Trump plans to destabilize Canada: Intel expert

We’ve seen enough since the beginning of the year to know that the United States, under the second Donald Trump presidency, is no longer a reliable neighbour, ally or leader of the free world.

The authoritarian coup emerging in the U.S. is not only a “tariffying” challenge for Canada’s economy but also an existential threat to Canada’s sovereignty and independence. This isn’t hyperbole. 

During his last week as Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, derisively called the “governor” of the “51st state” by Trump, characterized the U.S. president’s annexation talk as a “real” issue. Let’s not forget that Trudeau had personal exchanges with Trump about the president’s expansionist rhetoric.

In one of his last speeches as PM, Trudeau said “there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada will ever be the 51st state . . . but we have to take seriously what he’s said and respond accordingly . . . Make no mistake, this is a nation-defining moment. Democracy is not a given, freedom is not a given and even Canada is not a given.”

Canadians need to take heed and remain “steadfast, defiant and united” in the face of Trump’s ambitions, he said.

Trump has said Canada is “not viable” as a country without U.S. military and economic support and has called the U.S.-Canadian border “an artificial line.”

As usual he lied to the American public, saying the United States props up Canada with billions of dollars in “subsidies” — as if Canada is somehow a U.S. welfare state.

Canada doesn’t receive U.S. subsidies, but has a $60 billion trade advantage over the U.S., due mostly to energy exports. With energy removed from the equation, the U.S. has a trade surplus with Canada, economists on both sides of the border have said.

And yet, Trump declared: “Without our subsidy, Canada doesn’t exist . . . Canada is totally reliant on us. Therefore, it should be a state . . . it’s meant to be the 51st state.”

Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire who is gutting the budgets and staff of the American government’s regulatory and administrative agencies at Trump’s behest, added fuel to the fire in late February with this post on his X social media platform: “Canada is not a real country.”

The rhetoric of Trump and Musk toward Canada sounds eerily like Russia dictator Vladimir Putin when he declared that Ukraine wasn’t a real country just before Russia invaded its neighbouring nation three years ago.

“Ukraine is not even a state, it has always been part of Russia,” said Putin, curtly dismissing the cultural, linguistic, historic and political differences between the two Slavic nations.

If these facts and similarities aren’t chilling enough for Canadians, perhaps a warning early this month from a former U.S. Navy intelligence officer can trigger a greater alert.

Malcolm Nance has been on my radar since he published a book in 2018 called The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies are Undermining America and Dismantling the West. The book detailed Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and tagged Donald Trump as a Putin puppet. Nance served in the U.S. navy for 20 years as a cryptologist and counter-terrorist and intelligence officer.  When Russia invaded Ukraine, Nance joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion and fought with it for almost three years, returning to the U.S. recently to fight for democracy in his homeland.

Nance believes a decision has already been made to invade and conquer Canada. It’s just a question of how, where and when. On March 8, he published an article online with this headline: “Urgent Warning: Trump is Planning to Invade Canada & Greenland.”

Nance’s analysis is based on recent statements by Trump and intel, including the content of telephone exchanges between Trump and Trudeau. He seems to have inside information on the calls.

“The details of Trump’s phone conversations with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have given me . . . an unambiguous intelligence indicator that the decision has been made to annex Canada,” Nance wrote in a Daily Kos substack, adding The New York Times has drawn similar conclusions about the phone calls. “The political rhetoric in the first five weeks of the Trump regime is giving clear indications that the United States fully intends to invade and seize Canada . . . at President Trump’s command.” 

“As an American married to a Canadian, my worries are not only for my in-laws but also for my Canadian and American friends who serve in the intelligence community and the armed forces on both sides of the border,” Nance said.

The Trump Administration plans to weaken the Canadian economy, destabilize the country politically and make contact with Canadians who would betray their country, he said.

If this analysis seems far-fetched, consider what’s currently happening in the United States.

Until now, who would have believed that the U.S. would make a sharp right turn away from its traditional democratic allies and toward its longtime authoritarian foe, Russia?

In 1956, Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev said: “We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the U.S. We will destroy you from within.”

At the time, Khrushchev’s threat was unimaginable. Now, it looks clairvoyant as Trump and his MAGA minions destroy American institutions and the social security, health care, labor, consumer, education, environmental, emergency and veterans protections provided by them. And as Trump serves as Russia’s pitch man.

Trump has a knack for creating hate and division in society, gaslighting anything that gets in his way and pitting people against one another. He spent years building a base, telling followers that Democrats ran a “deep state” — a “swamp” that must be drained, that American elections were rigged, that the media was “the enemy of the people” publishing “fake news”, that American courts were “weaponized” against him and the Republican Party, that immigrants were rapists, killers and drug dealers, et cetera. He repeated these lies until they were imbedded in the minds of his followers. It polarized Americans, making bipartisan cooperation and governance virtually impossible.

