National Review Slams Trump’s ‘Reckless War on Canada’ and ‘Unfathomable’ Threat to Make It 51st State
(Screenshot via Truth Social)
National Review has denounced President Donald Trump’s “Reckless War on Canada” in a scathing editorial.
“It was inevitable that Trump would have to deal with foreign crises when he was elected, but no one thought Canada would be among them,” the conservative magazine observed Wednesday before making note of tirade on Truth Social in which the president threatened the United States’ northern neighbor with even steeper tariffs and argued that “the only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. ”
“This would make all Tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear. Canadians taxes will be very substantially reduced, they will be more secure, militarily and otherwise, than ever before, there would no longer be a Northern Border problem, and the greatest and most powerful nation in the World will be bigger, better and stronger than ever — And Canada will be a big part of that,” added Trump. “The artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear. And we will have the safest and most beautiful Nation anywhere in the World — And your brilliant anthem, ‘O Canada,’ will continue to play, but now representing a GREAT and POWERFUL STATE within the greatest Nation that the World has ever seen!”
“Trump has had constantly shifting justifications for his threats against Canada. First, it was fentanyl and migration, which aren’t enormous problems on our northern border. Then, it was Canadian protection for its dairy, lumber, and banking sectors, long-running issues that don’t justify going to DEFCON 1 with Ottawa. On Tuesday, it was a Canadian having the temerity to punch back against a U.S. threatening to dunk his country into a steep recession,” wrote the editors of National Review. “Trump heightened the contradictions when, after exempting the auto sector from his currently delayed, across-the-board 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, he talked of making automakers collateral damage in his tiff with the premier of Ontario. None of this is good for U.S. business, which is getting whipsawed back and forth almost every day by the president.”
They continued:
As for Canada as the 51st state, it now seems to be more than trolling. If Trump is serious, it is unfathomable that we are threatening the sovereignty of a fellow NATO country, a friend that has repeatedly fought and bled alongside us. If we indulge the hypothetical and Trump somehow impoverishes Canada into submission, it would create a restive, resentful region of the United States where there presumably wouldn’t be a lot of Trump voters.
The editorial followed a column from editor-in-chief Rich Lowry in which he submitted that Trump has been disrespectful at best and threatening at worst” under the headline “Canada Is Not the Enemy.”
“The madman theory has much to recommend it . . . when dealing with Hamas or the Houthis,” argued Lowry. “No one heretofore has thought it has similar benefits when handling relations with Ottawa.”
