this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
224 points (98.7% liked)

News

27177 readers
5938 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Donald Trump's push to annex Canada as the 51st U.S. state is confusing due to its sudden and unexplained emergence.

Initially praising Canada as an ally, Trump now aggressively seeks annexation, imposing tariffs, criticizing trade deficits, and challenging established borders and treaties.

Former officials and congressional Republicans express bewilderment, stating they have "no clue" about Trump's motivation.

Canadian leaders and the U.S. business community strongly oppose the move, citing sovereignty and economic harm.

Republicans also question Trump's strategy, noting annexation would add millions of liberal-leaning voters and complicate American politics.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] can@sh.itjust.works 20 points 10 hours ago (5 children)

"Canada only works as a state," Trump said Thursday. "We don’t need anything they have. As a state, it would be one of the great states anywhere. This would be the most incredible country, visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it, between Canada and the U.S. Just a straight, artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many many decades ago. Makes no sense. It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state."

They're all "artificial" lines Donald

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago

Trump sees the world through the lens of autarky. It's like the man fell out of the 18th century. He thinks nations are these self-sufficient organisms living on the planet, competing for resources, etc. He thinks trade means dependency and weakness, rather than mutual benefit and specialization. The man has never had to share anything with anyone in his entire life; it's not surprising he would have such a warped world view.

That is what he means by "Canada only works as a (US) state." The US really could make a decent play at autarky. The US gets about 30% of its GDP from trade; Canada gets 70%. It's foolish to try to do it overnight. But if the US wanted to make an attempt at autarky, and made the transition over decades? The US could pull that off. It would mean being poorer than we would be otherwise. We would have to accept more expensive and lower quality goods, but we could do it. The US has a large enough land area, population, and resource base that it could, on its own, maintain an industrial society completely from domestic resources.

Canada? It would have a much, much harder time at autarky. If both the US and Canada forever closed all their international borders tomorrow, Canada would end up a lot worse off than the US. Canada, as an island nation unto itself, would have a really hard time surviving.

Of course, there's no damn reason that nations need to survive by autarky. They're not independent islands. And we all grow richer by specialization and trade. But that fundamentally is not how Trump sees the world.

[–] EtnaAtsume@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

Yet the line south of Texas is inviolable, sacred, a proud bulwark...

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 5 points 8 hours ago

It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state.

Wrong word, Donald. You mean "coveted." You don't cherish Canada, you covet it.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 8 hours ago

"We don’t need anything they have [...]"

I say again, "okay, Dougie, blink the lights a bit."

Shut down 4 red states for the weekend and see how it goes.

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

Each province should be a state! We will be come blue as a country and can have Medicare for all and high speed rail.