- cross-posted to:
- onguardforthee@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- onguardforthee@lemmit.online
Summary
Mark Carney, frontrunner for Canadian Liberal Party leadership and potential prime minister, stated Canada will stand up to a bully after Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Canadian imports.
Carney vowed to retaliate by matching the US tariffs dollar for dollar, asserting Canada would not cave in despite mounting pressure.
He criticized Trump for undermining trade agreements, warning that the tariffs would damage the US global reputation and economic stability.
Outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau promised a forceful, immediate response, emphasizing unity as Canada defends its economic interests, ensuring national prosperity.
I’m an expat who has been a permanent resident of Canada since 2017, and it’s a horror show watching Trump receive a second term and then turn on Canada. I know his threat of invasion/buying Canada or whatever is all peacocking, but if in ten years I’ve been thrust back into the American healthcare system, I’ll throw myself off of a bridge.
Genuine curiosity, why do you call yourself an “expat” instead of “immigrant”? Is there a difference?
It’s the (stupid) legal term of an American who has moved abroad. Even my tax returns are done through “expat services”.
I wish I could be called an expat instead of an immigrant, sounds less of a stigma, lucky you. Best of luck out there!
Being an expat still comes with tax obligations to the US, no matter where you live in the world. I moved to Germany but I still have to file US taxes every year unless I renounce my US citizenship someday. That’s one the most notable downsides that I can think of.
That’s the point. There’s a pretentious implication that your priviledged when the term “expat” is used, but their just emmigrants of priviledged western nations.
Its the same with the UK “expats.” When brexit first happened many UK expats were blown away that Spain was treating them like Immigrants even though they were.
You could just start telling everyone your an expat of your country of origin. I don’t know if it will help you, but it certainly will make you sound more pretentious
That’s one way of looking at it. I always perceived the distinction to be more of an intended disgrace upon ex-Americans who have left the country. “Guess you’re no longer a patriot then.”
That stigma was mostly created by Americans … They just don’t want it for themselves
But couldn’t y’all set a better example by throwing anyone involved with private insurance off that bridge?
Canada won’t willingly be part of the US. If the US invades Canada, it would be the end of the US.
The US gets boners over their military tech, but they weren’t able to successfully occupy Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Canada is bigger than those countries, and this would not be an overseas war where they can just go home when they fail. Americans don’t have the willpower to succeed with a long drawn out occupation. They freak the fuck out over a few drones in New Jersey, they obviously wouldn’t be able to handle a war on the North American continent involving drones flying over them carrying explosives and searching for targets. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what a US war with Canada would be like.
The population of the US has no appetite for invading Canada, many of us have close friends and family there, we consider Canada a friend and ally and Trumps hissy fit doesn’t change that.
If the US invades Canada there will be a lot of Americans aiding resistance.
Isn’t that the relationship Russia had with Ukraine when Putin took over?
Not to mention the countless young adults and teenagers that still think of Canada as a saving grace, nearly utopia-esque place. Their healthcare, prison and education systems have profound impacts on the minds of young people. Or at least they did a few years ago when I was in school.
In any case, you’ve got a lot of people in America that would much rather fight for Canada
Imagine fighting a resistance that can just cross over the border and perfectly blend in with your population. It’s madness to even suggest it even if they weren’t important allies.
The whole idea is ludicrous. There are so many things that would make it utterly impossible.
Militarily, Canada couldn’t stand up to the US at all. But, the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland show what guerilla tactics can achieve, especially when it’s almost impossible to distinguish the “bad guys” from the “good guys”. And, that’s without even talking about all the Americans who would take the opportunity to turn against their own fascist government.
Would any allies be dragged in to support Canada? Could it escalate?
There wouldn’t really be any formal arrangement, because I imagine the Canadian government would fall within days. Ottawa is only a 2 hour drive from the US border, most of the Canadian population lives right next to the border. But, you could easily see various countries covertly supplying resistance cells with weapons. Most of Western Europe wouldn’t do it openly because they’re too vulnerable to the US. But, maybe covertly. China and Russia would definitely try to help Canadian resistance, just to destabilize the US.
I don’t actually think the US would survive such a war. The trouble is that many states would defect. Can you imagine CA footing the bill for an invasion of Canada? Already a trade war is extremely dangerous. How easy would it be for, say NY, to sabotage the border controls?
Yeah it would be a both a reason and an opportunity for states to secede.
There’s a significant probability of that happening anyway… how long will progressive (and wealthy) states subsidize backwards and ignorant states? The whole reason why Trump is in power is because there are no consequences for significant parts of the US to be backwards thinking. If it were all separate countries the red states (red countries?) would have to become a little more progressive or they’d be living in poverty. As it is now, states like California and NYC are forced to subsidize the red states no matter how backwards they get and the red states get to force their backwards values onto the progressive states.
This is not sustainable long term. If this situation persists, it’s the end of the USA. If Trump pushes things too far it only accelerates the timetable. Right now the allies of the US don’t want this to happen. But those countries are no longer allies of the US and start working in the other direction then it’s all over for the USA.
The US can turn things around, but there needs significant changes to reverse it’s downward spiral.
Troop morale would be incredibly low, too. I would be pissed if I somehow got drafted to invade Canada. It’d be like something out of a cartoon.
