the flip flop in the presidency has perhaps obscured the fact that this is trump's
second term and he's a lame duck on arrival. he has at most three years, probably less. there are midterms in 2026, which is now a year and a half away.
is trump going to conquer canada in six months?
further, the likelihood of this policy surviving trump is essentially nil. the reason mark rutte laughed is because it actually is a joke, although i happen to remember mr. rutte in his previous job, and this is not uncharacteristic of him, as an individual. mr. rutte is a longstanding asshole. he also laughed when bush invaded iraq.
you never know with trump. maybe it's an elaborate loyalty test. i think that would be giving him too much credit. however, we see that there is a subset of the elite in canada that did not require much of an incentive to abandon north america as a project, of which we are a part of, as a sovereign country.
canada should look in the mirror and see itself for what it is and understand the truth; trump is accusing us of being a bad ally and to a large extent we're proving him right. it is true that we have values that are different than theirs and we can't allow them to be compromised. we should absolutely be telling them to fuck off and spitting in their face if they want to put tariffs on us. defence contracting should be on the table, at least. we have to demonstrate via empirical fact that we're not the 51st state and expect them to get it when we do. however, talking about supplying weapons to military alliances in opposition to the united states that would put us in direct conflict with the united states military is too much and needs to be rejected - that's not in our self-interest and not what's going to happen. voices calling for this outcome should be identified and isolated for what they are, which is stupid and dangerous and borderline treasonous.
the chinese are not communists, they're the most vicious capitalists in the history of the planet and arguably have tipped over into fascism. workers in china not only do not control the means of production but have absolutely no rights at all. i've been over this before - china is unique in the world as being the singular standing non-greek culture. all of europe is greek, all of the regions colonized by europe are greek, the russians are the most greek, the muslims are greek, the indians are greek and most of southeast asia is even greek, too, as the furthest extension of greek colonialism. what's left is the very bottom of subsaharan africa, but it is emerging from colonialism as functionally greek, and the far east of asia, which was massively influenced by greek thought via the spread of buddhism (which we know today was invented and spread by greek colonists tailgating on alexander), but which retained it's unique identity - china, korea and japan. japan and korea are under massive american military occupation. only the chinese are left standing as a non-greek cultural force that is alien to the rest of the world.
the chinese neither view the american continents as competitors or as adversaries, but as half empty lands awaiting colonization. the west needs to understand the chinese as an alien race with a unique culture, because they see us an inferior race to be replaced by chinese colonial expansion. if the chinese get their way, they will do to america and canada what the europeans did to the native americans. i don't want to get into it, but covid may have been a 21st century smallpox blanket, and it may have worked better than we realize.
this isn't about ideology. it's not a clash of civilizations....although it is. it's about race and it's about race because the chinese have made it about race.
trump is a goof and his policies won't survive him. we need deeper thinking that can see more than a foot in front of us and can plan for more than two years in the future, when a new president comes in and completely reverses course. however, there's a kernel of truth in recognizing the need for north american defence because the chinese are coming and we will need to work with the americans to stop them.
the thing we should be on the lookout for is chinese expansion in north eastern asia, which is nominally russian but historically chinese. there were previous skirmishes between russian and chinese emperors around the amur river, but the japanese had a brutal and genocidal occupation of manchuria during world war two (which collapsed the chinese state entirely) and the soviets annexed it in the process of driving the japanese out, thereby stealing a large area of and from historical china. in recent years, the russians have largely ceded sovereignty over greater manchuria back to beijing and they have in the process allowed chinese capital to move in, which is exporting raw resources to china without giving moscow a cut. all evidence suggests that they're just taking over with the intention of annexation. they're aggressively moving north up the coast very quickly. it will be when we find ourselves face to face with chinese jets rather than russian jets running chicken runs into alaska that we will know the day of conflict is upon us, and the chinese are ready to go.
the canadian policy needs to be to find a way to juggle it's need for sovereignty with it's need to help the americans contain the chinese by slowing them down. detente with russia would help us do this and should be seen as in our self-interest.
further, our massive border with russia should be strongly incentivizing us to support trump in minimizing tensions with the russians. our support for ukraine has been self-defeating and stupid - it's not at all in our interest to stoke tensions with the russians like this. you have to remember that trudeau is a failed actor that grew up on 80s blockbuster films full of anti-russian propaganda, and he saw russia as an enemy for that reason. he was not a deep thinker and this is not a well thought through policy for canada. he also had chrystia freeland, who is ukrainian, nipping at his heels like a chihuahua about it. we have a big border with the united states that is undefended; i believe our border with russia is actually bigger and less defended. the best way to protect ourselves from russian incursions is to become friends with the russians, which has been how we've defended ourselves from american incursions. for decades, it was the americans that were stopping us from doing that. if trump is seeking detente, and detente survives him, which it might, we should be taking advantage of that, not fighting it. turning russia into a friend will prevent our need to defend ourselves against them and potentially open up very lucrative markets across the arctic.
i know this got dumped on our lap, but we need better thought out policy than knee-jerking into a position where we define ourselves as enemies of the americans. i know they tend to piss us off. that's not a reason to shoot ourselves in the foot.
whatever policy positions are preferable to us, smart, enlightened leadership right now would begin with the realization that trump is a lame duck and that we should avoid rash overreactions. unless we ourselves decide otherwise, which would be very foolish, it is exceedingly likely that this is a blip in time and we'll look back and laugh at it.