This Is the Moment Canada Should Stop Playing It Safe | The Walrus

"In economic relations. In military relations. In international relations. Across every dimension, Canada inched closer and closer to the US. In part, we did that because American leaders asked us to. In part, we did it because it was good for us to be tightly tied to the world's-and history's-richest and most powerful nation. We got security and prosperity without the burdens of independence and charting our own course."

"For Trump, your gain must be my loss and all human relationships are about establishing the winner and the loser, the strong and the weak, the powerful and the powerless. Trump didn't stiff all those contractors just to save a buck. He did it because, by doing it, he demonstrated that he was the winner and they were the loser."

"The powerful don't have partners in Trump's mind. They have vassals. In Trump, this thinking clearly springs from his own twisted psychology, particularly a severe narcissistic personality disorder which afflicts him with a gnawing sense of inferiority and an insatiable need to humiliate others and be praised. The tell is his lifelong obsession with being "laughed at." There is no nastier insul"

Canada aligned closely with the United States after the Second World War and moved steadily closer economically, militarily, and diplomatically. Free trade after 1988 tightened economic ties and transformed Canada into a low-earth-orbit satellite of US power. Close alignment delivered security and prosperity while reducing incentives to pursue an independent course. That alignment was partly reciprocal and partly convenient because of shared interests and geographic proximity. Donald Trump's zero-sum approach to relations and personal narcissism disrupted reciprocal logic by treating allies as vassals, prioritizing humiliation and winning over mutual benefit, and exposing Canadian vulnerability to American political shifts.

Read at The Walrus