US President Donald Trump continues to destroy the U.S.-Canada relationship with repeated attacks on our country. (US Dept. of Defense photo)
By Tim Ryan
U.S. President Donald Trump and his officials continue to dismantle long-time relationships with allied nations, particularly Canada.
Trump has continued to threaten the livelihood of Canadians with his efforts to economically undermine our nation. He continues to insult Canadians and talk about annexing this country so it can become the 51st state. Canadians are being detained by ICE. U.S. officials continue to fabricate claims about the fentanyl problem along the border.
But Trump is just the symptom of a greater problem. The reality is that the U.S. is no longer a trusted ally. It no longer wants allies. It has become a threat to Canada.
That’s hard for the Canadian Forces leadership to accept and senior leaders still cozy up to their U.S. counterparts as if nothing has happened. A number of retired Canadian generals are either Trump supporters or don’t see what he is doing to Canada as a problem.
Canadians on the other hand are not blind to what is happening. On July 8 it was reported by the Pew Research Center that its latest survey found that 59 per cent of Canadians now see the U.S. as a threat. That number has almost tripled since the question was asked in a 2019 poll.
Trump’s attacks on Canada have been coming fast and furious over the months. As well, some of the utterings coming from Trump’s representative in Ottawa, Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, have also been ridiculous. Hoekstra was recently mocked on social media for falsely claiming on CBC that Trump’s 51st state threat against Canada was only limited to a single tweet.
Hoekstra has also played the victim card. He told the Hill Times he is 'not very sympathetic' to the pain Canadians feel over Trump's annexation threats. “We’re hurt, too,” Hoekstra told The Hill Times during a May 22 interview at the U.S. Embassy. “For 10 years, you didn’t pay for NATO.”
That last claim, of course, is also a fabrication. (Canada’s ongoing NATO mission to Latvia is costing $2 billion alone….not to mention the involvement in other NATO operations).
You get the sense from the ambassador’s public statements and media interviews that Hoekstra only has utter contempt for Canadians.
But he isn’t the only other American playing the victim card when it comes to dealing with the push back from Canadians against Trump’s threats to destroy our country.
Andrew Ginther, the mayor of Columbus, Ohio was in Ottawa in late May to promote U.S.-Canada relations. But Ginther told the news outlet Politico that he’s hurt that Canada is banning American-made goods, that Canadians are canceling vacation trips to the States and booing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at sporting events. “I think the inflammatory rhetoric, the threats, that type of emotional language is not helpful,” Ginther said. “Obviously those things are hurtful. If somebody boos during my national anthem, I’m going to take notice of that.”
Ginther seems totally oblivious that Canadians might be a touch pissed off that his country wants to dismantle Canada. He is just another out-of-touch American who can’t understand why Canadians don’t want to spend their hard-earned wages on visiting his city.
It’s not just Canada that has been trashed by the Trump government.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mocked European troops who fought in Afghanistan as part of the NATO coalition that was there to support the U.S. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hegseth said he and his fellow Army National Guardsmen would repeatedly joke that the ISAF acronym on their shoulder patches (International Security Assistance Force) really stood for, “I saw Americans fighting.”
That didn’t go down well in the European nations who troops died for the U.S. during the Afghan war. For the record, 457 British military personnel died during that war, France lost 90, Germany lost 62, and Italy had 53 killed. Other European NATO nations such as Poland also lost soldiers in Afghanistan.
Hegseth appeared clueless that America’s allies went to war in Afghanistan because they were there to support his nation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
In other efforts to trash allies, Hegseth refused to rule out military action to seize either Greenland from Denmark or take over Panama.
America’s Afghan allies are also getting screwed over by Trump and company. Those who fought for the U.S. had to flee to America to avoid deadly retribution from the Taliban.
Many came to the U.S. under what is known as Temporary Protected Status. But that was revoked for Afghanistan on July 14, meaning that those Afghans who fought for the U.S. or acted as advisors or translators can be deported back to Afghanistan. There, of course, they will be either punished or executed by the Taliban.
Good luck to the U.S. in finding allies to fight in its future conflicts.
But as Esprit de Corps has pointed out, Trump and his supporters have advocates among the retired Canadian senior military ranks and business leaders. Retired Gen. Rick Hillier has complained about our country and has thrown his weight behind Trump supporter Kevin O’Leary’s proposal for a common dollar, integrated border and immigration requirements and common economic approaches with the U.S.
Hillier also took to social media to admonish angry Canadians for booing the U.S. national anthem at hockey games. But Canadians were in no mood to be lectured. They pushed back, labelling Hillier as a U.S. lackey.
Tobi Lutke, who co-founded Shopify, also got raked over the coals for claiming that Canadians want their government to support Trump’s initiatives. “Win by helping American win,” Lutke claimed.
Retired Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, who is now an analyst with the U.S-funded MacDonald Laurier Institute, had earlier questioned why Canada was not fixing “the things that are causing US angst?” He included border security, defence and the trade imbalance in that list. “It’s not that hard,” Leslie claimed.
Maybe Leslie hasn’t seen how Trump operates – you can give him everything he wants and he will never be happy. That is a common trait among bullies.
