Since his re-election, Donald Trump has drawn plenty of attention for neo-annexationist propositions made on social media about the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada — including in the hours following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation announcement. A day later, he threatened to use “economic force” to make Canada the 51st American state.

For a supposed anti-interventionist, it’s odd that Trump is enthusiastically embracing ideas from the era of intense American imperialism.

Maybe that’s what Trump is going for. Perhaps he is trying to revive the expansionist spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley and James Polk.

Canadians who paid attention to their history lessons will sense some neo-Polkism in these designs — a “54-40 or fight” call for the 21st century.

Mild responses

Not surprisingly, Trump’s annexation propositions have been rebuked from the leaders of Panama, Greenland and Canada, some more forcefully than others. Canada’s response has been mild at best.

Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the man Trump now routinely mocks as the governor of America’s 51st state, counter-posted a video from 2010 in which an avuncular Tom Brokaw explains Canada to Americans.

Trudeau and Canada’s cabinet ministers have also sought an audience with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to find away around Trump’s ruinous tariff threats, a far greater threat to Canada’s national interests than his annexation bluster.

Some Canadians may have favourable views of the United States but vanishingly few are interested in Canada becoming a 51st state.

Still, let’s play out Trump’s hypothetical. Let’s say that Canada became the 51st state in the American union. What would be the electoral implications for the U.S.?

Democrats would benefit

Trump and his Republican Party would certainly not like the answer: the GOP might never win a national election ever again. Indeed, the “state of Canada” would profoundly alter the electoral map of American national politics, almost entirely in the Democratic Party’s favour.

To see how, consider how the 51st state would be represented in the institutions of American government.

Let’s begin in the House of Representatives because that’s where integrating Canada would be the trickiest. In the U.S., House seats are allocated on the basis of representation-by-population, which, based on the 2020 U.S. census, means one House seat for every 761,169 people.

With its population of 41 million, Canada would be apportioned about 54 seats, becoming a bigger state than California. Combine those 54 House seats with the two senators allocated to every state, and you would have an electoral powerhouse north of the 49th parallel. None of this would be good news for Republicans.

Of course, this assumes that annexation can overcome American political fights over reapportionment and redistricting, and that Canada would accept the American constitutional and legal formula for allocating seats that would whittle 338 House of Commons seats down to 54 and its 105 senators down to two. But no matter.

Most Canadians would vote Democrat

Let’s look now at how Canadians would alter American elections. Grafting Canada’s political culture onto U.S. party politics would be awkward, so let’s make another assumption. Presume that Conservative Party of Canada voters would vote Republican and left-of-Conservative voters would vote for Democrats.

Generally, this would include supporters of the Liberals, New Democrats, Greens and the Bloc Québécois.

Here’s where the 51st state becomes a big problem for Trump. Since Canada’s right-wing parties united in 2003, the Conservative Party of Canada has won an average of 35 per cent of the popular vote. Canada’s left-of-Conservative parties, on the other hand, have won an average of 63 per cent of the vote in that time period.

In American terms, that means about two-thirds of voters in the state of Canada would vote Democrat and one third would vote Republican, or 36-18 in the Democrats’ favour.

Looking back over the past quarter century, that margin would have turned every Republican House majority into a Democratic majority (except for 2010). Indeed, left-of-Conservative voters in the state of Canada would make it far more difficult for Republicans to win a House majority ever again.

In the Senate, the two-thirds of Canada’s left-of-Conservative voters would likely send a pair of Democrats to the Senate. That’s not enough to alter the balance of power, but in a world of single-digit margins of victory in the Senate, it’s not trivial. After all, every senator counts, especially for things like Supreme Court and cabinet confirmations.

Canadianizing the Electoral College

Now comes the big question: how would the state of Canada alter the Electoral College?

Each state has Electoral College votes that are the sum of their House representatives and senators. We also know (with some exceptions) that the winner of the popular vote in each state takes all of that state’s the Electoral College votes. Where would the state of Canada’s 54 Electoral College votes go?

Given Canada’s left-of-Conservative leanings, the state of Canada’s Electoral College votes would likely go to the Democrat presidential candidate every time. That would have swung two Republican presidential victories in the Democrats’ favour this century (2000 and 2004) and would have made Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024 even smaller — so small, in fact, that American electoral math in the expanded U.S. would be fundamentally changed.

