Summary
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a private meeting inadvertently broadcast via a hot mic, warned that Donald Trump is seriously considering annexing Canada to secure its critical mineral resources.
Speaking to business and labor leaders, Trudeau claimed Trump’s administration is keenly aware of Canada’s resource wealth and sees annexation as a means to control it.
The comments, cut off after staff realized they were audible, underscore growing economic and political tensions.
He also stressed the need to diversify trade, noting, “Geography means we’re always going to both benefit and be challenged by trade with the United States.”
Trudeau should suggest that the US become Canada’s 11th Province.
LOL so funny! Because international relations is the same as playing pretend at recess.
Eh…maybe our 4th territory instead. If we ever have a stable enough government, we can reopen the constitution and consider province status for individual states on a case-by-case basis
Damn, Wolf Warrior diplomacy is even more odious when the US does it.
But I’ve been told by American lemmy users that it’s not serious and that it’s just a distraction, and that I’m a moron for taking it seriously
There’s a lot of gaslighting on Lemmy, specially because of the nature of by and whom it was founded for. Troll factories play both sides: https://www.wired.com/story/russia-indictment-twitter-facebook-play-both-sides/
Most Americans don’t realize the scale at which their empire works tirelessly to oppress or subsume all other nations. Telling them about CIA interference in the '70s and '80s blows their fucking minds, let alone what’s going on today across the world. It goes against the narrative that they’re tough but fair stewards of the planet and not schoolyard bullies with nukes who have transformed the global economic landscape to benefit themselves, so it doesn’t make sense to them.
Well a lot of what he does is distraction. But yeah I think he wants Canada (even though it would shift things left, which he hasn’t thought about and likely won’t acknowledge) and Greenland, cuz big land.
even though it would shift things left, which he hasn’t thought about and likely won’t acknowledge
I keep hearing this and, ignoring the fact that it annoys me that we’re even entertaining the idea of annexation, it doesn’t make much sense. For one, there’s no way we’d be given the right to vote; And two, Canada will be a bombed out warzone for the far foreseeable future. It’s more likely the USA will break apart before Canadians accept being American. Even if we pretended that we wouldn’t call on NATO for help, Canadians would go guerrilla until the last Canadian is standing
I think Americans underestimate the level of pride Canadians take in not being American.
~rural Alberta is a different story though~
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Don’t get me wrong, I’d expect the US to occupy us very quickly, but it would take a very long time for things to calm down
Edit: also its incredibly insane that this is a conversation we’re even having?
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Well I’m talked out about this, so what I said to other people: I really don’t think you can not give 41 million people the vote. Even trump when he says 51 state implies that it’s a merger, to use that word.
The only way to do this without becoming THE international pariah on the likes of North Korea is to do it peacefully.
If there is an invasion that comes to blows, the US will become person non grata on the international stage. Everyone will boycott everything from the US and to do with US. This is where you say but but but iraq, and that’s where I say that was different. If the US invades an ally, its finished internationally. I know it’s all rah rah USA number 1 but you need international support/trade/commerce/cooperation. It’s not that people care that much about Canada, it’s that no one will ever want to do or find the need to do business with the US again when there is no trust. They would have just showed that there is no such thing as cooperation with the US. It will be down to Russia and NK (and China will sell things, but China basically thinks they are above having friends/allies). So it you think a right wing authoritarian government is not stupid, they wouldn’t do it, except “peacefully”.
It’s not going to shift things left if Canada was annexed. Even if they were given voting rights (which is doubtful), their population is both a magnitude smaller, and Alberta exists.
How much was the election won by? Pretty sure it was less than 41 million.
They can influence the popular vote, but that legitimately means nothing as far as presidential elections are concerned. For example, if they give the entire country 2 electoral college votes as a state, it’s voter base is effectively irrelevant to the outcome of any future election.
Should Canada be turned into a state and not just controlled as a puppet, they would more likely be given one vote per province, which is 13 votes. With a couple of their provinces being heavily conservative already, as far as shifting things left goes, that would be more like 10 votes. And for context, the state of Florida has 30.
If it were to happen the way it’s “supposed” to, if Canada were admitted as one state it would instantly become the largest state and gain FIFTY electoral votes, as a state gets the same number as they do Senators and Representatives combined. Again, barring the very shenanigans that would likely be the only way this could happen, those fifty votes would be Democratic-leaning for at least a generation. Alberta and the Prairies combined don’t have many more people than the GTA.
