Fighting With Family

Source: The Atlantic Daily, Tom Nichols
Photo: (Andrew Harnik/Getty)

The president’s attack on America’s closest friend isn’t just about Canada.

When Donald Trump looks at a map, he doesn’t see nations. He sees property. All of those pretty colors do not represent actual places filled with human beings who have distinct cultures, languages, and histories; the planet, to Trump, is a big board game, like Risk or Monopoly. Greenland isn’t a real location—it’s a valuable chunk of territory nestled between Boardwalk and Park Place. The Strait of Hormuz isn’t an international waterway—it’s a thing to control somewhere between Kamchatka and East Africa.

This inability to grasp the existence of independent nations drives the president to fury when countries and their governments refuse to play along with his delusions. Trump cannot understand why Iran won’t bend to his will, why NATO won’t instantly obey his orders, why South Korea and Japan won’t just write checks or provide troops on demand. The only people Trump seems to respect are the autocrats in Beijing and Moscow and Pyongyang who, like him, view the world as a brutal competition for power and territory.

Now Trump has declared economic war on Canada, a nation that has vexed him for years. Even by the standards of Trump’s many fixations, his obsession with Canada has become not only weird but truly destructive. He has opened a giant political and economic rift with one of America’s biggest trading partners, a sister nation, and an ally in the common defense of North America and Europe. Why does Trump hate Canada so much?

We can only speculate about what goes on in the president’s head, but his actions suggest a pattern. When Trump is frustrated about something he can’t control, he lashes out at friends harder than he does enemies. He took out his anger about the Epstein files on legislators from his own party, even though he had campaigned on releasing those documents. Stymied by Iran on multiple fronts, Trump decided to blame South Korea for not helping him, and curtailed military exercises with a vital U.S. ally. (This decision also had the side benefit of allowing Trump to make another embarrassing overture to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, a bromantic gesture that went unreciprocated.) Trump values absolute loyalty over everything else—not that he always returns it—and he detests any sign that others, especially those who are supposed to be his friends and allies, might have views and interests of their own.

The American economy is stalling, and Trump’s poll numbers are in the basement, so the next obvious move is to pick a huge fight with a nation that is essentially family to Americans. Canada is most definitely a foreign country, which is one reason I like to visit. (Go ahead—try to find a convenience store in America that sells Aero chocolate bars or wine gums.) But to the utterly incurious Trump, it probably looks like an extension of upstate New York.

Canada and America are bound by deep cultural and historical bonds, but ironically, the superficial similarities are likely driving much of Trump’s vitriol. How dare these people—whose country is, to him, just a cheap knockoff of America—defy him! After all, most of Canada speaks English; its cities look like ours (if definitely cleaner); we share pop stars and TV shows; they even call their money “the dollar,” despite its colorful look and plasticky feel. Canada, in the president’s eyes, is less a sovereign nation than a real-estate parcel he forgot to buy because it’s in a neighborhood he never visits.

The fact that Canada is led by someone Trump accidentally helped put in office probably irks him too. Early last year, Canada’s Liberal Party had been in power for 10 years and was facing a huge defeat in what seemed to be an impending “change” election. Trump, as usual, could not control himself when it came to the internal politics of an allied nation: He imposed tariffs during the lead-up to the Canadian vote while banging on about making Canada the 51st state. The Liberal leader Mark Carney—an unflappable public figure who is completely different from Trump in both temperament and intellect—pivoted quickly and campaigned on standing up to the American president. Carney almost overnight went from a no-hoper to prime minister. And now he has shown that he is perfectly willing to retaliate against Trump’s policies rather than fold. If Trump wants tariffs, Carney will provide them—in spades.

Imagine how all of this looks to Trump, who has made clear that Canada shouldn’t even exist as an independent state. I am humiliated as an American, and as a friend of Canada, to admit this, but Trump’s attitude toward Canada is almost indistinguishable from the way Russian President Vladimir Putin sees Ukraine: not as a state but as some kind of historical anomaly that should be returned to its rightful owners. Trump might think it’s funny to post memes of Canada with an American flag superimposed on it, but those jokes are a lot less hilarious to people in places such as Ukraine, who are fighting a war against a dictator who feels exactly the same way about their country.

Canadians are probably scratching their head over Trump’s willingness to hurt his own people and especially his own party. Trump may hate Canada, but it’s hard to imagine what he thinks he’ll gain by causing economic pain to Americans along the Canadian border, especially in states such as Maine and Michigan, where Republicans are facing tight battles for congressional seats. What the Canadians may not realize is that, with this president, none of it has to make sense, and that if recent history is a guide, he will back down, perhaps after declaring victory over Ottawa. Trump will then move on, leaving ordinary Americans and their Canadian friends to deal with the damage.