Right? Like “Bro they’ve got maple syrup, healthcare, and poutine. If you think I’m pointing a rifle at them instead of marching up there with a gift basket and immigration papers, you gotta be out of your mind!” Lol
It’s inevitable though on a long enough timeline. We all know that the entire western US is literally running out of water, and eventually they’re gonna want ours. I’m sure conversations have been had about how to get it, and someday it’s gonna happen. When that day comes, I just pray to baby Jebus that Trump isn’t the one in charge so there might be a shred of hope for a diplomatic arrangement instead of a straight-up invasion for our resources.
Unfortunately you have enough people who just believe whatever their guy says. I’d think it would be like a Russia-Ukraine type thing, in the sense that a lot of friends and family are on both sides of the border, but Russia still found (and admittedly forced) enough people who didn’t care.
It would literally be asked to potentially die for the cause of betraying an ally for money. And not money for you, money for already extremely wealthy oligarchs.
Isn’t that most wars for the last 50 years though to be honest?
No, just the Iraq war was like that. And even then Saddam Hussein was actually an evil motherfucker and the US tried to claim it was a war about liberation. But we know oil was a significant consideration there.
Afghanistan was about finding the terrorist that did 9/11. I’m Canadian so I have family that went over there and came back with PTSD. We were only over there because the US was our ally. Only war Canada has ever lost in it’s history and it was because the US fucked it all up by going on a side quest to Iraq.
Like Russia and Ukraine, basically… But way more direct and overt.
Plus, it’d suck for at least four months a year
I disagree, meal team six would make short work of any Canadian bacon, thus starving the Canadians into submission
oh, you mean the LARPing fucktards who couldn’t pull off the insurrection a few years back? yeah they seem really motivated and organized
If it helps, I got your joke and commend you for it.
In these high tension times, I almost think we need a “this is a joke, please re-read if angry” tag that isn’t /s or JK.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq etc are vastly different to the US itself in culture and language and everything.
A lot of misfortune was due to that.
Canada isn’t.
Anyway, I don’t think your idea of power balance here is right. Canada’s defense is basically a module of US defense.
Things about blending in and such, in our age of street cameras and computing power far more than needed, are just childish.
US absolutely can anschluss Canada, the question is why, because strategically it already gets from it everything it would provide as a state.
I think you underestimate how savagely Canadian resistance would treat invading Americans. Canadians are also incredibly patriotic. Terrorism and brutality would be the best defense in a war that was already unpopular and everyone knows it.
Additionally, they are used to environmental hardships the average American grunt isnt prepared for. The nation is massive and full of inhospitable wilderness to melt into.
It would be a long, brutal, drawn out guerilla war. Yes, the US would steamroll the Canadian military. After that it would be hell for those on the ground.
Its all fantasy anyway because the US has no reason to actually invade Canada. Trump just says it to rile people up and pundits are just licking his asshole when they agree.
“Savage” resistance, “terrorism” and “brutality” are kinda expected in an affair which is by definition a lot of people killing each other because of a disagreement.
That just means some time and effort to prepare the average American grunt.
You can see a dog from a satellite in all of that wilderness.
I know it’s fantasy, I just get irritated by fairy tale talk about warfare when there are plenty of wars disproving such myths going on right now. Your myths are not very different from what people in other parts of the world have or had.
The iraq war was a rousing success.
Only an American would think that Canada is the same as the US. Because Americans are completely ignorant of Canada, in the same way they’re ignorant of the other places they tried (and failed) to conquer. Which is exactly why it’ll go the same way… only worse because there’s a lot of targets within drone range of Canada.
We seem similar but that’s to our advantage. There’s a very long border that Canadians can cross and you’d have to admit, Canadians would blend in well with the US population. While you’re looking at troop counts and number of planes and think it’ll be easy, we’re over here thinking about how easy it would be for us to fight a guerilla war on US soil. It’s been a long time since the US fought a war on your own soil and I’m seeing a lot of soft targets.
Also remember this would be the US betraying an ally. An ally that was just in a war fighting alongside the US for decades. Then a few years after that the US betrays it’s ally for what? Money? When the US is already the wealthiest country in the world? Never in human history has a country been so dishonorable. What do you think the US troop morale would be when ordered to do something so despicable? To fight against an ally to make some wealthy oligarchs even more wealthy? Canada would get a lot of help even from within the US if something like this were to happen. There would be a significant fifth column, to the point where the US might collapse into civil war.
If the US were to attempt invading Canada, it would be the end of the US.
You don’t quite get it, in those ME countries US can kill a lot of people outright and then deal with the fallout of hate towards them, and due to the value of life there perceived differently, there will be both hate and resistance.
I suggest you look at typical casualty numbers of guerilla wars, it’s one against dozens. That’s when one side is “white civilized people” and the other “some brownies”, so the former side has advantage and no reservations.
In Canada, due to value of life being perceived differently, the resistance won’t be as significant if they don’t commit massive war crimes, and if they do, they’ll likely succeed.
This would of course be a reputational suicide for the US, and also lead to a lot of internal confusion, and probably even yes, “be the end of the US”. But not immediately.
About honor and betraying allies - for the love of God, where have you seen honor in that kind of things?
I’m already laughing at the propaganda posters I’m imagining:
“Did YOUR neighbor just say ‘oot’, ‘sorry’, or ‘zed’? REPORT THEM TO YOUR NEAREST PATRIOTISM ASSURANCE OFFICER TODAY.”
Minnesota is gonna have some problems.