comments from arrogant Americans on this fucking website for suggesting that the old days are not coming back, largely because Canadians have realized that Trump is broadly representative of Americans. He is a symptom of an underlying sickness. The problem is Americans themselves.
To wit: Harris got 75 million votes in 2024[0]. The total voting-age population is roughly 270 million [1], which means less than a third of the US electorate voted against Trump. The remaining two thirds either voted for him or were sufficiently unbothered so as to not vote at all. So we see a bunch of Americans in the media or on socials crying crocodile tears about how tHeIr AlLiEs ArE sO vAlUaBlE tO tHeM and traitors in the Alberta government notwithstanding I think broadly speaking Canadians realize it's bullshit and have moved on. Any treaty the US signs is not worth the paper it's printed on.
This schism is permanent, and I think Americans have yet to comprehend just how much foreign attitudes towards America have moved over the last year and a half.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/03/29/2024-06...
Canada has continually accepted bad trade deals from the U.S.. They've been imposed on us by both democratic and republican governments. If the U.S, for example, says "Canada, you have too many trees. Our tree farmers can't compete so we're tariffing those.", there's not much we can do. We do have rather a lot of trees. If Trump had been respectful, he'd have his updated treaty by now and Canadian goods would likely be under some degree of permanent tariff's. Thanks to Trump running his mouth, the trade dispute became a matter of national sovereignty that has been under a microscope for the last year and a half. Trump's rhetoric has made it impossible for Canadian politicians to capitulate. Trade is, ideally, about both sides winning, but Trump has formulated things so that the U.S. can't win if Canada doesn't lose. Canadians are now unwilling to accept another loss. The result is an impasse.
The problem going forward is that Trump is still continually insulting and threatening the U.S.'s closest allies, and Americans have done nothing to stop him. Not one thing of substance. You can have impeachments like hobbits have breakfasts, but nothing ever seems to touch Trump. He does what he wants. The U.S. needs to have its Magna Carta moment and rein in its king. Your system has failed to the point where we'd rather not live on the same continent as you. If we could saw it off at the 49th and paddle our part of the continent closer to either Asia or Europe, we would.
As a US citizen, you should be angrier than Canadians are. Your nation is poorer, embroiled in unnecessary wars, and has lost significant international influence because of Trump. The consequences of what he has done will take decades to play out, and there's little the next president can do to mitigate them. Donald Trump is Making America Go Away, and Americans are continuing to let him do it.