Trump's 51st-state idea for Canada isn't going over well
He's not the first to underestimate the 'True North'
“The acquisition of Canada this year,” former President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a newspaper editor, “will be a mere matter of marching.”
Jefferson wrote those words in April, 1812, two months before U.S. President James Madison signed a declaration of war against Britain. America was taking military action over grievances such as Britain’s bullying tactics on the high seas, and U.S. leaders saw Canada’s vast and lightly defended territory as ripe for the taking.
Jefferson was disastrously wrong, as events on the battlefield would soon show.
He wasn’t the last American president to underestimate our northern neighbor. But President Donald Trump’s constant call for annexing Canada as the 51st state deserves to be ranked with Jefferson’s comment for its cluelessness.
Flags flying
Trump said, “I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen. Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”
As the AP’s Jill Colvin wrote, that is wrong: “The U.S. is not subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys products from the natural resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely reflects America’s imports of Canadian energy.”
In other words, if you fill your car’s tank with $30 worth of gas, you are not paying a “subsidy” to the provider. You’re just paying for the product.
Trump’s dismissive treatment of Canada, including his plan to slap the longstanding U.S. trading partner with tariffs, possibly as high as 25%, starting Tuesday, and frequent references to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “governor,” have sparked an outpouring of Canadian patriotism and anti-American feeling.
That explains the many new maple-leaf flags flying over Canada. The U.S. president’s “warning on trade — combined with his repeated calls for the United States to annex Canada — has the country’s flag makers struggling to keep up with suddenly soaring demand,” the New York Times reported.
The ruling Liberal Party, left for dead in terms of its prospects for the next election, is suddenly gaining ground in the polls. A YouGov poll in January found that 77% of Canadians oppose joining the U.S. (The same poll found that Americans aren’t enthusiastic about the idea either, with only 36% in favor.)
Mark Carney, who is vying to become the Liberal Party’s next leader, echoed the sentiments of many when he said Canada is “going to stand up to a bully” and would match any Trump tariffs “dollar for dollar.”
If admitted to the Union, Canada would be the largest state by population, edging out California, and would thus control the most electoral votes of any state — and presumably would not be enthusiastic about electing J.D. Vance or any other of Trump’s MAGA successors. Its land area is larger than the entire United States.
Jefferson’s miscalculation
As war began in 1812, the tiny U.S. Army of less than 7,000 regular troops wasn’t up to the task of defeating Britain’s battle-hardened military. “Jefferson had not helped matters during his own presidency, reducing the military establishment, and dismissing a number of competent officers with Federalist sympathies,” according to a historical note on the U.S. National Park Service website.
Moreover, Britain’s enormous army and navy were stronger than the forces colonists had defeated in the Revolutionary War. And, as the Park Service noted, many Americans wrongly “assumed that the Canadian population would welcome the arrival of American forces.” The French settlers and American expatriates who lived there actually “had little reason to embrace an incursion from the south.”
There wasn’t much logic to the U.S. war plan, as Massachusetts Rep. Josiah Quincy noted early in 1812: “If you had a field to defend in Georgia, it would be very strange to put up a fence in Massachusetts. And yet, how does this differ from invading Canada for the purpose of defending our maritime rights?”
So it was perhaps not a total surprise that the initial three-pronged U.S. assault on Canada was “a complete failure,” marked by humiliating surrenders and retreats, as historian Gordon S. Wood wrote in his book Empire of Liberty.
After the “marching” envisioned by Jefferson began, British Major General Isaac Brock captured Detroit, “annexed the whole territory of Michigan and made it part of the dominion of His Majesty George III.”
The burning of Washington
Eventually, the British would take Washington, D.C., where they burned the White House and Capitol.
While Americans scored some notable victories on land, including Gen. Andrew Jackson’s crushing defeat of the British at New Orleans, and won some battles at sea, the war was a draw. The Treaty of Ghent, signed in December, 1814, called for reverting to the pre-war status quo.
But ultimately Americans came to view their experience standing up to Britain in the War of 1812 as a source of national pride.
In one of the final battles of the war, the British fired more than 1,500 rounds at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry.
A lawyer from Georgetown, Francis Scott Key, wrote a poem about seeing “by the dawn’s early light” the flag “whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight / O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.” Set to music, the Star-Spangled Banner eventually became America’s national anthem.
We shouldn’t forget that Canada has a national anthem too, in English and French versions. The English one says, in part:
“With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!”
Very interesting piece but don’t overlook the fact that in 1812 the US fought Great Britain not Canada. The greatest military power in the world at the time. Great Britain would not and could not come to Canada’s defence today. The Canadian military has been gutted, demoralized, is equipped with antiques and the citizenry has been largely disarmed. The population of the entire country is about the same as California, the economy is 1/10 the size of the US.
Canadians love virtue signalling so they all wave flags but don’t forget a few years ago they all waved Ukrainian flags. How many put their money where their mouth is and put boots on the ground in Ukraine?
A year of economic pain and Canadians will sing a different tune.
I am Canadian, I should know.
Another excellent piece, Rich. I did not know that about Jefferson. Of course, his major sin was writing that all men are created equal, while he owned slaves. But he was right about one thing: He believed that the Constitution should be revisited every generation. James Madison, another slave owner, believed the Constitution ought to be treated like Scripture. If Jefferson’s view had prevailed, perhaps we’d have done away with the Electoral College, that undemocratic contraption that Madison favored because it benefited slave states like Virginia. It was the Electoral College, America’s worst idea, that gave us George Bush and Donald Trump.