On the annexation – Matina Stevis-Gridneff in NYT:
‘After President Trump imposed tariffs on Canada on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an extraordinary statement that was largely lost in the fray of the moment.
“The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false,” Mr. Trudeau told the news media in Ottawa.
“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” he added.’
(…)
‘After President Trump imposed tariffs on Canada on Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an extraordinary statement that was largely lost in the fray of the moment.
“The excuse that he’s giving for these tariffs today of fentanyl is completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false,” Mr. Trudeau told the news media in Ottawa.
“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” he added.’
(…)
‘In a news conference on Jan. 7, before being inaugurated, Mr. Trump, responding to a question by a New York Times reporter about whether he was planning to use military force to annex Canada, said he planned to use “economic force.”’
(…)
‘While Mr. Trump’s remarks could all be bluster or a negotiating tactic to pressure Canada into concessions on trade or border security, the Canadian side no longer believes that to be so.
And the realization that the Trump administration was taking a closer and more aggressive look at the relationship, one that tracked with those threats of annexation, sank in during subsequent calls between top Trump officials and Canadian counterparts.
One such call was between Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick — who at the time had not yet been confirmed by the Senate — and Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc. The two men had been communicating regularly since they had met at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and club in Florida, during Mr. Trudeau’s visit there in early December.
Mr. Lutnick called Mr. LeBlanc after the leaders had spoken on Feb. 3, and issued a devastating message, according to several people familiar with the call: Mr. Trump, he said, had come to realize that the relationship between the United States and Canada was governed by a slew of agreements and treaties that were easy to abandon.
Mr. Trump was interested in doing just that, Mr. Lutnick said.
He wanted to eject Canada out of an intelligence-sharing group known as the Five Eyes that also includes Britain, Australia and New Zealand.’
(…)
‘On Thursday, at a news conference, a reporter asked Mr. Trudeau: “Your foreign affairs minister yesterday characterized all this as a psychodrama. How would you characterize it?” “Thursday,” Mr. Trudeau quipped ruefully.’
Read the article here.
Denmark might still be invaded, but Canada will be first. Not really invaded, just forced to its knees.
And then maybe a few platoons will do.
The world is getting more interesting every hour.
I always said, compared to China the US is the better empire. But maybe time has come for Europe and Canada to join forces with China.
Just give up Taiwan.