So perhaps it’s time for Trump to recognize that Canada is a different country with its own history and political culture. Better yet, Trump could recognize that his churlish taunts trivialize a needless trade war that risks hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on both sides of the border.

Trump could recognize that the countries he is antagonizing are part of a strategic network of allies that sustains American power in the world. If that’s not enough for Trump to act seriously, he could at least follow his electoral instincts.

(Author: Aaron Ettinger, Associate Professor, International Relations, Carleton University)

(Disclosure Statement: Aaron Ettinger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Billionaire Elon Musk has sparked controversy with a post aimed at former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. On Wednesday, Musk responded to Trudeau’s statement rejecting a Canada-US merger, saying, “Girl, you’re not the governor of Canada anymore, so it doesn’t matter what you say.” Musk’s comment was in response to Trudeau’s assertion that “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States. Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”

The exchange comes amid a heated debate over US President-elect Donald Trump’s suggestion that he will use “economic force” to make Canada the 51st US state. Trump has been floating this idea since his electoral victory, claiming that “Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State” and that the US can no longer afford the “massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies” that Canada needs to stay afloat, hence Trudeau resigned.

Trump’s comments have been met with widespread criticism from Canadian leaders, including Trudeau, who emphasised the benefits of the US-Canada relationship. Trudeau stated that “workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.”

The controversy has escalated with Trump sharing a distorted map on social media, showing Canada as part of the United States, alongside the caption “Oh Canada!” The move has sparked concerns about the future of US-Canada relations and the potential implications of Trump’s proposals.

Recently, Musk also responded to MP for Carleton Pierre Poilievre’s post on X about Canada’s sovereignty. Poilievre had posted, “Canada will never be the 51st state. Period. We are a great and independent country. We are the best friends in the U.S. We spent billions of dollars and hundreds of lives helping Americans retaliate against Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks. We supply the U.S. with billions of dollars of high-quality and totally reliable energy well below market prices. We buy hundreds of billions of dollars of American goods.”

“Our weak and pathetic NDP-Liberal government has failed to make these obvious points. I will fight for Canada. When I am Prime Minister, we will rebuild our military and take back control of the border to secure both Canada and the U.S. We will take back control of our Arctic to keep Russia and China out. We will axe taxes, slash red tape and rapidly green-light massive resource projects to bring home paycheques and production to our country. In other words, we will put Canada First.”

Musk replied to the post with, “A referendum of the people is the essence of democracy!”

As Trump prepares to take office, his plans to use “economic force” to bring Canada into the US are likely to face significant opposition from lawmakers, law enforcement officials, and the public. The situation remains highly contentious, with Musk’s tweet adding fuel to the fire.
 

Ottawa:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday hit back at US President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to use “economic force” to absorb Canada into the United States, saying there is no possibility of merging countries.

“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Mr Trudeau wrote on X (formally Twitter).

“Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner,” he added.

There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.

Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) January 7, 2025

Canadian foreign minister also added to Prime Minister Trudeau’s remark, saying the country will “never back down” from threats by Donald Trump.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly accused Trump of showing with his remarks “a complete lack of understanding” of Canada.

“Our economy is strong. Our people our strong. We will never back down in the face of threats,” she said on the social media platform owned by Trump ally Elon Musk.

Canada’s response came after incoming US president Trump said he was willing to use “economic force” to merge Canada and the United States, hours after the Canadian premier announced his resignation as the leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister.

Speaking at a press conference at Florida Mar-a Lago home, he said, “You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security.”

“Canada and the United States, that would really be something,” Mr Trump added.

He also raised concerns about Canada’s military spending and said, “They have a very small military. They rely on our military. It’s all fine, but, you know, they got to pay for that. It’s very unfair.”

Asked if he would use military force to bring Canada to heel, the incoming president said “no, economic force.”

Since his election victory in November, Mr Trump has repeatedly needled Canada about it becoming the “51st US state”.

Previously, he has threatened to slap up to 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods unless the northern American country took substantial steps to increase security on the shared border and reduce drugs and illegal immigrants crossing into the US.

In response, the Trudeau government has promised to implement strict security measures along the US-Canada border but said it would consider imposing counter-tariffs if Mr Trump follows with his threats.

Canada and the US reportedly share a trillion-dollar trade relationship. According to the Canadian government’s data, nearly C$3.6bn ($2.5bn) worth of goods and services crossed the border daily in 2023.

Experts believe if Donald Trump follows through with his threat after taking office on January 20, it could hurt Canada’s economy significantly.