For decades, the relationship between the United States and Canada belonged to the category of geopolitical facts so stable they barely required analysis.
A shared border without fortifications. Deeply integrated supply chains. Energy interdependence so extensive it blurred the distinction between domestic and foreign trade.
If alliances were marriages, this one looked less like a romance than a long, practical partnership—occasionally dull, rarely dramatic and almost never existential. That assumption has now been punctured – and loudly so.
Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100% tariff on Canadian goods is not merely another episode in his familiar trade brinkmanship. It marks a deeper shift: the weaponization of economic power against a close ally for exercising sovereign choice.
Not over war. Not over security. But over trade policy—specifically, Canada’s decision to strike a limited, pragmatic arrangement with China.
The question raised is not whether tariffs “work” in some abstract economic sense. History has already delivered its verdict on that front. The more unsettling question is political: Can the US, under Trump’s vision, tolerate even mild strategic autonomy among its allies? Or does loyalty now require submission?
From strategic partnership to conditional sovereignty
Trump’s argument, stripped of its rhetoric, is straightforward. If Canada becomes a conduit for Chinese goods entering the US market, punishment will follow. The premise rests on the idea that Canada’s trade decisions are legitimate only insofar as they align with Washington’s preferences. Sovereignty, in this view, is conditional.
That logic would have been foreign to earlier American statecraft. During the Cold War, the US tolerated—sometimes grudgingly—independent economic relations among allies, from West Germany’s trade with the Soviet bloc to Japan’s mercantilist policies that hollowed out American manufacturing towns.
Washington complained. It pressured. But it rarely threatened economic annihilation of its closest partners. Trump has crossed that line repeatedly. Canada is not an outlier; it is a test case.
Ottawa’s recent deal with Beijing was narrow by design. Reduced tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for lower Chinese import taxes on Canadian agricultural products. No sweeping free trade agreement. No alliance shift. No ideological embrace of China’s political system. Canada’s own trade minister emphasized the limits of the arrangement.
Initially, Trump himself seemed to agree. He publicly praised the deal, saying Canada should pursue such opportunities if available. The praise lasted days. Then came the reversal.
Tariffs, flip-flops, and the politics of coercion
Canada was recast not as a rational actor pursuing national interest, but as a naïve territory about to be “eaten alive” by China—language more befitting an imperial protectorate than a sovereign state.
This rhetorical shift matters. It reflects a broader pattern in Trump’s worldview, where power defines legitimacy and dependency masquerades as partnership. Canada is not treated as an equal but as a subordinate whose independence must be managed.
The symbolism has been hard to miss. Trump’s repeated jokes—sometimes not jokes—about absorbing Canada into the United States. His habit of referring to Canadian leaders as “governors.” His posting of altered maps folding Canada into US territory.
These gestures once seemed juvenile, even unserious. Backed by economic threats, they now carry weight.
Davos and the middle power revolt
The public rupture at Davos made the divide unmistakable. While Trump promoted a global order built on coercion and transactional loyalty, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech that landed as a direct rebuttal.
Without naming Trump, he declared the rules-based international order effectively dead and warned that in a world where “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,” middle powers must act together—or risk being consumed. It was not radical. It was realist. And it was met with applause.
Carney’s line—“If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”—captured the anxiety of many countries caught between great powers. His argument was not anti-American. It was post-illusion. The idea that alignment with Washington guarantees protection has begun to erode, not because of Chinese expansionism alone, but because American reliability itself is now uncertain.
Trump’s response was telling. He declared that Canada “lives because of the United States.” Carney replied, calmly, that Canada thrives because it is Canadian. Shortly afterward, Trump revoked Carney’s invitation to join his newly announced “Board of Peace,” a move that was less diplomatic than theatrical—an assertion that access, even to symbolism, is conditional on deference.
Economic nationalism and the limits of American power
There is historical precedent for this kind of behavior, though not one Americans typically celebrate. Great powers in decline often confuse coercion with strength. Britain did it in the interwar years, clinging to imperial preferences while its economic base eroded.
The Soviet Union did it in Eastern Europe, enforcing loyalty through economic pressure that ultimately hastened collapse. Empires rarely fall because rivals defeat them outright. They fall because allies stop believing in them.
Trump’s economic nationalism is often defended as a necessary corrective to globalization’s excesses. There is truth in the critique. Free trade was oversold, adjustment costs were ignored and entire communities were sacrificed to efficiency metrics.
But tariffs imposed indiscriminately—especially on allies—do not rebuild industrial capacity. They redistribute pain, invite retaliation, and fracture trust. More importantly, they signal unpredictability. Investors, supply chains, and governments can adapt to competition. They cannot easily adapt to whims.
Canada’s drift toward diversification is not ideological rebellion; it is risk management. When alignment becomes a liability, diversification becomes rational. The same logic now animates Europe’s cautious hedging, Asia’s quiet nonalignment, and the Global South’s growing skepticism toward Western economic discipline lectures.
This is where the issue transcends Canada. What happens when middle powers refuse to comply? What happens when economic weapons are turned inward, not outward? A system built on coercion eventually consumes itself, because every actor begins preparing for betrayal.
The irony is that Canada has been among the most faithful participants in the US-led order—on trade, security and diplomacy. If even Canada is treated as expendable, no alliance is truly safe.
Trump’s supporters might argue that this is precisely the point: to force allies to choose. But choice under threat is not an alliance; it is a hierarchy. And hierarchies endure only as long as the dominant power can enforce them without exhausting itself.
The deeper story here is not about tariffs or China. It is about American confidence. A hegemon secure in its position does not need to bully its neighbors into compliance. It sets rules others want to follow. When it starts issuing ultimatums to friends, something has already gone wrong.
Trump’s economic war with Canada reveals less about Canadian disloyalty than about American anxiety. The world is adjusting accordingly. Whether Washington notices in time is another matter.
M A Hossain is a senior journalist and international affairs analyst based in Bangladesh.