According to Nance, the Commander of Chaos will turn his tactics of divide and conquer on Canada within six to 18 months, perhaps starting in western Canada with fringe political groups like Wexit, which advocates that energy-rich provinces Alberta and Saskatchewan secede from Canada and join the United States.

Diehards aligned with the so-called “Freedom Convoy” which blockaded downtown Ottawa near the Canadian Parliament with trucks and tents for weeks in 2022 are among other groups that could be courted.

“Groups such as these, under the guidance of the Republican Party via clandestine pathways  . . . could receive tens of millions of dollars to fund a nation-wide information warfare campaign to give the appearance that there are a large majority of Canadians who want to leave and join the USA,” wrote Nance, adding this would give Trump the pretext to “rescue” the Canadian people from an extremist socialist government.

The annexation cause would be well covered by right-leaning Postmedia, which controls 90 per cent of the daily and weekly newspapers in Canada, including the influential National Post. Postmedia is currently 66 per cent owned by American media conglomerate Chatham Asset Management, founded by Anthony Melchiorre in 2000. Melchiorre has close ties to Trump and the Republican Party. Postmedia, in short, can’t be counted on as a staunch defender of Canadian interests versus those of Trump’s America. It’s already pounding new Liberal leader Mark Carney hard to discredit him before his upcoming first election run.

For a satirical take on what Canada is now facing, Prime Video viewers can currently see Michael Moore’s 1995 comedy Canadian Bacon, starring John Candy as a Buffalo-area sheriff and Alan Alda as an American president low in the polls who agrees to a fabricated conflict with Canada to boost his ratings.

The CIA’s Canada desk tells the president’s advisor, Stuart Smiley (Kevin Pollak), that Canada is “practically the 51st state,” but Canadians are “always dreaming up ways to ruin our lives . . . Their entire government is run by socialists . . . they’ve always had these tendencies. They’re a little strange with this socialized medicine stuff” and “the metric system.”

When another presidential advisor wonders if it’s possible to get the average American to hate and fear Canadians, Smiley says “give me one week and I’ll have Americans burning the maple leaf flag so fast they won’t have time to think about our smog-filled skies, low wages and rising interest rates on their dwindling savings.”

The president balks, saying “the American people will never buy this.” Smiley replies: “Mr. President, the American people will buy whatever we tell them. You know that.”

Following this, the United States embarks on a campaign to vilify Canada as a country infiltrating the American economy and embarking on a military build up under a socialist government.

In today’s real world, Trump has already falsely portrayed Canada as a country leeching off the United States and allowing a flood of fentanyl and other drugs to enter the United States and kill thousands of Americans.

“We don’t need anything they have,” he has said. “They have taken advantage of us . . . They have been abusive . . . They have abusive tariffs . . . They’re nasty.”

All of this is part of a narrative to turn American opinion and Americans against Canada and it’s going to get worse after Trump is finished shredding his own country and turns more attention to Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.

Francois Hollande, president of France from 2012 to 2017, believes Trump has imperial ambitions. In a recent interview with Le Monde, he said Trump wants a world order ruled by the United States, Russia and China — leaving Europe behind. Canada, too.

The United States will likely leave NATO, leaving Europe to fend for itself, said Hollande, adding France, the United Kingdom and Germany must step to the forefront of European security. With the tides shifting, Canada will have important geopolitical decisions to make.

If you look at a world map view from the North Pole, Trump’s fixation with Canada and Greenland becomes immediately apparent — they’re resource-rich obstacles located between the United States and Russia.

If folks like Nance and Hollande are right, the Trump administration will be coming for Canada, doing all it can to cause instability and division from within before making more aggressive moves.

When talking about these matters with family recently and stating that Canada is not Ukraine and couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to stand up to the superior force of an American invasion, I was taken aback when one of my sons and a nephew said they would enlist in the Canadian military and fight, if it came to that. That, I don’t ever want to see.

Occupation of Canada could lead to high intensity insurgency with thousands of deaths on both sides, said Nance, adding it would likely trigger a second American civil war and economic collapse. Who wants that?

Given these scenarios, it’s time for Canada to strengthen its military presence in the Arctic, along the U.S.-Canadian border and within NATO.

It’s also time for the majority of Canadians who love this country to stand on guard against internal and external threats. So far, we’ve demonstrated a willingness to buy Canadian goods and services, eschew things American in the face of tariffs and search for new trading relationships.

Only American citizens can stop the march toward authoritarianism sweeping across their country. And only a strong majority of Canadians can stop it from crossing the border and spilling into our country.

Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee, beginning with a free and fair federal election this spring, hopefully with a result that girds us well for the fight ahead.