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> US President Donald Trump earlier called the idea "laughable" and threatened "very serious tariffs" on Europe if he considered it a "hostile act". So if Cana

• Maskawanian 11d ago
  Agreed, and the possibility of visa free travel to the EU, plus the removal of live/work barriers is appealing. The USA really comes off as the spurned ex that calls you drunk in the middle of the night.
  • larodi 11d ago
    is it not visa free already for most of the states anyway?
    • Maskawanian 11d ago
      Generally it is auto approved for Canadians, but you will soon need to do an "ETIAS travel authorization".
      • brummm 11d ago
        Canada actually implemented their ETA way before the EU did theirs.
    • elias_t 11d ago
      Yes but with that you’d be able to have a work permit as well!
• etiennebausson 11d ago
  I try not to take anything Trump say too seriously, but we have to remember that the USians chose him... twice.
  • martythemaniak 11d ago
    Why would you not take him seriously?
    • ChrisRR 11d ago
      Because we have decades of evidence to show that he's incredibly stupid?
    • etiennebausson 11d ago
      Because he can't string together a coherent sentence?
      • jacquesm 11d ago
        That doesn't really matter. What matters is that he commands the most powerful (probably?) offensive force on the planet and has already shown that he is more than willing to use it to achieve his nonsense objectives.
        • JTbane 11d ago
          Personally, I take everything he says and does seriously. I advise non-citizens visiting to turn their social media to private and bring a burner phone to immigration checkpoints. For citizens, turning off your phone should be enough.
          • ninalanyon 11d ago
            I think a lot of us outside the US will go further and simply never visit the US ever again. That certainly applies to me despite having spent quite a lot of time in the US and having ex-colleagues who I regard as friends there.
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      • dofm 11d ago
• vrganj 11d ago
  "No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia" https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-future-in-nato-precarious-position-neither-putin-zelenskyy-happy-2023-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-future-in-nato-prec... edit since I guess the timestamp isn't visible to everyone: Jul 12, 2023, 5:56 PM GMT+2
  • Geeek 11d ago
    Why in the world do these articles not have published dates on them?
    • monkey_monkey 11d ago
      Literally states '1 hour ago' below the author.
    • pmontra 11d ago
      I see "Jul 12, 2023, 5:56 PM GMT+2" right before "After this week's NATO summit in Lithuania..."
  • chinathrow 11d ago
    They're not even hiding it any more. Look who paid for one of his sons wedding...
    • Tade0 11d ago
      This was such a weird gesture. Why did they need anyone to pay for the wedding and why did it have to be someone with ties to Putin?
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• koolba 11d ago
  > So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act? I believe the terms in human relationships are coercive control and social isolation.
• Hamuko 11d ago
  Trump has already been threatening Canada and EU at various times already. Why should they assume a) this will be any different b) he'll stop if they do what he wants?
• Roscius 11d ago
  Carney has extremely strong support amongst the general public in Canada which hasn't been the case for the Canadian PM over the past 20+ years. 158 Canadian soldiers died defending the United States at the US's request after 9/11. Canadian fighter jets helped to patrol the skies in the US at the US's request after 9/11. The insults coming from the US Secretary of Defence and President are not unnoticed. They are logged and remembered.
  • bambax 11d ago
    > 158 Canadian soldiers died defending the United States at the US's request after 9/11. Canadian fighter jets helped to patrol the skies in the US at the US's request after 9/11. Bad idea. Canada (as well as all other nations) should let the US fight and lose its wars by itself.
    • __s 11d ago
      This was under Jean Chrétien who recently gave a speech: https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/jean-chretien-speaks-at-911-commemoration-in-gander-nl?id=c3920955-ad2a-45c5-82d0-316baaf7e105 https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/jean-chretien-... He supported US in Afghanistan, but refused to support war in Iraq since he didn't consider there to be sufficient evidence of WMD
  • tsunamifury 11d ago
    [flagged]
    • bryanlarsen 11d ago
      There is only one country that Canada needs to be secure from and they just used up most of their missiles in Iran.
    • deleted 11d ago
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    • 10294387 11d ago
      You have never been "the worlds's backstop". If that is so onerous, multiple EU countries should get nuclear missiles and make an EU NATO. But you don't want that. You want the dollar propped up irrationally by your military promises and you want NATO and non-NATO proxies against Russia ans China. The promises incidentally fail yet again in Iran, where the Saudis already make other treaties with Turkey and Pakistan.
• jacquesm 11d ago
  It's pretty much the exact same playbook that Russia used against Ukraine.
  • 10294387 11d ago
    Fortunately the US already fails in its first special military operation in Iran, so it cannot launch a second one in Canada to protect the English speaking population in Canada.
    • jacquesm 11d ago
      > cannot Why not?
    • badc0ffee 10d ago
      I say this as a Canadian who wishes nothing but failure for the US's military misadventures: Iran is a totally different situation. The inability for the US navy to effectively project power thousands of miles from the US says nothing about its ability to wage a land war close to home.
  • Teever 11d ago
    This comment[0] on HN from a while back marks the parallels between the two situations very clearly. It's very frustrating talking about this subject with Americans online[1]. In general they seem to have blinders on regarding the magnitude of the consequences of their democratic choice in leadership. I get a sense that a feeling of learned helplessness has beset the American people and that they're not able to imagine a world of agency and action against authoritarianism. I don't know what can shake them out of their torpor, but I do know that the longer they take to wake up the higher the price of action will be. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43485649#43487443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43485649#43487443 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403201
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• dofm 11d ago
  Pretty much exactly this. A whole lot of Trump's psychology has always been "it's your fault I hurt you" for the longest time — it's a very clear undercurrent in how he treated his first wife. He's an abuser. And now so is the USA.
