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What Did They Think Was Going To Happen? [1]

['Greg Dworkin', 'Thom Hartmann']

Date: 2026-08-24  

When I was younger, we used to pride ourselves that we had the longest undefended land border in the world with Canada. The border runs along the line between people’s yards in Blaine, Washington/Douglas BC. There is a little outpost of the US on the north shore of Lake of the Woods, Minnesota, that you can only access from the US by small boat, so people who live there routinely drive through Canada to get to the rest of their county. There’s another little exclave in Washington state, a tiny peninsula that is a suburb of Vancouver BC and 20 miles or so by road from the rest of the US. We never used to think about the border as a barrier, but instead as simple property line dividing two neighbors. Not any more; now it is a border between two adversaries, and I wouldn’t want to be somebody living in one of those exclaves.

For most of the last year and a half, there has been a simmering trade war between the US and Canada. President Trump has gone back and forth on tariffs, but there is a treaty governing open trade between our two countries that limits American freedom of action. The US is very dependent on energy imports from Canada. They are our principal supplier of oil and natural gas imports and they sell us a lot of electricity. So any serious trade war between the two countries would hurt US consumers and jack up energy prices – which means prices on almost everything, since gas for transportation, oil for various products, and electricity are part of the cost of pretty much everything we consume. All this would make any sensible US administration try to stay on the right side of Canada in trade negotiations. Especially right now, as we head into a general election where the high cost of living is a major issue that the administration is taking the blame for.

But our masters are not very sensible people. It seems like much of President Trump’s policy is driven by his personal egotism. In his second inaugural address, he said that America would seek to expand its territory under his administration, and he has regularly referred to Canada as America’s 51st state (presumably 51st through 63rd, as Canada has ten provinces and three territories). Canadians responded with a combination of defiance and derision. “Elbows up” (a term referring to a strong defensive stance in their national sport of hockey) was the slogan of choice, and Canadians began a broad national boycott of American goods. Canada was about to have elections, and the conservative, Trump-friendly Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party was the leading candidate, as the governing Liberals were in disarray. But the universal hostility to Trump caused a backlash against the Conservatives, and the new Liberal leader, Mark Carney, stormed back to victory.

After the election, the Americans seemed somewhat chastened, and trade negotiations moved forward. Some of the early tariffs that Trump announced were canceled. As historian Tim Snyder described it, Canadian diplomats treated Trump as a baby in bulldozer, flattered him, and tried their best to stay out of the way of the careening machine. But this summer, the bulldozer swerved towards Canada. In early summer, while I was driving east, fires in western Canada created a smoky haze that covered the northern part of the continent. Trump said Canada had caused air pollution and so he was going to penalize them with a new 50% tariff on a long and somewhat odd list of products (hockey sticks, national flags, booze…) More negotiations ensued, with a temporary pause. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Carney announced that he had recalled his negotiating team, and the tariffs took effect over the weekend, with corresponding Canadian tariffs on American goods coming to match the American ones. The American side had imposed a long list of additional demands after the negotiators had reached a preliminary deal. These demands included concessions on a variety of non-economic matters: eliminating preferences for the French language in Quebec, requiring provincial liquor wholesalers to purchase American booze despite most Canadians refusing to buy any, and eliminating Canadian content regulations for TV and radio broadcasters. The US also demanded stronger integration between the US and Canadian militaries, with Canada required to buy US weapons. And Canada would have to harmonize its trade and immigration policies with the US. Canada was to renounce the right to make independent trade deals with other countries.

The Carney administration has announced independent steps in all these areas of dispute. Canada has begun to explore the possibility of developing stronger trade ties to the European Union. As I discussed some time ago, Canada has a very sensible immigration policy focusing on looking for workers needed in the economy and is not interested in Trump’s desire for more blond folks from Norway or South Africa. The Canadian Forces have published a new defense policy calling for developing an independent capacity for weapons development and independent defense planning. There are tentative plans for expanding the Civil Defense Corps to 300,000 strong to defend the national territory, similar to national militia mobilization systems in Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland, as well as expanding the reserve component to 100,000 (active duty strength is about 70,000). A total of 470,000 people in their military is still a pretty tiny force to defend almost 9,000 kilometers of border, but it is a start. Ukraine has done very well starting with a pretty small force against a larger adversary determined to end its national existence. In the economic realm, Ontario provincial Prime Minister Doug Ford, a Conservative, has threatened to cut off exports of energy and strategic minerals to the US. The US defense industry relies on imports of key minerals from Canada for high-tech weapons. Trump has threatened increased tariffs on auto imports.

“ Push On, Brave York Volunteers” Library & Archives Canada

Canada really became a nation during the War of 1812, when American forces invaded, seeking to make them our 16th or so state. America had also invaded Canada in 1775-76 during the American Revolution – my ancestor George Mills was a participant – and discovered that Quebecois were very uninterested in becoming Americans. In 1812, the Americans invaded Ontario, maybe hoping English-speaking Canadians would be more welcoming, but Canadians of all ethno-linguistic groups came together, supported by a paltry few hundred British regular soldiers, to stand off the Yankee invaders. The Canadian army, consisting of both French and English-speaking White militiamen and some First Nations troops along with a handful of British regulars administered a decisive whipping to the invading Americans at Queenstown in October. The war dragged on for two more years, with both sides pushing into the other’s territory – the Canadians and their Shawnee allies famously captured Detroit from a force more than twice their size, while the Americans created a navy pretty much from scratch and gained control of Lake Erie in 1813, permitting a second invasion of Ontario and allowing the Americans to retake Detroit. But the effective defense of Canada in the first year of the war marks a turning point in the history of Canada, when Canadians recognized themselves as a people and refused to submit to their larger neighbors. There’s still plenty of regional difference; Quebec famously remembers, something, as you will see on their license plates (“je me souviens”). Quebecois nationalists fought a sometimes violent campaign for autonomy in the 1960s. Alberta is going to have a referendum on independence in October and has some plans for its national independence. Quebec’s nationalist party sought provincial autonomy but not complete national independence, although small revolutionary factions wanted more. Polls indicate about 2/3 of Albertans will vote to remain part of Canada; the current imbroglio with the Americans has strengthened support for remaining in Canada just like the earlier pressure from Trump strengthened the Liberals.

Canadians still are a people and they still aren’t ready to submit. You would think the Trump administration would have learned from their experience with Iran. Just because a country is smaller than you or has a smaller military budget, that doesn’t mean that you can just demand they give up their sovereignty and submit to your will. People are willing to fight for their freedom. But, you know, Hegseth and Trump are “high-T high IQ individuals” and they don’t learn from their mistakes.

As I was writing this, I saw that the Supremes have given Trump the go-ahead to implement his executive order preventing states that haven’t shared personal data on voters from using the postal service to deliver ballots. I have been saying all along that the 2026 elections aren’t going to save us, maybe now people will understand.

Elbows up!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/8/24/800088975/community/what-did-they-think-was-going-to-happen/

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