this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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Summary

Donald Trump's push to annex Canada as the 51st U.S. state is confusing due to its sudden and unexplained emergence.

Initially praising Canada as an ally, Trump now aggressively seeks annexation, imposing tariffs, criticizing trade deficits, and challenging established borders and treaties.

Former officials and congressional Republicans express bewilderment, stating they have "no clue" about Trump's motivation.

Canadian leaders and the U.S. business community strongly oppose the move, citing sovereignty and economic harm.

Republicans also question Trump's strategy, noting annexation would add millions of liberal-leaning voters and complicate American politics.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

I don't know what people find so confusing about this. This is the business mindset. If you're not growing your failing. Empires get bigger by taking more land. Therefore the American empire must take more land. It's not rocket science. It's a child's view of 'winning'.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

So is the poster in the illustrative photo

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Exactly. Makes Putin look less bad for annexing Ukraine

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 hours ago

The Canadians are our homies, why would orange want to hurt our homie? They've been with us thru thick and thin, and now orange wants to fuck things up for us? Don't think we want this either dear Canadians, those ball guzzlers just regurgitate whatever orange says. Even if it hurts us, by Canadian goods only until orange leaves office, if not sooner because homies should only kiss, not attack.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 hours ago

It’s not confusing - they know climate change is real and they want more northern territories for when the shit hits the fan so they have somewhere to go

Can’t stop big oil though because you can’t run a military on batteries yet and besides, muh Raytheon stock

[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

You don't try to understand insanity, you treat it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Don't you have to understand it somewhat to treat it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

That depends on the method of treatment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

Kinetic lobotomy

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

I vote open up the skull to study the brain, the old fashioned way.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (3 children)

This is his (stupid and selfdefeating) way to tackle four problems:

  1. US industry, especially those close to him, needs rare earth minerals. Canada and especially Greenland might provide those.
  2. Climate change will render large parts of the US uninhabitable in a few decades time. The US therefore needs Lebensraum. Now that’s a word he and his right-arm-raising friends love.
  3. Combining 2 and 1, the Arctic is melting. Exposing all sorts of new mineable goodies, and opening up new waterways. That will provide new economic opportunities as well as create new military threats. Owning Canada and Greenland would go a long way towards mitigating that.
  4. Trump sees a future in which a few large power blocks control the world. Currently, the US is one of the smallest of those: only 350 million where China and India are over 1 billion each, Europe is more than 500 million, etc. So the US needs to expand and grow its population size.
[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
  1. Expand and grown population size by deportig?
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Yes, because they want "the right population." Fascist ideals are often contradictory and self-defeating. The Nazis could have had atomic weapons if they hadn't treated Jews as subhuman; that would have been a big help in their plans for world domination.

Their plan for solving their shrinking population is simple though; force everyone to have more babies. Remove all access to abortion, remove all access to contraception, destroy same sex marriage, destroy the ability for women to get divorced, destroy any form of social support that could help women who leave their partners, and offer incentives to families who have more children. Oh, and if course remove all child labour laws so families can afford to have more kids by sending them all off to jobs at Amazon when they're 12.

(There are concrete examples of Republicans pushing every single one of those policies, in case you weren't aware)

Basically, if you see women as nothing more than baby factories who don't deserve anything frivolous like rights, population growth seems like an easy problem to solve.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

He's much too stupid for any of this, so I assume we're talking about the architects of project 2025 and/or putin?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Point 1 will be underscored regularly by his oligarch cronies, like Musk, Bezos and Brin - those that want to build rockets, electronics and batteries. They would love for the US to become totally independent of China, in minerals but also production capacity and price levels.

Point 3 will be mostly military talking points, and although it’s not in the media much, the race for the Arctic has been on for a while.

Points 2 and 4 are about raw power on the world stage, and that’s something Trump does understand. He doesn’t believe in cultural, diplomatic or economic power - only military. It also rhymes with nazi ideology about Lebensraum, a homeland for the ‘pure race’ that derives its global power from its purity. It might also involve a breeding ideology.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

100%. T rump is just a tool that they put in place to do their bidding and to be a fall guy when the people finally get off their asses.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

I think that's why they have musk around. Not only is he doing a lot of the controversial stuff but he's loaded

[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago

Could find some lebensraum in Russia instead?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The cost both monetarily and in manpower to invade Canada would be astronomical

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago

Don't forget the cost on the souls of the American people for the betrayal.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

