6 ms·
Canada Announces Divorce from America
- throwpoaster 10mo agoI weep for my country (Canada). This is a large, obvious, mistake.
- pnexk 10mo ago> This is a large, obvious, mistake. It seems quite rational a response to the decisions taken by a larger neighboring nation’s state unexpectedly increasing hostility.
- throwpoaster 10mo agoResponding to hostility with hostility is emotional, not rational. The geographic reality is that Canada derives substantial, permanent trade and defence advantages from our position as neighbours. Realignment towards China and Europe for emotional reasons squanders those advantages.
- diego_moita 10mo ago> Responding to hostility with hostility is emotional, not rational. And how do you classify to responding to hostility with submission? Besides, Canada isn't even being hostile. A divorce is very different from abuse or harassment.
- moolcool 10mo agoIf the US is no longer interested in being a good-faith partner, what alternative does Canada have?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- saghm 10mo agoCan you elaborate for those of us who aren't as familiar with Canada what the obvious nature of this mistake is?
- eschulz 10mo agoI'm not from Canada, but my take is that given Canada's economic reliance on the US, any "divorce" would cost them more than anything they could find anywhere else. However, I also don't think the PM there can simply separate his country from the US by simply giving a speech, although he can work to foster closer ties with others while still trying to make it work with the US.
- watwut 10mo agoThey are working on making themselves less dependent. They kind of expect USA to try to invade them after it invades Greenland. It is divorce in anticipation of a bout of domestic violence.
- kevin061 10mo agoCanada will suffer greatly, and possibly much more than the US. But appeasing US, in the position of Canada, is akin to trying to reason with a wife beater. You don't reason. You remove the victim from the hands of the aggressor. It will cost a lot of money, and the Canadians will suffer greatly. But the alternative is to join America, which Canadians have stated don't want to.
- throwpoaster 10mo agoI’m still waiting for an offer. :)
- alzoid 10mo agoIf you watch his speech and the follow up interview you he answers that directly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMyeGQm3NA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDMyeGQm3NA @ 17:50). It's a good watch, better than the past 10 years of daily coverage by American media of what their dumb president and ex president is ranting about. I am in the start up community in Canada. I can tell you that after the first threat from Trump every federal program to help tech start ups immediately pivoted to Asia and the EU. Before he started yapping, we were connected to Canadian representatives in the US, meeting about markets and opportunities. Now all programs are directed at forming partnerships elsewhere.
- TwoNineA 10mo agoSo you are happy that our "friend" decided on a whim to wanting to invade our other friend? Despite all of us being part of the same friend group? Despite canadian and danish blood being spilled in Afghanistan right after our "friend" decided to call article 5? Fuck off.
- throwpoaster 10mo ago[flagged]
- andsoitis 10mo agoDo you think it is a mistake because you disagree with Carney’s reasoning? Or do you think it is a mistake because of the risk it opens? Or do you think it is a mistake for some other reason?
- hudon 10mo agoAs Canada is separating from the US, it is growing closer with China. This makes Canada a threat to the US. This makes the US a threat to Canada. This makes the US more likely to grab Canada's arm and pull it back in its circle by force. Canada just did a model of how long it could last against a US invasion and the answer was that its defenses would last 2-5 days. It's all unnecessary and will just cause pain to end up where it started.
- tharmas 10mo agoYoure saying dont do a Ukraine?
- vacuity 10mo agoMilitary action would be brutal, but you can only say that it's unnecessary if the alternatives are better. If not now, then how many years down the line? The claims Carney are making are not light in their own right.
- andsoitis 10mo ago> As Canada is separating from the US, it is growing closer with China. This makes Canada a threat to the US. This makes the US a threat to Canada But didn't you get the order of events precisely wrong? Isn't it America who threatened Canada (become a state of the US)? Isn't America who threatened Canada with extreme tariffs? Etc.
- hudon 10mo agoNo, I didn’t. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93China_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93China_relations
- lifetimerubyist 10mo agoSpeak for yourself. I've haven't felt this proud to be Canadian in a long time. (voted for Poilievre btw).
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- throwpoaster 10mo agoThanks for your vote and keep voting Conservative. Jamil is who we should have talking to the Americans.
- bryanlarsen 10mo agoRound one 12 months ago was a mistake. Elbows up when everybody else caved and went elbows down was a mistake. Carney learned the right lesson, though. As Europe has learned, elbows down is also a mistake. The right approach is elbows up as a unified response.
- conorcleary 10mo agoThe only mirage of 'elbows down' I've seen is pen to paper, elbows on desks. Action through words.
- bryanlarsen 10mo agoThere's been lots of true action - tariffs on American goods - embargoes of American liquor - trade deals with China and other nations - travel to the US down substantially
- ToucanLoucan 10mo ago[flagged]
- cindyllm 10mo ago[dead]
- watwut 10mo agoIt is not just that tho. The same philosophies and ideas as Trump is acting on were propagated by large parts of conservative thinkers and influencers for years. He is less strategic, but he is logical conclusion of what republican party and especially conservatives believed in for years. Trump is logical outcome, not the cause. The hypocrisy that propped him up was not his. His morality was appealing to right wing people who have exact same morality. Trump, Musk, Heritage Foundation, Roberts, Kavanaugh, Vance, Miller, Hegseth, congress republicans, evangelical christians, everyone who celebrated Sparta in here, wall street and billionaires, all the reactionary centrists forever defending right and scolding whoever opposes it.
