The quiet peace between Canada and the United States has been broken.
How broken? That remains to be seen. But no U.S. president before Eisenhower or since has treated and talked about Canada the way Donald Trump has in the early months of his second term. Tariffs, a trade war, "the 51st state" all of it seemingly amounting to an unprecedented threat to Canadian sovereignty, lobbed from across the 49th parallel.
The short-term impacts have been dramatic: upending national politics, complicating commerce, reviving a latent and oft-complicated Canadian patriotism. Life and politics feel unsettled and shifting right now so much so that, depending on when you're reading this, many details large and small may already have changed. That makes it challenging to consider the longer-term implications of all this, vast as they are. After all, Canadian identity is inextricable from our relationship to the United States what we share has shaped us, and where we differ has helped define us. What is Canada if the United States can no longer be counted upon as an ally?