• Lio 11d ago
  As I said it in another post, what does Trump expect? His negotiations are all stick and no carrot. Canada is bound to look for new trade opportunities in the face of that. You make a deal with Trump, it's always worse than what you had previously. Then, no mater what you do, he breaks the deal 3 months later with some kind of implied military threat if you complain. All the comparisons with personal relationships here are silly. This isn't a marital split. This someone who thinks they're the only customer saying they don't want to buy something and the vendor saying fair enough, I'll sell it to someone else.
• rdm_blackhole 11d ago
  > So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act? I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act but both countries, Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship. Canada is free to get closer to Europe and the US is free to be displeased about it. Maybe it works out well for Canada or maybe it doesn't. > Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner Why anthropomorphize geopolitics? This is just just a big fish throwing its weight around like all big fishes do. Russia does it with its neighbors, China does it as well and India and Europe are not shy about it either. It's just the name of the game and its been happening since the dawn of time. Some states use force, others bribe or cajole but in the end they all try to influence their neighbors in a way that suits their interests especially if these neighbors are smaller in terms of population/economy/military etc... The fact that so many people are shocked by such news these days is because everyone drank the cool aid of the End of History and forgot that spheres of influence still exists and that the rule of law was nothing more than gentleman's agreement that could be thrown out of the window at a moment's notice without second thoughts.
  • atomic_cattlepr 11d ago
    > I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act Trump does. His inner circle does. His supporters do. > Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship. Sounds like an abusive husband's version of "think of what this will do to the children." > Why anthropomorphize geopolitics? Because some people need to have complex issues explained to them in ways that are simple to understand. Particularly when it comes to issues involving Trump politics, the people who desperately need to understand these issues are those who also seem to need the issues explained to them like they are a fourth-grader. Hence, the replies you have been seeing.
• randomNumber7 11d ago
  > So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act? If your ex starts dating your best friend directly after breakup, would you consider it a hostile act?
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  • troyvit 11d ago
    You mean the same best friend that you unilaterally groped[1], shit-talked[2], undermined[3] and tried to drag into a brawl[4]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_crisis [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-nato-policy-defense-plans-europe-america/ https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-nato-policy-def... [3] https://www.cadtm.org/Trump-Europe-and-the-international-neo-fascist-movement-from-ideological https://www.cadtm.org/Trump-Europe-and-the-international-neo... [4] https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/31/europe/trump-lashes-out-europe-iran-war-latam-intl https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/31/europe/trump-lashes-out-europ...
  • buellerbueller 11d ago
    >If your ex starts dating your best friend directly after breakup, would you consider it a hostile act? "breakup" is doing a huge amount of counterfactual sanewashing here.
  • andrewflnr 11d ago
    I might, but that wouldn't make me right or make my ex unjustified. It might just be another instance of me being an asshole.
  • jrimbault 11d ago
    Luckily states are not hormones-driven romcom protagonists.
    • andrewflnr 11d ago
      Instead, they're dogs. https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20130817.png https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20130817.png
• c16 11d ago
  Sometimes the winning move is to not play at all. He's finding out what happens when people stop playing his game.
• fluidcruft 11d ago
  USA has always been very aggressive about territory and hostile to Europe in the Americas. The Canada vs UK vs EU relationship seems more interesting to me.
• jerf 11d ago
  Research the "Monroe doctrine"... by which I mean, don't just look up a one paragraph summary, spend a bit of time with it. A few pages of text at least. Ideally in a modern formulation you should encounter the term "World Island" without having directly searched for it and how the modern iteration of the Monroe doctrine is a reaction to that in a way that the original didn't have to contend with. I'm not doing advocacy here, I'm giving pointers on how to come to a deeper understanding of what is going on. It is also important to understand that the EU is directly attacking this doctrine with this proposal. You are free to agree with the EU. Again, I'm just giving something to guide people to a deeper understanding of what is going on beyond the surface level playground politics of it all. There's more going on than that. (Personally I would say I "disagree" with the Monroe doctrine but the sort of national/international structure I would actually want is not even remotely on the table, so... my opinion is thereby of even less import than a random other opinion drawn from "the masses" for choosing "E, none of the above" when that was not given as an option in the first place.)
  • Angostura 11d ago
    I think you've said nothing here other "Look up a good summary of the Monroe doctrine, with which I mildly disagree"
    • jerf 11d ago
      You elided if you want to understand what is going on more deeply, which is a rather important part. I say that precisely because I know that in reality most people aren't that interested. Which feel like I'm insulting people or something, but it's just the reality, we don't all have time to dig into absolutely everything all the time, and if you're not interested that's fine. But if you are, this is the best pathway to understanding this at a deeper level than the playground level.
    • tsunamifury 11d ago
      What arrogance.
  • zmgsabst 11d ago
    This is a direct stab at the US imperialist faction — not MAGA, who want the US to break up with the EU. I genuinely don’t understand this move through the lens of realpolitik: they’re mad at Trump, so they’re going to offend CFR et al who are aligned on Fortress America and neo-empire by threatening to take a critical vassal for the EU? Okay — but you just turned being mad at MAGA into the MIC deep state viewing you as an enemy and therefore further military alliance with any EU member unviable. All because the EU couldn’t stomach four years of crass taunts from a TV conman. Total MAGA victory.
• ChrisRR 11d ago
  Trump lacks the introspection to realise that he's the bully at the playground that everyone is distancing themselves from. He somehow thinks that he's going to make the US more respected by constantly jabbing at his allies
• rsynnott 11d ago
  See Putin on Ukraine. Very much the same idea; "country near us having its own foreign policy is an attack on us!!!"