[Editor: Friend and colleague Stephen Golub wrote this awhile back (7/26/25) and I missed it. I’m posting now because it’s still timely, but also becuase I have a personal connection to Canada. My big sister is a longtime Canadian citizen and resides on Prince Edward Island. Our US president’s abysmal treatment of our northern neighbor is so incredibly shameful. – R.S.]

‘Canadians are the among the nicest and most polite people on the planet. Americans are blessed to have them as neighbors.’

Strolling several years ago in Vancouver, Canada, I inadvertently crossed the street in front of a car after my light turned red but before the vehicle began moving. If you do this in San Francisco, the driver might toot and shout at you. In my native New York, you’d hear a loud honk and an even louder expletive.

The Vancouver motorist instead said, “Excuse me, did you know that you’re crossing against the light?”

Canadians are the among the nicest and most polite people on the planet. Americans are blessed to have them as neighbors.

Yet Donald Trump has been spitting in these wonderful folks’ faces, on everything from fentanyl to immigration to tariffs to statehood. His barbs portend long-term damage to what once seemed our two nations’ unbreakable goodwill. This potential funeral for a friendship says much about America’s shrinking place in the world.

The insults reach back to Trump’s first term, when he called Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “very dishonest and weak,”  as well as “two-faced.”

Who in the world says that to a steadfast friend? To a country whose long border with ours has been peaceful for well over a century? To a nation that helps protect ours through its partnership in the North American Aerospace Defense Command? To a people whose armed forces sent over 40,000 troops to fight in our Afghanistan war, with 158 dying and thousands more injured (In contrast, Trump reportedly dodged the Vietnam-era draft due to a dodgy medical deferment facilitated by a doctor who was his father’s tenant.).

Typhoon Trump has proven even more catastrophic to the Canada relationship today, in his second term. Thankfully, he and Canada recently stepped back from the trade war brink, eliminating tariffs on most products – with certain major exceptions.

Nonetheless, could you blame Canadians for still distrusting Trump, given that he justified large tariffs back in January based on (bogus) claims of allegedly huge fentanyl imports and illegal immigration from north of the border:

“They’ve [Canada and Mexico] allowed, both of them, Canada very much so, they’ve allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country that shouldn’t be here. They could’ve stopped them and they didn’t. And they’ve killed 300,000 people last year, my opinion, have been destroyed by drugs, by fentanyl. The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. The fentanyl coming through Mexico is massive.”

So how many tons of fentanyl and millions of people have actually entered America illegally from Canada?

Seizures and arrests provide some sense of scale: From October 2023 through September 2024, 43 pounds (not tons) of fentanyl were seized at the Canadian border, in contrast with over 10 tons from Mexico. During that same period, fewer than 28,000 people were apprehended entering illegally from Canada, compared with over 1.5 million down south.

Putting aside the complex calculation of America’s relationship with our neighbor and friend Mexico, those figures clearly don’t justify such Trumpian lies, hostility and trade barriers against Canada.

Adding national insult to economic injury, Trump has notoriously declared that this proud country should be our 51^st state:

“We’re taking care of their military. We’re taking care of every aspect of their lives… We don’t need anything from Canada. And I say the only way this thing really works is for Canada to become a state.”

During a visit to Canada’s Nova Scotia province this summer, I got a glimpse of the damage he’s quickly done to our two nations’ bonds. The first hint was alcoholic – by which I mean the disappearance of U.S. beer, wine and spirits from many restaurant menus and liquor stores. Another sign was the plethora of Canada’s national maple leaf flags flying everywhere – a rejection of Trump’s 51^st state slap and other insults.

As usual, Canadians were unfailingly friendly and polite during my visit, blaming neither my friends nor me for Trump’s affronts. But their perspective on our country has changed – as  have their visits to America, down by 22 to 40 percent since last year, depending on which category of travel we count.

The next president might restore some foreign faith in the United States if it we demonstrate renewed faith in friendship and alliances. But after being repeatedly burned, could we blame Canadians for remaining wary?

And it’s by no means just Canada. On a visit to Australia earlier this year, I heard rage about Trump’s tariffs; worry about American unreliability as China antagonizes our ally Down Under; and sympathy to the point that several Aussies said they feel sorry for us. Trump’s threats to take over Denmark’s territory, Greenland, is sparking similar ire by our loyal European partner (which, by the way, lost 52 soldiers fighting alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq).

With hundreds of thousands slaughtered by Russia’s invasion and bombardments, Ukraine endures Trump’s fickle promises of aid and his outrageous, dishonest Oval Office attack last February on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and other European nations wonder if they’re next in line for American abandonment and Russian aggression.

True, Trump very recently and surprisingly voiced renewed support for Ukraine. But Trump could quickly do an about-face (as in the past) if Vladimir Putin simply offers him a soothing gesture or if his advisors whisper pro-Putin advice in his ear.

Canada and other countries saw first-term Trump as maybe an anomaly, something America could rebound from. His far more adversarial second term actions suggest that our allies must plan for a future in which they can no longer count on us. All the while, he cozies up to corrupt autocrats like Russia’s Putin and Hungary’s Orban.

If I could make just one wish for Trump supporters who are friends and neighbors, as well as the many millions of other MAGA backers, it would be that they talk to Canadians about why so many are flying their maple leaf flags these days. In their polite way, our northern neighbors might help Americans grasp how Trump’s words and actions hurt both them and us.

Even examining the matter in a cold-hearted manner, the biggest winner in such a dialogue would be the United States. By alienating so many allies, we toss aside the “soft power” flowing from our influence, example and friendship. That power has protected, strengthened and enriched us for decades. We’d accordingly benefit if more Americans could see our nation through the eyes of foreigners.

Finally, just maybe, such chats might persuade some Americans of one more vital fact: What’s at stake in standing by our allies and shared values is not just friendship – it’s freedom, both here and abroad.

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Stephen Golub writes about democracy and politics, both in America and abroad, at A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country.

…and… here’s more Golub on the Benicia Independent

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