Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain
President Donald Trump’s threats against Canada and Mexico are providing both countries with unprecedented opportunities to free themselves from U.S. influence.
By threatening to annex Canada, send troops into Mexico, and impose sweeping tariffs on both countries, the president has led Canadians and Mexicans to question their longstanding ties to the United States. Upsurges of nationalism in both countries may lead them to take actions that weaken the dominant position of the United States in North America and the world.
“Our allies across the world will look at America and see a country in decline under Donald Trump,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on March 3.
A Powerhouse Island
In Washington, it has long been taken for granted that the United States has acquired unparalleled advantages from its relations with Canada and Mexico. Officials have prided themselves on positioning the United States as the dominant center of a regional system in which Canada and Mexico reinforce U.S. power from the periphery. The three countries form “a powerhouse island,” as former Secretary of Defense James Mattis once called it.
Geography provides the United States with unique advantages. Not only is the United States insulated from threats to its security by the oceans along its coastlines, as Trump himself has recognized, but it shares borders with countries to the north and south that pose no military threat. By maintaining close relations with Canada and Mexico, the United States has acquired geopolitical security that is the envy of great powers across the world.
A U.S.-centered North America has also provided the United States with economic advantages, as Trump has recognizedin the past. Under the North American trading system, which was formalized under NAFTA and revised by the first Trump administration as USMCA, the United States receives a constant flow of raw materials and finished products from Canada and Mexico.
USMCA “will ensure our region remains the world’s economic powerhouse,” a senior State Department official insistedduring the first Trump administration.
The Trump Effect
Since Trump’s re-election in 2024, however, he has made several moves that have thrown the North American system into question. His calls to make Canada the 51st state and his threats to launch military operations in Mexico have sparked a backlash. Many Canadians and Mexicans have turned against the United States, alarmed by Trump’s hostile threats to impose 25 percent tariffs on their countries.
Trump has made numerous claims to justify his demands, many based on the notion that Canada and Mexico are taking advantage of the United States, but his charges have been rejected. Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused Trump of being dishonest, dismissing his attempt to link Canada to drugs as “completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false.”
More broadly, Canadians and Mexicans have been responding with upsurges of nationalism. Canadians have been participating in a “Buy Canadian” movement, and Mexicans have been rallying behind a “Made in Mexico” campaign.
Trump’s critics in the United States have largely focused on how tariffs may affect corporate profits and consumer prices, but the U.S. foreign policy establishment remains most concerned about the implications of Trump’s threats for the U.S.-centered North American system. Strategists have long feared the potential for nationalist movements to shift their countries away from the United States, perhaps even leading them out of the U.S. orbit altogether.
Several U.S. lawmakers have expressed dismay at Trump’s treatment of Canada and Mexico, sensing only lies and danger in his efforts to appear tough and bend the world to his will.
“He plays as the world’s biggest bully and hits our closest allies with tariffs,” Representative Robin Kelly (D-IL) said on March 11.
Options for Canada and Mexico
Faced with such high tariffs, Canada and Mexico may consider multiple responses. One basic approach would be to decouple their economies from the United States, just as the United States is doing with China. Given that Canada and Mexico maintain trading relationships with countries across the Atlantic and Pacific regions, they have multiple options for sending their exports to other parts of the world.
Another possibility is for Canada and Mexico to embrace alternative models of economic development. If they no longer want to focus on exporting raw materials and assembled goods to foreign markets, then they can shift toward industrialization, just as many Latin American countries attempted during the Cold War. By protecting their industries with retaliatory tariffs against the United States, Canada and Mexico can opt for independent industrial development, perhaps enabling both countries to one day rival U.S. economic power.
In pursuing more nationalist approaches, Canada and Mexico might even nationalize industries, just as Mexico did in the 1930s with its oil industry. Currently, the Mexican government’s “Plan Mexico” provides it with a starting point for reinvigorating the country’s manufacturing industry and making it more independent of the United States.
Any of these changes would have major implications for U.S. power. Not only would the United States lose some of its most important supply chains, but it would find it more difficult to coerce Canada and Mexico into reinforcing U.S. geopolitical power from the periphery.
Appeasement or Independence
For now, the leaders of Canada and Mexico are moving carefully, reluctant to make any moves that may lead to a rupture in relations with the United States. Their strategy has been to appease Trump, for instance by sending military forces to their borders in response to his menacing rhetoric about drugs and migrants. Although they have displayed a willingness to enact retaliatory tariffs, they have indicated that they want to avoid a trade war.
Whatever the leaders of Canada and Mexico decide over the long term, however, Trump’s actions have generated burstsof nationalism that provide both countries with opportunities to make fundamental changes in their relations with the United States. As long as Trump continues to threaten Canada and Mexico, both countries will find it possible to implement transformative policies that move them away from their subordinate positions on the U.S. periphery.
Given that U.S. global power is so strongly rooted in North America, Trump has effectively put Canada and Mexico into a position to make decisions that may determine the future of the American empire.
This first appeared on FPIF.