You could mitigate the presidential-electoral hit by letting them in as 13 provinces, but then you’re probably adding 16-18 Dem Senators versus 8-10 Republican. The only real hope is to get the Canadians to vote against their interests and split their Electoral votes when almost no other states (and no other large states at all) do so.
That’s assuming it happens aboveboard, of course, which naturally it wouldn’t, and would instead plunge the entire continent into violent misery if not outright war.
Thank you for adding more detail.
Yeah, I’m running under the pessimistic assumption here that incorporating Canada into the United States would not be done fairly or reasonably if it happened. I suspect that they would get a pittance in terms of political representation, justified by the xenophobic and nationalistic guise that “all those Canadian immigrants shouldn’t be influencing American politics.” Probably using talking points like,
- They haven’t been here the whole time.
- They don’t understand our politics.
- They have a different (read: socialist) culture.
- They’re the newest State(s)
Administratively it wouldn’t be one state, it would be 10 states because of the 10 provinces. You have 10 provincial governments that run pretty much the same as state governments. If you didn’t do that you’d have “state” level for the country, and then a second State level for the province, before you get into counties and lower. Canada can not run as one state, as states are set up.
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Trump says it himself when he says 51st state.
it’s a distraction, but it’s also very real. everything is a disraction from everything else. they’ll get away with whatever they’re allowed. use what power you have to sabotage the things you can and do your best to have faith that someone is doing the same for the things you can’t help. i with there was more to do. i really do. but right now the biggest, most dangerous force in the battle between good, evil, and indifferent are the indifferent. we’re stuck out here desperately trying to convince the indifferent that the news media is fully captured and that the onslaught minorities say is happening is really happening
According to people on Lemmy, everything Trump does is a distraction. When he starts loading people into box cars and sticking them in ovens, it will still be a distraction.
People give the moron too much credit as a strategic manipulator. He’s not that coy. If he says something, it is because he has no filter and he was genuinely thinking it. His people might talk him out of it (or distract him away from it after the fact), or his aging addled mind wanders off to other things, and only then will it have been a “masterful ploy” to misdirect, or rile up the libs, or gain compliance through threats, etc. Every stupid and evil thing he has said aloud, he meant wholeheartedly at that moment. The problem is he may or may not decide to have follow through on it later, so you don’t know if you should react to it. But if he said something threatening, it is a threat. It isn’t necessarily a threat that will be acted upon. But it absolutely is still a meaningful and serious threat.
Exactly. He has no concept of what a joke is. Or of humor in any way. Have you ever heard him laugh? I sure haven’t.
As his fans always tell us- he says what he thinks.
Sure, most of what he thinks is stupid and/or wrong, but he says what he thinks and it’s only “a joke” when it’s so embarrassing that even he realizes it on some level.
An American calling you a moron isn’t the insult they think it is.
Agreed, it carries very little weight
Hey now! … Well, yeah.
American here. You’re definitely not a moron. Too many of our own people are for not taking the orange idiot seriously. He may be tremendously stupid, but he has more than enough malice and greed to make up for it. And the people staffing his regime are honestly worse.
Australians are pissed. We have been right with the yanks in “America 1st” for decades and we get looked over again
I mean, we’d all figured that out at this point.
This might go very badly for Canada. I want it to go badly for the US, but let’s try to be real here for a second. Doesn’t a very, very large proportion of Canada live in like five cities? The USAF could have that paved in an afternoon, more or less by itself.
Edit: somebody pointed out that Canada has nukes. That could definitely change the equation.
Edit 2 edit boogaloo: unclear if Canada has nukes, citation needed. De-striking until I can find some proof.
Trudeau needs to take this shit serious and start looking into bringing EU and Aussie troops/armor/air defence over for long term “training exercises”. If you’re Canadian and reading this, you need to be preparing. Get out of the city if you can; if not, start preparing a bug out bag, keep your gas tank over half full, and start preparing enough supplies to shelter in place for at least three days for however many people are in your household. Count on losing power, water, gas, and other utilities. If you have a gun, make sure you know how to aim it, use it, clean it, clear any jams, etc. before you need it. If you don’t have a gun, give some real thought to it; ask yourself what Vasily Zaitsev would do. I hope it doesn’t come to this; I want to apologize that this is happening, though I know it’s not worth the pixels it’s printed on.
