ArcaMax

PARIS — Is Donald Trump seriously going to give Canadians their “Che-Eh! Guevara” moment and try to seize Canada?

Maybe the U.S. military could war game out how it could first hold the territory of, say, Old Montreal for more than a week — its pubs and bars full of belligerent sports fans with “Molson-grade strength” — before it risks biting off more than it can chew by trying to control a territory that’s the same size as all of Europe.

And let’s not pretend this would be a quick and easy takeover. Conventional military firepower isn’t the flex that it used to be in an era where drones and urban warfare dominate. It might be a good time to recall Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti and Libya — places where Washington kicked down the door, flipped the table, then completely lost control. Now imagine throwing Canadians into that mix — a country of people who live for hockey brawls and ranks as one of the most armed in the world for private gun ownership, according to the latest Small Arms Survey. So, good luck with that.

The American president is talking exactly like that guy — you know, the one who goes up to a woman at the bar and says, “Hey, you want to get out of here?” Then when you politely decline, he figures that it’s just because you haven’t yet come to your senses and realized how much you want him.

Just 10 percent of Canadians actually want to become an American state, according to an Angus Reid institute survey from January.

That’s roughly four million of them, and probably even less the number of Canadians who think that mullets still look cool.

But Trump just can’t let it go.

Last week, during a White House meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte — who leads the alliance that supposedly exists to prevent invasions of its own member nations — Trump started fantasizing aloud about absorbing NATO members Canada and Greenland into the U.S., like he was playing a game of Risk with a buddy over for pizza and beer. And Rutte just sat there like he was struggling to process the fact that his little routine visit suddenly involved talk of kicking down his friends’ doors.

“To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state. … This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it — between Canada and the U.S. Just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago — many, many decades ago — and makes no sense,” the onetime border wall builder turned apparent anti-border advocate told Rutte in front of the press, as the NATO chief looked like he was trying to do his best impression of someone pretending not to hear their drunk uncle at Thanksgiving.

When asked about the issue at a G7 meeting in the Canadian province of Quebec, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to make it sound like Trump was really just talking about economic unity with the U.S. that would result in one giant economy to compete on the global playing field. Almost like Trump figures that he would be acquiring a team of players for a giant merger to field against the rest of the world. “The Canadian government has made their position clear. The president has made his argument clear as to why he thinks Canada would be better off joining as a state for economic purposes,” Rubio said.

Emphasis on “economic purposes,” probably because that’s the only part that didn’t sound cuckoo.

That said, Trump’s Canada fixation has actually produced some benefits for Canadians. His tariff tantrums have finally woken up the Canadian establishment, forcing them to start fixing their own ridiculous trade barriers between provinces and reaching out to diversify their trade opportunities. They finally have to stop acting like the laziest cat in the jungle, merely reaching across the border with their paw to survive, before rolling over and going back to sleep.

New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, an economics Ph.D. and former head of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, who has just won the Liberal Party leadership race to replace former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has reportedly ordered his defense minister to explore alternatives to American-made Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter planes.

Conveniently, Carney is set to visit France this week – home of Dassault Aviation and its highly exported Mirage and Rafale jets.

Fun fact: The title of Carney’s doctoral thesis at Oxford University? “The dynamic advantage of competition.”

So yeah, he probably sees Trump’s threats as a golden opportunity — particularly when he’s under the gun to prove himself worthy of actually being elected when Canadians finally get their say about him at the polls sometime this year.

Canada has also gone all-in with a “buy Canadian” push that could boost the economy in the same way that Russia’s domestic economy has benefited from Western sanctions, with new brands and services having popped up to replace their Western equivalents since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. So, Trump’s trade war might actually make Canada more self-sufficient.

For some, Trump’s approach may seem unhinged, even threatening. But in the end, his tough talk could be like a ruthless coach who pushes his entire league to step up their game — whether they’re on his team or not. In this case, that would be Canada, Mexico and the European Union — all supposed allies currently facing Trump’s economic wrath.

Trump’s Canada obsession might be absurd, but it’s making Canadians determined to win the MVP title of his trade war league. And in the long run, they just may end up thanking him for being the tsunami that lifted their boat rather than sinking it.