It's not confusing, he's a megalomaniac who thinks foreign policy should resemble a game of Risk. Outside a tight circle of influence, everyone else is disposable meat that annoys him and deserves whatever punishment they receive. It's not new behavior.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

How tight is that circle? Mr Trump seemed to abandon Mr Giuliani at a crucial time, and I thought the two were thick as thieves.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 13 hours ago

Giuliani was a useful idiot with a law degree and a certain amount of 9/11 good will. Better idiots with fewer ethical standards and law degrees are throwing themselves at him, and he doesn't need to pretend to give a fuck about American lives or first responders now that he's in power. Like everyone else who rode the 9/11 wave and thought it was amazing for poll numbers and easy fundraising.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 13 hours ago

Republicans also question Trump's strategy, noting annexation would add millions of liberal-leaning voters and complicate American politics.

You mean millions of insurgents literally trying to murder every Republican politician and burn America to the ground. Not sure why their voting habits would be relevant in the face of that.

I think a lot of Americans are completely unaware of just how fucking furious we are at this flippant talk of destroying our country and subjugating our people. Even a lot of the ones who are unsympathetic to Trump don't understand just what this kind of talk means to us.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 14 hours ago

It might be confusing dumb muricans, but its pissing canadians off

[–] [email protected] -1 points 14 hours ago

Millions of voters full of hate towards one party

[–] [email protected] 11 points 15 hours ago

Republicans: I vigorously maintain that dementia is, in fact, pretty fucking cool.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 15 hours ago (5 children)

"Canada only works as a state," Trump said Thursday. "We don’t need anything they have. As a state, it would be one of the great states anywhere. 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. Makes no sense. It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state."

They're all "artificial" lines Donald

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

Trump sees the world through the lens of autarky. It's like the man fell out of the 18th century. He thinks nations are these self-sufficient organisms living on the planet, competing for resources, etc. He thinks trade means dependency and weakness, rather than mutual benefit and specialization. The man has never had to share anything with anyone in his entire life; it's not surprising he would have such a warped world view.

That is what he means by "Canada only works as a (US) state." The US really could make a decent play at autarky. The US gets about 30% of its GDP from trade; Canada gets 70%. It's foolish to try to do it overnight. But if the US wanted to make an attempt at autarky, and made the transition over decades? The US could pull that off. It would mean being poorer than we would be otherwise. We would have to accept more expensive and lower quality goods, but we could do it. The US has a large enough land area, population, and resource base that it could, on its own, maintain an industrial society completely from domestic resources.

Canada? It would have a much, much harder time at autarky. If both the US and Canada forever closed all their international borders tomorrow, Canada would end up a lot worse off than the US. Canada, as an island nation unto itself, would have a really hard time surviving.

Of course, there's no damn reason that nations need to survive by autarky. They're not independent islands. And we all grow richer by specialization and trade. But that fundamentally is not how Trump sees the world.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago

It’s so perfect as a great and cherished state.

Wrong word, Donald. You mean "coveted." You don't cherish Canada, you covet it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago

"We don’t need anything they have [...]"

I say again, "okay, Dougie, blink the lights a bit."

Shut down 4 red states for the weekend and see how it goes.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 13 hours ago

Yet the line south of Texas is inviolable, sacred, a proud bulwark...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

Each province should be a state! We will be come blue as a country and can have Medicare for all and high speed rail.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

If you are confused by any of this, you have turds for brains.

He is a dementia-riddled adult psychopath, and will do anything he wants to destroy this country and everything we stand for because he’s mad that 1000% of people don’t let him and his insane, monstrous plans.

Either do everything you can to resistance stop him, or just lay down and let it happen. There is no in between.

Endless you actively and openly resist Trump, you are an absolute fucking Nazi, just like he is. Four, without your active and strong resistance, you might as well just be ready for every horrible thing he does.

Shame on you for thinking there is anything in between the freedom of the people and Trump‘s Nazi thinking that there could be compromise puts you on the same historical ridiculousness as Neville Chamberlain, and the results will be no less than the same, and very likely far worse because you did not stand up and resistant

I hope your milk toast, appeasement and make you happy to the bread. Everyone else left living on earth will hate you forever.

Remember that

[–] [email protected] 7 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Hate to be that guy, but it’s “milquetoast.”

Edit: banned, troll.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 15 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

For prompt service, please take a number and wait in line.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 15 hours ago

Climate change will make the southern 2/3 of the USA unlivable within a few decades. Canada has a lot of land. Trump’s teamwants it and the resources within.

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