For the first time in Canadian modern history, the U.S. President has been threatening to annex Canada by economic force. President Trump dreams of Canada becoming the cherished 51st state. He told it several times to the media and to the Canadian Prime Minister. Professor Aaron Ettinger, a Carleton University political professor, argues that Canadians must take these threats very seriously. In sum, Trump specifies that he will annex Canada through economic force, but not by a military invasion. Trump’s plan is unclear, and we can expect that Trump intends to coerce Canada so hard through tariffs and economic turmoil that Canadians will beg to join the Union of the United States. Canadian and U.S. law would allow Canada to join the U.S., but it is very unlikely that Canadians voluntarily decide to give up their sovereignty to become the 51st state. Canada wants to find new trade partners to stop being economically vulnerable to the U.S. Besides, Ottawa intends to remove all interprovincial trade barriers, and it wants to encourage businesses to export to new markets. Moreover, this is unlikely that Canada will merge with the U.S. because the U.S. Congress is unlikely to support it. Besides, Trump will never get the consent of Canada to join the U.S.
To begin with, Canada could face an existential threat caused by the Trump administration; President Trump wants to absorb Canada into the U.S. Union. The Canadian Federation is not external, and it has faced several perils throughout its history, from the War of 1812 to the 1995 Referendum, but Canada has always won its battles, and Canadians want to keep their cherished nation united and sovereign. In 1988, former Prime Minister Pierre E. Trudeau told the Senate when talking about Meech Lake that “the Canada we know and love will be gone forever. But then, Thucydides wrote that Themistocles' greatness lay in the fact that he realised Athens was not immortal. I think we have to realise that Canada is not immortal.” Therefore, Pierre E. Trudeau warned Canadians that Canada is not immortal and that one day it could disappear, but Canadians have to fight to keep it. Nowadays, Trump wants to acquire Canada as a piece of real estate to annex it to the U.S. to get the rare earth minerals and crude oil in the Great North. Consequently, President Donald Trump has been very clear in early 2025 that he wants to annex Canada by economic force. Also, President Trump seems to question the sovereignty of Canada by saying that the U.S. pays for Canada’s defence and that the U.S.-Canada border is an artificially drawn line made by Great Britain and the U.S. in 1908. In addition, he wants to conquer Greenland and the Panama Canal. On the one hand, he seemed to have reached an agreement with Panama that it will cut ties with China. On the other hand, Trump tried to convince the Danish Prime Minister to sell Greenland to the United States in a phone call. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen describes Donald Trump as aggressive and confrontational about Denmark’s refusal to sell Greenland. As a result, Trump wants some territorial expansion for the United States for national security purposes and to get more non-renewable natural resources.
For instance, Trump wants to erase the Canada-U.S. boundary line; he told Justin Trudeau that Canada should become the 51st state on Monday, February 3rd, 2025. Trump starts to be interested in the sovereignty of Canada and the legal statutes the United Kingdom and United States of America signed in the early years of the Dominion of Canada. Tonda MacCharles and Josh Rubin write in the Toronto Star on February 8th, 2025 that: “Trump…pointed to a 1908 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that established the 49th parallel as the boundary between the U.S. and the then-Dominion of Canada, suggesting it could be erased.” Justin Trudeau replied to Trump that the treaty was replaced by the Canadian Constitution… Pierre Elliott Trudeau had patriated the constitution from Great Britain to make it clear that Canada has sovereignty over its own territory.” Thus, Trump questions the legitimacy of the fact that Canada is a sovereign nation. Besides, Trump seems to think that the U.S. pays for Canada’s defence; therefore, Canada should be under the rule of the U.S.
Also, Canada and the U.S. are two sovereign nations, and the United States has no legal right over Canada, but history told us that there are several ways a sovereign nation can annex new territories. Carleton University Professor Aaron Ettinger defines five historical ways to annex a territory to a country. Firstly, conquest is the most popular way that the U.S. could annex Canada, but Canada has several collective security agreements with G7 nations, which could prevent the U.S. from waging a war against Canada. The third way would be if the U.S. claimed the territory of Canada as part of their national territory. As a result, U.S. law allows any U.S. citizen to claim a territory by simply planting a U.S. flag under the 1856 Guano Islands Act, but this territory must not be claimed by another nation or it must be inhabited. Thus, the 1856 Guano Islands Act does not apply to a sovereign Canada, which is occupied by a nation. The other way could be a coup d’état organised by the U.S. The fourth way, the U.S. could try to purchase Canada by making a purchase agreement with the Government of Canada. The fifth way is through bargaining; the annexe has to consent with the U.S. Still, this means that Canada would give up its sovereignty, and it will be ruled by the sovereign nation of the United States.
