there's some articles with steve bannon floating around canadian mainstream news, where he tries to explain that trump has developed canada derangement syndrome not from south park or john candy, and not due to an insistence on using tariffs as a source of taxation, but to protect north america from russia and china. accompanied with these articles is a picture of north america in one solid colour, like a risk board.

this picture already exists. it's called nato.

in fact, trump has been vocal about wanting to redesign nato, although he hasn't really clarified what he intends, or if he has a plan at all.

my question to the trump administration is this: in terms of arctic defence, what can you achieve by annexing canada and greenland that you couldn't better achieve through nato and norad, which has been the status quo since 1940?

i think this is a valid question:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2022/09/should-greenland-and-denmark-become-part-of-norad.html

it's not that trump is wrong, it's really that these regions are already in the american umbrella system, and that he doesn't seem to really grasp it. the american empire is a confederation of states, it has been since 1776. it's a foundational part of american culture, identity and history to reject colonialism, and while there's plenty of examples of americans meddling around in the affairs of other countries, americans really haven't gone out and conquered other countries like this without justification, however flimsy. it bought lousiana. it claimed a justification to invade mexico. canada was supposed to be annexed as a part of the revolution, but it never happened; instead, we were folded into the new world order that developed after pearl harbour. the idea of just picking a fight with a country like canada has no precedent in american history and is in a real sense exceedingly unamerican.

as he frequently does, trump is trying to create something that already exists or to fix something that isn't broken, and in the end will probably break it rather than fix it. he's a bull in a china shop. as this develops, a lot of canadians may find themselves not really disagreeing with trump, so much as looking at him and saying "well, that's the status quo. what are we changing, exactly? and why?". in fact, we have an answer to that question, and it's to create an unfair advantage for american capital, and that's not something anybody should sign up for.

canada and the united states have a joint defense using norad, nato and the coast guard that vritually all camadians support and the question of sovereignty over canada is of little relevance in ensuring that this system is effective and functions correctly. it is entirely unclear  what trump might hope to accomplish by annexing canada, other than absorbing 30+ million people that would never vote for him or his political party.