Why America Will Never Invade Canada

Donald Trump's nonsensical threats are an attempt to distract from his own country's self-destruction

- Stephen Marche

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military the world has ever known, is talking about invading Canada.

Of course, he's also talked about invading Greenland and the Panama Canal. He has declared that he plans only to use "economic force" against Canada, whatever that might mean-tariffs as shock troops, perhaps. Canadians need to get used to this kind of terrifying nonsense. There's going to be a lot more pirate-king blather over the next four years.

Trump's fantasies of annexation and conquest are nothing more than that.

At this point in its history, America has come off of 70 years of failed imperialist adventures, in which it discovered it couldn't hold onto Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam or anywhere else.

America's military position in the world is shrinking, rather than expanding. West Africa is kicking out American forces and replacing them with Russians. Niger vacated its American military bases in August. At least one reason Trump is boasting about his plans for territorial conquest is that the United States, in its current position of radical instability and a complete collapse of national solidarity, has never been less prepared for conflict.