I have hope that it won’t happen. Most USians have a very positive view of Canada, and this anti-canadian rhetoric is way, way, way out of left field for a wide majority of us. I can’t see any but a very small minority of people thinking this is good. I have a small hope that our military will make the right choice if the time comes.
Don’t trust uncited information. I am sure we do not have nukes. Look up the nuclear nonproliferation treaty for Canada, we not only don’t have any, but haven’t stored them for any other country since 1984.
You can begin here as a starting point:
Thanks!
You are very welcome.
We don’t have them, we just have all the knowledge, skills, and resources to make one.
And if Trump didn’t have cassus belli before, they would definitely use that…
Yes, I have no argument to the contrary on that.
The air force isn’t bombing Canadian cities, GTFO with that.
Unlike Ukraine Canada has nukes, so yeah…
I am certain we do not. Do you have a citation?
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Ah, I thought I had seen elsewhere that they didn’t. Good.
We don’t, I don’t know where the guy above got his info, but we ratified the nuclear nonproliferation treaty in 1969 and then completed deconstructing/removing them in 1984.
Someone can post citation otherwise, but I have lived here my entire life and remembered the articles from when they were all decommissioned.
As far as I know, we haven’t even stored nuclear weapons or relevant systems for other countries since we had some belonging to the US at CFB Goose Bay in Labrador. We had them removed as part of our stance against nuclear arms in 1984 as well.
So the country that is partially responsible for the Geneva Conventions is the country we are going to try to annex?
Well… Canada remember - it’s never a war crime the first time.
Side note: when a Canadian stops saying sorry… run!
That’s honestly what worries me the most. I’m pretty sure any actual conflict will look an awful lot like a civil war, and any student of history knows how incredibly bloody those tend to get.
can’t they just import things like this from Mexico and China
Nothing Trump says is a joke, unless he realizes he’s getting too much pushback on it for going too far. Then it’s a joke.
I just had this conversation with my boss yesterday. He said he thinks the comments are funny because he thinks he’s joking and just making everyone mad. I said no, he may present it as a joke to test how far he can go, but if there’s not enough pushback, he keeps going.
But also like, what if that was what he’s doing… Why is this funny again? This is the president, why would we want someone who jokes about serious shit like that in charge?
The brain rot in this country runs deep.
Rumours that the United States, in conjunction with Wile E. Coyote, are going to Nuke North Korea into Next Tuesday are GREATLY EXAGGERATED
Yea, everyone knows it’ll be Monday. The worst day of the week.
Trump has zero sense of humour. He never jokes. Every comment he makes is a serious possibility in his mind.
His best trait is his comedy skills in my honest opinion. He absolutely has a sense of humour. And I’m an angry Canadian who would put a bullet in the guy’s head if I could.
Dude is funny. That’s why he’s in office.
The thing is that there is a truth behind every joke.
Sorry, but no. You might have brain damage if you think he’s funny.
He is funny. In the sense that we’re all laughing AT him, not with him.
If you think about it. Have you ever seen him actually laugh or just smirk?
Trumpy only smirks when he’s insulting people.
This is the happiest I’ve ever seen him.
Still never a joke to him, that’s what his supporters say for cover.
‘I don’t kid’: Trump says he wasn’t joking about slowing coronavirus testing
Administration officials have scrambled in recent days to clean up the president’s remarks from his weekend rally in Oklahoma.
They had said, “Ha! He was making a funny!”
I am so surprised Trump can count to 51…
Lol that would probably look like the Winter War where Finns were vastly outnumbered but still won because they know how to survive the winter. I hope the americans wear body cams when they invade. It will be very satisfying to watch the Rocky Mountains literally kill them man vs nature style.
And Canadians are so fucking brutal historically in war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0230d9mp5WY
Also not sure if relevant but Canadian true crime seems to be way more often gory and needlessly violent compared to your typical run of the mill murder stories.
War of 1812, Part II: Electric Bombaloo
Whooooooooooops!
I accidentally got caught on a hot mic saying what every Canadian is thinking in the back of their minds. Myyyyyy baaaaaaad.
Trudeau
Oh good, I’m not the only one that caught that.
This feels like an intentional “oopsie”
I don’t think he’s necessarily wrong, and I still think that we need to vote with that in mind but…….
This is an intentional “oopsie”
Leaks and hot mics are the best official channels today, lol.
CBC source for the audio in question:
Collapsing Empire tries to deny its decline with territorial expansion.
Won’t work
Jeez. No way trumps doing this.