- GiorgioG 10mo agoThey didn’t get here on their own. In 2016, Democrats ran an uncharismatic candidate in Hillary Clinton while pushing aggressively progressive ideas. Enough swing voters decided to take a chance on something different, and Trump won his first term. Without that win, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
- kilington 10mo agoWith a two party system everything like this is inevitable. If one party sucks long enough it will get it's chance to show what suck really means to swing voters who want to see if the alternative is really as bad as people say.
- vacuity 10mo ago> while pushing aggressively progressive ideas The establishment Democrats are not exactly "aggressively progressive" by any reasonable standard. They shunned Bernie Sanders, who still isn't highly radical.
- b3lvedere 10mo ago"Trump has pissed off one of the nicest countries on earth—our northern neighbors, who have faithfully stood by us in times of great calamity and never wronged us—so much that their leader told the world today that enough is enough and the United States and other superpowers should understand what has been done cannot be undone." Fact is Trumps leadership keeps causing great trouble and bullshit on a global scale. At the cost of lots of lives and freedom of human beings. History is on repeat once again.
- norome 10mo ago[flagged]
- falcor84 10mo agoEvery single group of people that has been around for long enough accumulates things that they should be ashamed of. But everything is relative, and compared to other countries, Canada and Canadians have always seemed to me to be much better than the world average.
- diego_moita 10mo agoEvery country in the planet has skeletons in their closet. Some of them, however, acknowledge it, accept and try to do their best to overcome it. Others don't. Some examples: most Germans know and acknowledge the atrocities of Nazism; very few Japanese know of the Nanjing massacre. And how many Dutch know about the atrocities of the East Indian Company in Indonesia? How many Belgians know about the genocide in Congo? How many Portuguese know about the tragedy of the Atlantic Slave trade? Canadians know about the cruelty against First Nations in their history and acknowledge it, few Americans do it. In parts of Latin America (e.g. Brazil), those atrocities keep happening even today. And no, we don't "supporting everything the US have done". From Vietnam to Iraq, we have lots of disagreements with American foreign policy. This country is shaped by the escape of the loyalists, the war of 1812 and the 49th parallel. We are not Americans.
- norome 10mo ago
- swaits 10mo ago> Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, gave a magnificently powerful speech before the gathered elites that will be discussed many years from now. Decades, likely. Extremely unlikely. Davos is 95% elite echo chamber, virtue signaling, and complete bullshit, with only a rare 5% historical exception where the gathering actually resulted in binding, real-world consequences. Anyone that thinks this speech will have any lasting impact is delusional.
- peterspath 10mo agoIt is like they play in a reality tv show. We are being entertained... or at least if they did funny shit. Maybe it is best to just ignore it?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- JohnFen 10mo agoI don't think that the message Carney delivered was primarily intended for the Davos crowd. I think it was intended for the world.
- philipallstar 10mo ago> But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. He's right - sanctions on Russia for Ukraine is the most prominent example of this.
- pavlov 10mo agoThe difference is that previously these economic levers were used as sanctions against bad actors like Russia, whereas now under Trumpism they're used on a whim against allies and everybody else.
- piva00 10mo agoWhat would you suggest should have been done with Russia about the invasion of Ukraine?
- tharmas 10mo agoDon't encroach NATO on their doorstep. Bring Russia into NATO. USA strategy has been to keep Russia and Germany separated. They fear that combo as a potential rival superpower. The division of Europe from Russia is exactly what the Americans want.
- piva00 10mo agoRussia was offered to join NATO a long time ago, during Yeltsin years there was a whole lot happening to help the approach of Russia to NATO. Don't know how old you are but if you are 40+ you should remember the NATO-Russia Founding Act, in 2000 Putin said he didn't see NATO as an enemy. So this is bullshit, it's a narrative post-hoc'd into existence to justify the imperialist ambitions of Russia under Putin.
- tharmas 10mo agoThey were not offered NATO membership. Putin hinted to Clinton he would like it. Clinton didn't respond. Came back later (after consulting with his staff) and declined the offer. Putin is smart enough to know that Russia is in no position to be an imperialist power. The goal of keeping Russia and Europe (Germany) apart is not a secret. Please see Zbigniew Brzezinski. And I'd like to point out that the Soviets kept Germany divided for a justifiable reason: 27 million Russians died at the hands of Germany's imperial ambitions. And while we are on the subject of "bullshit", the war in Ukraine did NOT start in Feb 2022. It started long before that.
- vacuity 10mo agoSomeone had to take the plunge. Regardless of the other political considerations at present and whatever future events will happen, I respect Carney's initiative. I also appreciate the reference to Havel's essay; to me, its insight always felt obvious but also difficult to apply. But framed in this way, I understand. For some time, I've felt that the United States has been the leading example of a country that is powerful through narrative. Narratives are naturally idealized, but at some point the gap becomes too large to tolerate.
- tweakimp 10mo agoAnd right in this moment Trump is talking about how Canada should be grateful for all the American freebies :D
- mindslight 10mo agoClassic sour entitled old person behavior, thinking the crumbs they're deigning to offer are praiseworthy gold as they beg for human attention. It's unfortunate that we can't just not pick up the phone, as all the other sour entitled people voted to have this fool run our country into the ground.
- Kuyawa 10mo ago"If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu" Venezuela was an appetizer, Iran is next, Greenland the salad, but we all know China is the main course
- keernan 10mo agoAs an American, I've never been more proud of Canada.
- _DeadFred_ 10mo agoRemember when the right was freaking out that 'they' wanted to combine the USA, Canada, and Mexico into a mega country? Seems like the right would support this?
- mcc1ane 10mo agohttps://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/speeches/2026/01/20/principled-and-pragmatic-canadas-path-prime-minister-carney-addresses https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/speeches/2026/01/20/principled-...