In addition, America has a lot of experience with extending its national territory since 1776. UQTR University Professor Maryse Bachand told TVA Nouvelles on January 8th, 2025, that the U.S. annexed several states by putting pressure on Britain to cede Indian land under British protection in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Also, the U.S. purchased Louisiana from France in 1803. The 1787 U.S. Constitution states that any new states wanting to join the Union must have the consent of their population through a referendum. If the yes wins, the candidate state must enact a state constitution, and it gets the U.S. Congress to vote on it. There are other criteria to become a state, such as the residents of the candidate state must support democratic principles, and the candidate state must have sufficient financial resources to fulfill state and federal financial obligations. In sum, Canada would be able to meet the criteria to become a U.S. state if they could hold a referendum on the matter, they could amend their constitution, and the U.S. Congress would approve the voluntary annexation of Canada within the U.S.
Therefore, Canada could legally consent to join the U.S. by amending its constitution. The amending formula is written in Section 38 of the Canadian Constitution, which requires the approval of the House of Commons, the Senate, and two-thirds of the provinces. On January 9th, 2025, on Radio Canada, Stephane Beaulac, a Université de Montréal Canadian Constitutional Professor, argues that all provincial legislatures and the Parliament of Canada must agree that Canada joins the United States as a territory or a U.S. state. Professor Beaulac says that a national referendum could be required in accordance with some of the Supreme Court of Canada precedents to allow Canada to give up its sovereignty. As a result, the Canadian Constitution could allow Canada to join the U.S. through its amending formula and some Supreme Court precedents. However, these constitutional requirements would be very hard to be met by any Canadian government in power. Even though it could be possible to amend the Canadian Constitution, it is very unlikely that any Canadian government in power will succeed in amending it to allow Canada to become a U.S. state.
Still, Trump’s annexation plan of Canada is not supported by the U.S. population. On February 6, 2025, Bloomberg reveals that only 26% of Americans want Canada to become the 51st state. In general, Americans do not support Trump’s muscular foreign policy of bullying everyone around the U.S. On January 17th, 2025, the Toronto Star reveals that 71% of Canadians are against Canada joining the Union of the United States. This means that there is no political room for Trump to merge Canada and the United States together into one single country.
Nevertheless, Trump seeks to get some leverage over Canada to push the nation to become a U.S. state or territory. As a result, the U.S. President knows that Canada’s economy is vulnerable to the United States. For instance, 77% of Canadian exports go to the U.S. Trump tried to put 25% on imported Canadian and Mexican goods to put pressure on Canada to get what he wants from Canada. The Wall Street Journal named this trade dispute as the “dumbest trade war in history” on January 31st, 2025. Wall Street crashed the Monday following the announcement of the tariffs; as a result, President Trump paused the tariffs for one month. The White House claims that the reason for the tariffs is to push Mexico and Canada to stop the illegal smuggling of fentanyl into the United States. Still, Trump’s decision to be unnecessarily harsh on Canada might end very friendly U.S.-Canada relations that have taken more than a century to build. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explained the outcome of Trump’s tariffs on Canada and America on February 1st, 2025: “Unfortunately, the actions taken today by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together.”
Finally, the Trump presidency started with shock and awe with regard to foreign relations. The newly elected president acts like a bully with America’s most loyal allies, which are Canada and Mexico. Trump has territorial expansion by openly telling the world that he wants to annex Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal to the United States. These are uncharted territories in international relations for the United States. Moreover, fear is the president’s favourite diplomatic tool to achieve America’s goals with regard to foreign policy. Trump threatened to put 25% on Canada, claiming it was to prevent fentanyl from being smuggled from Canada. Nevertheless, the real reason could be to damage Canada’s economy to put pressure on Canada to be annexed to the U.S. Justin Trudeau seriously thinks that Trump wants Canada to become the 51st state. This is the first time in modern history that the U.S. has threatened Canada’s sovereignty, and Ottawa must take these threats seriously, and it must strengthen relations with its allies to protect its sovereignty from Trump’s territorial ambitions. In sum, Trump will not be able to annex Canada to the Union due to the lack of support from Canada, the American people, and the U.S. Congress.
February 9, 2025