Trump threats to Canada might be for the best

The U.S. and Canada have been stuck in a long-term marriage of convenience. But now Canada is finally starting to date around, even if the two still have to share the same continental roof. Just as Canada prepared to implement a long-awaited 3 percent tax this week on Canadian revenues over $20 million earned by U.S. Big Tech - a crowd that rattles tin cups even as it builds transnational digital empires - Trump burst onto his Truth Social platform like their personal white knight. Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that many of these tech giants were front-and-center donors at his inauguration. "Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately," he posted. "We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Although Canada subsequently announced that the tax would be rescinded in the interest of achieving a more broad comprehensive agreement with the U.S., Trump's trade ultimatum exposed deep dysfunction. Long relationships breed bad habits - and in the case of Canada, chronic dependency. But every breakup comes with an upside: forced growth. Canada's been flirting with greater independence ever since Trump suggested annexing it as the 51st state, slapped tariffs on its exports, then changed his mind - only to circle back around with another tariff threat. Canadians recently elected Mark Carney - a technocratic economist who ran the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England and the global Financial Stability Board - specifically because they figured that he would be the best guy to handle Trump. Carney wasted no time in dusting off Canada's geopolitical dating profile. Yes, the U.S. is right next door and speaks the same language, but it's hardly the only fish in the global trade sea. The European Union also offers a single currency market, a larger population (450 million vs. America's 350 million), and the added bonus of fewer tantrums. Sure, it's further away geographically speaking, but if Trump's tariffs are back on the table, proximity might not be the big savings that it used to be anyway. The EU, having sabotaged its own economy by cutting off cheap Russian energy in a moral panic, is now funneling hundreds of billions into defense. Nothing like summoning the ghost of John Maynard Keynes to hide industrial losses by pouring tax cash into the military-industrial complex - banana republic- style - even when you're not officially at war. As if Russian President Vladimir Putin would call it quits amid what he perceives as an existential threat from NATO's Western military alliance using Ukraine as a militarized flophouse on Russia's border just because the EU stopped buying Russian gas. But that's what the EU figured. Wrongly, of course. While the EU was busy writing a script Putin simply ignored, Canada spent too long waiting in the wings for its cue. In this grand European charade - with officials scrambling to scare up tax cash from citizens under the far-fetched pretext of someday stopping Putin from rolling tanks down Paris' Champs-Elysees - Canada has finally found a role. It recently signed a new defense deal with the EU to better coordinate their militaries and hardware, thereby helping it pivot away from a U.S. president who still muses about annexing it. Increased military independence is a good start, but it's meaningless without economic independence. That's step two, and what some of us have been shouting about for years. If Canada wants to control its foreign policy, it needs to first stop outsourcing its economy to Washington. Canada is a resource-rich northern expanse just like Russia. With Russia sanctioned to the hilt, and the world in need of its resources, there's no better time to cash in. The EU has been quietly stewing over Biden's expensive U.S. liquefied natural gas ever since he offered to "help" replace the bloc's Russian supply. Canada's East Coast liquified natural gas facilities are just six to eight shipping days from Europe - the shortest distance from any North American terminal, as Ottawa has pointed out. So why didn't Canada bother before? It didn't need to - or didn't think that it did - because it was under the naive impression that it was an equal partner with the U.S. in getting Canadian energy to market via American ports, and that Washington would prioritize Canadian interests. That was never the case. Why would it be? It took Trump blasting truth bombs straight from his mouth to finally jolt the sleepwalkers in Ottawa awake. So amid Canada's reckoning with reality, the climate alarmism has quietly been shelved. "Carney was the United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance and was behind the UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance, so some Canadians might have assumed he'd prioritize climate action if he won the election," wrote a Canadian university professor last month. "Instead, Carney has described developing fossil fuel infrastructure as 'pragmatic.'" Translation: Maybe Carney's climate racket enthusiasm hit a dead end like an electric car with no charging stations. And not a moment too soon. If Canada wants to finally be a grown-up country that unilaterally decides its own fate irrespective of American policy, now is the time for that coming of age. Even Trump's administration is doing the same and branching out beyond the usual ideological constraints, recently brokering a deal with China over minerals and teasing similar agreements with Russia over Ukraine. So much for Axis of Evil 2.0. Meanwhile, Canada is patching things up with India after years of yelling about foreign interference. Trade will undoubtedly follow. And why stop there? Canada should cozy up to the BRICS group of developing countries and the global south, too. And if it shares an icy backyard with Russia, maybe it's time they cooperated on Arctic exploration instead of pretending Russia exists only as a Bond villain. Nonalignment - or at least strategic agnosticism - is the only real path to national freedom. Every country should prioritize its own citizens over someone else's idea of empire. Global monogamy is overrated, and there's something to be said for dating around. Shared roof or not, it's time Canada found its own apartment. Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist and host of independently produced talk shows in French and English.