‘Closest target': Why is Donald Trump so focused on Canada?

Al Jazeera

12-03-2025

Montreal, Canada – In his first speech as Canada's prime minister-designate, Mark Carney delivered what observers have described as a stunning statement.
'I know that these are dark days,' Carney told a room full of supporters on Sunday after he won the race to lead the governing Liberal Party. 'Dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust.'
The country in question? An ally with which Canada shares the world's longest undefended land border and, until recently, seemingly unshakeable ties: the United States.
'That is jaw-dropping in the broader context,' Jon Parmenter, a history professor at Cornell University in New York state, said of Carney's remark.
Experts say the idea that the US can no longer be trusted reflects a sentiment that has been spreading rapidly across Canada in recent months, however.
In that time, Canadians have watched with a mixture of shock, confusion and anger as US President Donald Trump repeatedly took aim at their country — both as part of his global trade policies and his expansionist ambitions.
Trump has imposed steep tariffs on Canadian goods and threatened more. He regularly calls for the annexation of Canada, and he has made unfounded and disparaging claims about outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Canadian electoral system.
'The damage to the relationship is substantial,' Parmenter told Al Jazeera. 'It's going to be long-lasting.'
Yet, as Trump's attacks against his country's northern neighbour continue unabated, many observers are now asking: Why?
Why is the president targeting a country that had widely been viewed as one of the US's most reliable partners? Why does Trump seem so fixated on Canada?
'Closest target'
While the current US-Canada trade war is 'unprecedented' in modern history, it is unsurprising in the context of Trump, according to Aaron Ettinger, a political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
The US president pursued similar 'America First' economic policies during his first term, Ettinger noted, including imposing tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium imports in 2018.
'None of this is new. We know this is coming. He's telegraphed everything. But now he's talking about 50-percent rates of tariffs. The aggressiveness is jacked up more than it was seven or eight years ago,' Ettinger told Al Jazeera.
Within the scope of the Trump administration's adversarial approach to foreign policy, Ettinger said he doesn't believe Canada is particularly special. Instead, it 'just happens to be the closest target, along with Mexico'.
'Trump treats all countries as if they are subordinates to his wishes. He loves their leaders when the leaders play along, and he doesn't when they don't,' Ettinger said.
'So Canada is going to get hit with tariffs, just like European Union countries and Mexico. Canada just happens to be close by. Canada also happens to be playing against type and fighting back pretty hard right now.'
The Canadian government has imposed retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars worth of American goods, further stoking Trump's ire. It has said the measures will remain in place until the US president rescinds and removes the threat of levies.
Personal animosity
Yet, Trump's focus on Canada goes beyond tariffs and economic policy alone.
Even before he re-entered the White House in January, the Republican leader began urging Canada to become the 51st US state. He has repeatedly referred to Trudeau as a 'governor' instead of a prime minister.
Trump also has framed the plan to annex Canada as a boon for Canadians and a way to dodge US tariffs.
'The people would pay much less tax than they're paying right now. They'd have perfect military protection,' Trump recently said.
While Trudeau and other Canadian leaders at first shrugged off the remarks as good-natured ribbing, they quickly began to take Trump's repeated calls for annexation more seriously.
Last week, Trudeau told reporters that Trump wants 'a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that'll make it easier to annex us'. The outgoing prime minister said Canada will never become part of the US and called the administration's tariffs a 'very dumb' policy.
Trump and Trudeau never had a particularly warm relationship, and they publicly clashed in 2018 over trade and tariffs as well.
That animosity could be playing a role in Trump's recent rhetoric against Canada, said Geoffrey Kabaservice, vice president of political studies at the Niskanen Center, a centre-right think tank in Washington, DC.
'Trump is always looking for a way to exact revenge and retribution against people who have criticised him in the past, and certainly Trudeau would fall into that category,' he told Al Jazeera.
A '19th-century' vision
But Kabaservice said Trump's 'very 19th-century idea' of what it means to be a great power is at the heart of his annexation rhetoric.
'When Trump talks about wanting to 'Make America Great Again', one component of what he has in mind by greatness is a country that's expansive, that reaches for and claims new territory, that enlarges itself,' he explained.
That said, when the US president says he wants Canada to be the 51st state, he likely isn't thinking about what that would mean in practice, including how absorbing a country of 40 million people would alter American politics, said Kabaservice.
'It's sort of like just [a] boy's fantasy: 'Wouldn't it be great if America could expand to take in all these other countries? Wouldn't it be great if America was like Britain back in its imperial days, when the world map was covered in red?'
'I think that's the level on which he thinks of these things.'
And while Trump's base may not have annexing Canada on its list of priorities, Kabaservice said, the US president's supporters enjoy when he proposes things 'that make his enemies and even many of his allies unhappy'.
'They applaud what they see as his audacity, his willingness to envision a new world, and his ability to 'own the libs' and make them cry.'
According to Amy Koch, a Republican political strategist, Trump's policies vis-a-vis Canada should also be seen as part of a wider push for dominance in the Western hemisphere.
Tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, calls to retake control of the Panama Canal and acquire Greenland, and an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the 'Gulf of America' are all elements of that effort.
'It is [about] fully establishing dominance in the Western Hemisphere, and I think Canada is a part of that,' Koch told Al Jazeera.
'Tactics without strategy'
Wherever Trump's real motivation lies, observers agree that his stance towards Canada could have a lasting effect.
'The whole point about Donald Trump is that he is a bully, and bullies bully people who are susceptible to their strengths. And that's what he's doing,' said Kabaservice.
'Trump can do things like levy tariffs because he has the leverage over Canada and he has the latitude in terms of the responsibility of the chief executive … But we're also in the process of destroying trust with our allies and that will be immensely difficult to rebuild.'
Ettinger added that, while people in the US and Canada keep trying to find the rationale behind Trump's actions, the president may ultimately be 'employing tactics without strategy'.
For example, US stock markets plunged this week amid the uncertainty around Trump's tariffs push, raising fears that the country could slip into a recession.
'He knows that he wants to hit hard, or he wants to put tariffs, or he wants to escalate. But there's no strategic means-to-ends calculation going on here,' Ettinger said. 'And that makes the guy fundamentally irrational.'