*Prof. Kehinde Yusuf.
Canada’s increasing gravitation towards the European Union, manifested, for example, through welcoming the proposal for it to become the Union’s first ever “Associate Member,” is aimed at asserting its sovereignty and enhancing its economic fortunes. It also aims to give Canada a pride of place in global leadership – an area in which America is believed to be increasingly suffering worrying deficit. In fact, on 3 April, 2025, the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared: “If the United States no longer wants to lead, Canada will.”
Concerning this Canadian aspiration and Mark Carney’s clear articulation of what global leadership entails, he remarked in his 10 March, 2025 victory speech after winning election as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and becoming Prime-Minister-designate: “There’s someone who’s trying to weaken our economy. Donald Trump. Donald Trump has put unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we earn a living. He’s attacking Canadian workers, families and businesses. We can’t let him succeed. … The Canadian government is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs that will have maximum impact in the U.S. and minimum impact here in Canada.”
In addition, Carney said: “The Americans want our resources, our water, our land, our country. … If they succeed, they will destroy our way of life. In America, health care is a big business. In Canada, it’s a right. America is a melting pot. Canada is a mosaic. In the United States, they don’t recognize differences. … And there will never be the right to the French language. … America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form. We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So, Americans should make no mistake: In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
Moreover, in a 6 May, 2025 report of a White House meeting at which Trump suggested that Canada could become the “51st state” of America, Stewart Prest of the University of British Columbia reported in The Conversation newsletter that Carney replied that Canada was not for sale. More explicitly, in an X video of the meeting posted by Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com, Carney told Trump: “As you know from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale. We’re sitting in one [the White House] right now. You know, Buckingham Palace you visited as well. And having met with the owners of Canada over the campaign, it’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale ever.”
Relatedly, Tom Nichols, in a 9 September, 2026 article in The Atlantic Daily titled “Why Trump has it out for Canada,” noted: “Canada, in [Trump’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.” Nichols further noted: “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.”
In addition, Nichols remarked: “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.”
Moreover, according to Nichols, “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.”
As a moral force on which Canada depends for victory over the United States in the trade war and related issues, Carney outlined features of the Canadian character as follows on 15 September, 2026: “We are a kind, generous, hardworking and ambitious people. We have what the world wants: the energy, the resources, the talent, the technology, the capital. And our greatest strength is something that can’t be found on any balance sheet: trust.” Moreover, standing on this Canadian moral high ground, Carney had spoken, on 20 January, 2026 at Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, about “a rupture in the world order … where the large, main power – is submitted to no limits, no constraints … [where] the strong do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”
Carney further remarked: “For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection. We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”
Moreover, Carney observed: “Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. More recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, and supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.” In fact, on 18 September, 2026, in an address to Canadians, Carney said: “[I]n recent days, the United States proposed new terms that were uneconomic, unfair, and undermined the net benefits to Canada, and called into question the reliability of any deal. In short, they asked too much and they offered too little. … Canada will match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses.”
Furthermore, on 11 February, 2026, Valérie Hayer, who is a French Member of the European Parliament and the president of the parliament’s liberals and centrists group, Renew Europe, declared: “The oldest modern democracy, the United States, is tipping over to an authoritarian regime. … And in this authoritarian regime, … the immigration police, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], plays a central role. Today, ICE is no longer a deferral agency tasked with combating illegal immigration. It is the armed wing of the madness of a power that kills its own citizens. Renee Good. Alex Pretti. Cowardly executed in Minneapolis by out-of-control agents.”
Hayer also noted: “ICE did not help Renee Good; they obstructed the first aid offered by a doctor. The investigation into the death of this mother has been suspended by Washington. Alex Pretti was shot on the ground while unarmed. We’ve all seen the videos that revolted us. This is what the United States has become in the last year. This is the reality of Donald Trump’s second term. A mandate against American democratic values. But also against European democratic values. Because Trumpism is not the madness of one man; that would be too easy an explanation. No, Trumpism is an ideology, a populist and nationalist ideology. An ideology that wants to spread throughout our continent. … Democracy in the world is under attack and it must defend itself! So, in the face of this international reactionary movement led by Donald Trump, we must build an alliance: the alliance of democrats from all countries.”
Regarding that needful alliance, Carney clarified: “I am not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great-power rival – only with better manners. We do not seek power to dominate others. On the contrary, we are pursuing resilience so no one, no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law. A Canada-EU alliance would create a beacon for other democracies. … An alliance strong enough so that no one can dictate our choices. An alliance open enough that others can join. An alliance principled enough that our strength reinforces international law rather than seeks to replace it.”
Carney had also noted in his Davos speech: “We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE [Security Action for Europe], Europe’s defence procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months. In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], Thailand, Philippines, and Mercosur. We’re doing something else. To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry. In other words, different coalitions for different issues, based on common values and interests.”
As reported by Consilium on 21 September, 2026, the Partners for Multilateralism (“P4M”) was launched with the initial co-sponsors being Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, India and Kenya, and with signatories being Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Council of Europe, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Guatemala, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Norway, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain, Türkiye and Uruguay.
At the launch, “P4M” declared: “We reaffirm our commitment to international law and to the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes and the prohibition of the threat or use of force. We underline the importance of international humanitarian law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the promotion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.”
Consistent with this new global thinking and autonomy of action, Canada pledged at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on 22 September, 2026: “I’m announcing a $100 million in international assistance for Palestine, 80 million of which is for humanitarian aid, to alleviate immediate human suffering and 20 million to support peace and security capacity building, including our leadership of police training in the West Bank.”
As Canada has now joined a multilateral moral force as a counterpoise to American unilateralism and continues to challenge America culturally and trade-wise, as Iran continues to challenge America militarily and economically, and as China continues to challenge America in soft power and global attraction, to mention just a few countries, the auguries are bad for America. And America must recalibrate and reconcile with the world.